Hospital case.

Open and innovative working culture

A healthcare facility partnered with me to enhance staff engagement in improving their working culture. We decided to conduct a series of interviews and design workshops to address a significant issue: increasing occupational violence. Participation was open to all employees, attracting 30 attendees from various roles within the healthcare facility, such as HR, nursing, catering, maintenance, and management.

Programme Design

30 one-on-one reflective interviews

The project started with a one-on-one reflective interview with each participant about their perception of the healthcare facility's culture and their experiences with occupational violence. From these confidential interviews I produced an anonymised report for the healthcare facility.

4 full-day design workshops

Four full-day design workshops, scheduled one month apart, enhanced participants' design skills while guiding them through developing solutions to reduce occupational violence and to improve the working culture. The first and final workshops leveraged futures thinking tools to envision a more open and innovative workplace culture, whereas the second and third workshops focused on applying design tools to tackle occupational violence. This strategy enabled participants to collaborate on a crucial issue while developing design skills for sustainable change in the long term.

60 one-on-one debriefs

After the second and third workshop, I conducted individual debriefs with participants to reflect on their workshops. Insights from these debriefs revealed what is necessary for creating an equitable and innovative environment for staff collaboration and served as input for the fourth workshop.

Deliverables

1

status quo report describing perceptions of the working culture and the ongoing organisational transformation, experiences with safety or lack thereof, and change tactics and barriers.

5

solution directions to reduce patient frustration and confusion captured in storyboards and development plans based on personal know-how and engaging with stakeholders.

22

action plans of individual participants to make the work environment more open and innovative all demonstrated an increased capability to initiate changes themselves.

all

program materials (slides, templates, etc.) free to use

More outcomes

Gaps bridged

Rotating teams in each workshop ensured everyone collaborated with one another. Frontline participants found management more approachable, while those closer to leadership gained a deeper understanding of frontline challenges.

Design unlocked

Initially met with resistance and confusion, participants were surprised by how the process sparked constructive interactions and actionable outcomes. They felt ownership and excitement to explore solutions further.

Perspectives shifted

At the program's start, participants shared ideas reflecting a sense of powerlessness, like needing more resources or external help. By the end, their ideas showed newfound confidence to drive change, focusing on improving experiences for everyone.

Testimonials

“Almost every time now that I hear about an issue, I think, ‘Is that really the issue we should be solving?’.”

“I took my team aside in our work environment to view it from an outside perspective so we could discuss, ‘What works here? What doesn’t?’ just like we did in the workshop and we immediately realised some major issues.”

“I more often leave the management building and walk around, and I always meet people from the workshop, and we chat and talk about what’s bothering them openly.”

Paraphrased to preserve anonymity and increase legiblity