CNWL + QUALTRICS

Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust (CNWL) faced a significant challenge with staff attrition and burnout, which directly impacted patient care. Their existing approach relied on a static annual NHS Staff Survey, which provided lagging and limited insights that were only available to senior leaders. This delayed process hindered effective action and left smaller teams feeling unheard, creating a "file and forget" mentality. CNWL needed to move beyond this traditional model to a proactive, real-time system that could serve as an early warning system for staff issues and drive tangible improvements at every level of the organization.

CNWL launched the "Our Voice" initiative, a dynamic, real-time Employee Experience program, powered by Qualtrics. This innovative approach transformed the annual survey into a continuous improvement program. The solution democratized insights, providing over 300 team managers with interactive dashboards, personalized data, and specific action guidance. Qualtrics' technology enabled the analysis of vast amounts of employee feedback to identify key drivers of engagement, morale and intention to stay. Recognition was identified as a key lever for retention, directly influencing CNWL’s Recognition Strategy with the launch of Long Service Awards, Annual Staff Ceremony Awards and a Trust-Wide Recognition Space.

Team managers created 400 topic-level action plans to target key areas of improvement at the local level, including Wellbeing, Psychological Safety and Mentoring.

All of these actions have seen CNWL reduce their employee attrition rate below their target for the first time.

The level of ongoing action and engagement with the Staff survey results, has also resulted in CNWL achieving their highest ever response rate for the 2025 survey, demonstrating the culture of listening, trust and improvement Our Voice is embedding.

The Our Voice system also integrates other staff touchpoints, like exit interviews, a culture diagnostic, and a diversity & inclusion dashboard, with plans to integrate patient feedback to connect staff and patient insights.