Being a Better Listener

In this series we’re exploring how to transform the wellbeing and retention for newly recruited international colleagues. Within a context of many other solutions, we’re answering how creating a compassionate, inclusive culture – starting within each person – contributes to a sense of belonging, connection, being valued, and growth within healthcare teams.

This article looks at how being a better listener is integral to creating the cultures that support workforce retention, with a particular focus on supporting newly recruited international healthcare professionals.

Introduction

We each have a role to play in retention which goes beyond convincing people not to leave. Nearly 1 in 3 (29.12%) of respondents to the NHS Staff Survey (2023) said they ‘often think about leaving this organisation’. Furthermore, with almost half of newly joined nurses and midwives being trained outside the UK a focus on sustainable retention strategies to internationally recruited colleagues is essential to maintaining the growth of the workforce (NMC data report, September 2023). At its core, retaining staff is about enabling people to feel valued, a sense of belonging, safe, supported, fulfilled, and have opportunity to grow and contribute within their place of work. 

There are many different areas of action to take to support retention within care, namely: compassionate leadership, pay, development opportunities, schemes, programmes, engagement opportunities, and culture. We believe that culture change goes beyond the idea of retention as a statistic and considers the quality of experience, starting within each person’s contribution. In this article, we’re focusing on how being a better listener – no matter your role – contributes to people feeling valued and supported. These are integral experiences to a compassionate and inclusive culture and to the wellbeing and retention of international colleagues. 

Aligned with their “People Promise”, the NHS agree that one of their key ambitions is to ‘have more people, working differently in a compassionate and inclusive culture’. As well as to ‘improve staff experience’, help them feel ‘valued’, ‘happy at work’, and be ‘supported to achieve their individual ambitions in the workplace’. To affect sustainable culture change and to consistently enable these experiences (from the recruitment process all the way to leadership level); person by person; action by action; we have opportunities to create this compassionate and inclusive culture which contributes to ours and our colleagues’ retention. Starting small, let’s look at how we best listen to each other, the core valued and practiced beliefs of better listeners, and take on some best listening practices, understanding the impact this has on the workplace beyond retention.

Developing the skill

Being a better listener enables those sharing to be heard and acknowledged, feel valued, and for their needs to be met with appropriate actions. When organisations invest in development opportunities for their staff to improve their listening and communication skills it enables staff and patients to be better heard and supported which is an integral puzzle-piece to their sense of belonging and their long-term retention. 

Role of Self-Awareness

Listening is not as simple as being silent while someone speaks or being able to relate to what someone is saying. Really listening requires an active practice of settling our own arising thoughts, narratives, and judgements whilst someone is sharing.  It’s understanding that our experience is only partial truth and that everyone’s experience is unique and valid.  It requires letting go of the need to be right; it might entail asking open-ended, expansive questions which lead the sharer where they need to go, not to hear whatever confirms your own thinking. 

Being a better listener within a leadership role means we can take effective actions that are aligned with the needs of the team, enabling them to feel supported and empowered by having the opportunity to share. To be able to show up as a better listener (for our colleagues, teams, and patients) we must also develop our self-awareness and to be able to recognise when we do or don’t have the energy to really listen to someone. It's okay to take time to re-charge so you have the capacity to show up and value everything someone else is bringing. A little self-compassion here would help. 

The power of listening

It is not often that listening should lead to giving advice. Most of the time, simply being listened to, being believed, being given the space to pause, reflect, breathe, be, is enough for a person to move forward with a lighter load. Try the following question with your colleagues, 

Would you just like to be heard or would you like to be helped?

You might find that that is enough.

Fundamental beliefs

On Talent for Care programs, participants explore the role that mindset plays in listening, bringing awareness to the filters of our listening so we can listen more openly. We explore how mindset is formed through events and the meaning given to events; we explore open questions for enquiry, fundamental values of a listener, and coaching style conversations for growth. Listening is a fundamental thread of all our learning and development programmes, as well as being at the forefront of the New Horizons program. 

Leading by example, our expertly facilitated by a team of coaches model the following values which underpin listening as a practice:

• Everyone’s voice matters 

• Everyone has a unique experience

• Nothing you bring is wrong

• Everything you bring is a contribution

Inviting curiosity into the listening practice alongside these fundamental beliefs, the open questions we ask can lead us to more insights into a person’s situation. Though we may never fully grasp another person’s unique experience, we can be listening to understand rather than listening to react. From this place of understanding comes empathy (the ability to comprehend another person’s experience and feelings). From empathy can arise compassion and, from here, one can take compassionate action which supports the team or individual in the specific way they need.

Listening to international colleagues

Experiencing a sense of isolation, alienation, or feeling left out is not uncommon in the first few months upon arrival in the UK for healthcare colleagues from overseas. In addition to possible language barriers, the cultural differences between colleagues, and added challenge of settling into a new working environment, can impact a person’s sense of belonging and wellbeing. It is vital to offer international colleagues a supportive space to be heard and connect with others in a similar position. Social groups, or support groups, for international colleagues, where they have the opportunity to share their experiences, be heard and hear others will make a positive difference to their long-term retention within an organisation.

Listening to data

Another element of listening is collecting and understanding qualitative and quantitative data about your team’s experiences and needs. Really being present with whatever shows up – subsiding reactive judgements and defences that arise – can allow us to take appropriate action to support the wider team and organisation. In particular, listen to the experiences of marginalised social groups so that compassionate actions can be taken to value and uplift those groups and individuals. This bigger picture thinking contributes in a wider sense to the retention of staff, ensuring they are consistently being heard and valued, and enabling them to feel a sense of belonging within a diverse team where everyone’s uniqueness is celebrated.

By investing in the development of listening skills for their workforce, an organisation is investing in the quality of experience of their staff. With the instantaneous effect of listening to each other within each conversation, plus the larger efforts to listen to data; and by valuing the voice of every person; an organisation can actively contribute to a compassionate and inclusive culture. A culture in which everyone understands the positive impact of sharing and listening, and personally contributes to maintaining this.

Our programs

Talent for Care provides support, learning, and development programs to transform the wellbeing, engagement, and retention of the health and social care workforce in the UK.

Participants are introduced to new ways of thinking about relationships and communication, as well as ongoing, supportive practices in listening, processing, and relating to themselves, the world, and those around us. The learning is experiential where the conversations themselves are generative and success is measured by the transformational impact upon the participant’s life. In our experience, the most reliable outcome measures come from participant feedback and self-assessment, which we capture through a simple, robust and anonymous framework, via an end of program questionnaire on MS Teams. We ask all participants for their consent to share their anonymised feedback.

New Horizons is a new, innovative support and development program for international healthcare professionals as part of their recruitment onboarding process. The program is an opportunity for participants to share experiences and new thinking, be heard and supported, and strengthen their sense of belonging within a peer network and with involvement from line managers, led by an experienced facilitation team.

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