Soft Systems
Client
NHS Blood and Transplant
Year
2022
Location
Cambridge, UK
Topics
Service Design
Behaviour Change
Organisational Change
We partnered with NHS Blood and Transplant and explored ways in which we could embed sustainability into the organisational culture.
The UK government has set a target to reach net-zero by 2050, which will require large-scale transitions by companies and businesses in the UK and Major infrastructure decisions to implement these changes.
My role in the project was the set direction of focus and get buy-in and access from NHSBT environmental team. I ensured alignment with business strategy and goals. I was key to bringing in my experience and interest in the build world(estates) enabling the introduction of behaviour change in respect to occupiers relationship with space.I also enabled bringing in the tested organisational change framework or embedding sustainability culture in organisations.
Discovery
National Health Service Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) aims to reach Net-zero by 2040. Responsible for inciting these changes are NHSBT's Environmental team, who want to transform how their estates and operations are run. In 2021, NHSBT achieved a 50% carbon reduction and zero waste / landfills and is working on building a sustainable supply chain, and resilient business model to reach net-zero by 2040.
A significant amount of responsibility falls on NHSBT estate teams, who work on supporting the transition of their estates to 'net-zero' through energy reduction. Sustaining their net-zero efforts will require occupier behaviour and culture change. Embedding a culture of Sustainability within the organisation is a pending challenge. This is where our research and involvement with NHSBT began.
Our research began with understanding the work dynamics and operations of NHSBT. We explored the roles and relationships between the estates and the environmental team. We found that Sustainability within the NHSBT was defined as living within the natural limits of the planet. While we understood it to be broader, involving socio-economic and ecological factors.
Our ethnography process in NHSBT London and the broader South East England centres, helped us learn how the environmental, estate team, and occupiers engaged and interacted with the space, communicated and engaged with each other. Further Workshops and interviews helped us test our hypothesis, identify key insights and uncover critical issues that limit the success of sustainability incentives.
Define
We uncovered three key insights that lead to organisational challenges and underlining issues, which limited engagement with Sustainability. Based on our insights, we created personas that reflected the different working styles of NHSBT staff. We mapped our personas based on whether they were process-driven, creative, proactive, or reactive. Doing this helped us to learn adaption and engagement needs of different personas. It helped us formulate our problem statement and How Might We….
How might we create a service proposition that empowers NHSBT estates to learn, co-create and implement a sustainable culture within their estates so that Sustainability is relatable and relevant for employees?
Develop
Strategy Plan
Implementing Sustainability requires making it tangible and relatable for the people in the organisation. Therefore our strategic approach to the problem was to explore behavioural and cultural elements of the organisation and engage with the people. This helped us identify key touch-points that could help change behaviours, and, therefore, the culture toward Sustainability.
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We picked behaviour science concepts of nudging and priming which can help steer positive behaviours in a passive way.
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We identified estates teams as our entry point, given their drive to improve the workplace culture.
We choose signage as a way to nudge behaviours and make Sustainability tangible. We realised that NHSBT estates function with signs since they help occupiers navigate the space, by providing rules of how to behave, to perform a particular action, and for safety.
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We used the EAST framework to make our prototypes easy, attractive, social and timely.
Prototype Findings
Due to the red tape and highly sensitive working environment of NHSBT. We conducted initial tests in the Royal College of Art Campuses, which faced similar barriers with occupier behaviour and engagement. We prototyped different signages, and our key findings were for signage to be useful, it needed to be created by its occupiers and given meaning by them so that it could be adapted and nurture a sustainable behaviour culture over time.
These experiments provided key insights on how occupiers respond and react to different shapes, colours and signs. After testing a collaborative process in the RCA, the estate reported that the signs had improved occupier behaviour.
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Communication and engagement was an issue we had found; we tested a variety of touch-points but found a low response rate. We then revisited our insights and observations and realised that continuous face-to-face interactions had been the key engagement method- that helped build trust and relationships and was fundamental to collaboration which is necessary for Sustainability to be tangible and accessible; we also found this to be true in the RCA.
We used the NBS framework(foster commitment, clarity of expectations, build momentum and instil capacity for change) to explore communications and recognition for sustainability initiatives based on our persona's intrinsic and extrinsic work motivations. This made us realise that this activity needed to be defined through co-creation by NHSBT occupiers.
Deliver
Soft systems is a 6-12 months pilot that helps estate teams embed a culture of Sustainability in their organisation. Our unique entry point is to understand occupier behaviour and help change it towards sustainable behaviours.
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Estate teams and occupiers are taken on a process of co-creation that makes Sustainability relevant and relatable to occupiers and empowers estates to take ownership of the pilot.Occupiers design signage based on pain points identified by estate teams to nudge sustainable behaviours. These are co-created and placed according to how occupiers use and navigate their space.
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We help estate teams tailor their communications and recognition efforts based on sustainability-focused personas to support engagement with the initiative. We deliver additional tangible or digital assets to help them reflect, support and monitor progress. The service ends with supporting estates in formalising procedures so sustainability efforts can continue to grow.
We are currently addressing and testing in NHSBT Cambridge. One objectives as shown above are setting realistic metrics.
Feedback from Pilot
In Collaboration with:
Linda Mutunga