Participating in iMatter

You will be asked to complete a short online (or paper if more convenient) questionnaire about your experience of working for NHS Scotland, in your team and in your Health Board. This should take you no more than 10 minutes to complete. If you complete a paper copy, you will need to return this to Webropol, the IT provider, in the pre-paid envelope provided.

In addition to the awareness raising session, please attend a manager’s development workshop as advertised by your Health Board’s iMatter Lead. You will also need to verify your team’s data as accurate on the iMatter system, encourage your team to complete the questionnaire when it is made available, and when you receive the report generated from iMatter, share this with them. If improvement actions are identified with the staff you manage, you will need to work with them to develop relevant implementation plans.

iMatter is more than just a 10 minute questionnaire. It is a model for supporting continuous improvement based around data that relates directly to your team. It is beneficial for you and your team to participate as this can enable change at a local and therefore a more personal level than the national Staff Survey can support.

No, but the Employee Engagement Index Score for a team will only be generated if at least 60% of team members participate by completing the survey on time. This is to help protect the anonymity of respondents and ensure that the Team Manager has a report that is an accurate reflection of the team's views. If a team does not achieve a 60% response rate this will be drawn to the attention of the relevant Director and Board iMattter Lead or their nominated Directorate representative who will agree with the Team Manager the support required to secure a minimum 60% response.

Teams have a standard 3 week window in which to complete the questionnaire, whether doing so online or on paper. The Team Manager will be able to see response rates on a daily basis and the final response rate will be recorded in a report. For paper responses, Webropol have built in 3 working days for returns to be received after the online questionnaire closes. Any completed questionnaires not received by this point will not be included in the final response rate for the team.

There are a number of good reasons to participate in iMatter, but ultimately a team will only get a report if at least 60% of members participate. Importantly, the better the response rate, the more accurate the data will be as a reflection of your team's experience at work. This will better inform a discussion around what is good and what could be improved than a low response rate.

The roll out of iMatter is following a tailored approach agreed individually with each Health Board. This is typically a phased approach throughout the year which means that only a very small number of staff will be affected by the need to complete iMatter and the national Staff Survey at the same time.

If issues identified through iMatter reports are not addressed, then over time the iMatter Employee Engagement Index score for the team and line manager concerned will reflect this. The EEI score will be visible to Directors, who in turn will have an EEI score for their Directorate that is visible to the Chief Executive and Staff Governance Committee. It is expected that this will promote action where it is still required to address issues.

The Line Manager referred to in the iMatter questionnaire is the person who is responsible for you in your department's structure. This may be different from the Team Manager for iMatter, for the reasons explained above.

In some cases, teams for the purposes of iMatter are made up of more than one team from a department's structure. This is to ensure anonymity and the provision of reliable data. If this is the case, it may mean that the person named as the Team Manager is not your direct line manager. However with the questionnaire, only 3 of the 29 questions relate to your direct line manager, and you should answer these based on your experience of them. When the report is produced, it will be for the named Team Manager receiving the Team Report to review the data in relation to these questions and discuss anything that is unclear with those participating in the team feedback session.

Participation in iMatter at this time is only for directly employed NHS staff which may in some circumstances also include some social care staff. It is based on the 5 strands of the NHSScotland Staff Governance Standard, which currently is not applicable to social care staff employed in Local Authorities. Discussions are currently taking place about the possible applicability of Staff Governance, and hence iMatter to social care staff going forward. Updates on this issue will be provided when available.

Bank and agency staff will not be included at this time. Discussions will take place in 2015 around the possible inclusion of these groups in future.