Monday
Day one of our new starter onboard programme. It's a real pleasure hosting these two days. My role is to facilitate the two days, run a couple of sessions, introduce our guests and ensure our new starters leave feeling proud to work for the RCN. I also focus the two days on connecting values, mission and purpose to our heritage and business priorities… As a trade union and professional body, what we do on behalf our members and the nursing community is hugely important. Our message to new starters is simply this: "Whatever your role and the hours you work, you contribute to patient care through supporting and enabling our members."
Tuesday
Day two of the onboard programme is possibly my favourite. We start with a selfie challenge… new starters are put into groups and assigned one of our core competencies. They then have to take a group selfie - somewhere in our historic head office at 20 Cavendish Square - which represents that value. A fun way of bringing our values alive. We finish with The Krypton Factor History of Nursing quiz - a wonderful end to the two days together. The round where we ask our new starters to make a traditional nurse hat is hilarious… It's not as easy as you think! Another way of connecting our new starters to our heritage.
Wednesday
Back at my desk and time to focus on our Best Companies results. I lead on our annual employee survey, and the feedback from our people is invaluable. Our Executive Team have agreed our priorities and now it's time to communicate these to our people and get them involved in shaping the action plan. My role is to work with the employee engagement team and my HR colleagues to agree key messages, decide on our engagement tactics and ensure all heads of department are committed to making the RCN an outstanding place to work. After four years of leading our employee engagement survey, this is still my favourite piece of work.
Thursday
Meeting with my line manager. "Matt, can you support our Health & Wellbeing Manager with our Mental Health & Wellbeing programme, please?" That'll be a big ol' yes! Mental health is close to my heart… I immediately took to Twitter and asked if anyone could recommend organisations who run exceptional mental wellbeing programmes in the workplace. I was overwhelmed with people willing to speak to me! I'm currently drafting our strategy. What a privilege to be involved in such an important piece of work. That's what I love about my job - making a difference to our fantastic workforce.
Friday
Praise be for flexible working! I work a nine day fortnight and today is my non-working day. People ask me what I do on my day off and my answer is always the same. Nothing. I spend the day focusing on myself. I go the gym, I read and I catch up on my Welsh language homework. In order to deliver my best work, it's important for me to slow down and practice self-care. That way, come Sunday evening, I'm ready and raring for the week ahead!
