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How to successfully present your case for a promotion.

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Day 12: Present your case. This post is part of Forbes’ Career Challenge: Position Yourself For A Promotion In 15 Days .

Never go into a meeting to ask for a promotion if you're unprepared—doing so can be a recipe for disaster. The last thing you want to do is just show up and demand a promotion without anything of substance to back it up. If you have any hope of landing a promotion, it is imperative that you take the time and energy to lay the groundwork for this important conversation.

Let's begin with setting the stage. The goal is for your boss, senior executives and others within the company to see you as a smart, ambitious worker who deserves a promotion and whose fast-tracking will help the organization. The key is to think long-term about asking for a promotion. Start preparing far in advance, and make sure all of your actions are focused on building a strong, indisputable case as to why you deserve the promotion. The actual meeting will be less stressful and more productive if you are prepared with all of the evidence you need to back your request.

What You Need To Do

How can you expect your supervisor, especially if she manages a large number of people, to recall everything you’ve done over the last year? It's too easy for both you and your manager to forget all of your great accomplishments. Don't depend on your memory; write down all of the awards, accolades, achievements and victories you’ve achieved. Meticulously keep track and put them into a memo, file, PowerPoint or other document that you can show your boss, and leave it with her to review in detail.

Ensure that your boss and other important people notice your hard work. Be subtle about it and not too obvious—otherwise, everyone will be hip to your game. You need to ensure that your boss is cognizant and regularly reminded of the great job that you are doing. Avoid waiting until the end of the year to cram this all in. Keep her posted with your progress via memos, emails and voicemails. To give them an extra nice touch, leave these messages either super early in the morning, late at night or on the weekends, as doing so will demonstrate your strong work ethic.

If you were given certain benchmarks to hit, let her know that you have exceeded them—and ahead of schedule. If you have questions, ask her for guidance or suggestions. Everyone likes to feel valued and she’ll know that you are serious about doing a good job. From time to time, inquire if there is anything else you could help her with. Even if there isn't, she’ll appreciate that you’ve asked. Inquire if you are on the right track, and if not, how you can correct yourself to move forward.

Stay away from co-workers more involved with drama, gossiping and negativity than productive behaviors. Avoid anyone that will drag you down, as miserable people love to ensnare others into their pit of despair. If you allow yourself to be caught up in this drama, your reputation will be diminished just by association.

Since you are remaining positive and motivated, seek out like-minded, motivated employees. Smile and show everyone that you are enjoying yourself and are happy to be at work. Don't complain or talk poorly about anyone else. If or when your boss reaches out to others to obtain their opinions of you, you want to make sure that you’ve minimized any negative talk and maximized your supporters.

Seek out mentors that can teach you inside tricks to get ahead. Hopefully, they are tight with management and can put in a good word with your boss—or her boss—to help you get the promotion and raise.

Try to be the first one in the door in the morning and the last person to leave. Instead of an hour lunch break, eat at your desk. Make sure that people notice this; otherwise, you have wasted a lot of precious time.

Update your wardrobe to dress as if you are at a more senior level than you are now. Don’t overdo it, so it won’t look too forced. Dress up enough so that other employees take notice. They will assume you have received a promotion or given some high-level assignments. As you look more mature, sophisticated and polished, you will begin to be viewed in a different light. While you are at it, you might as well hit the gym to get into better shape, get a good haircut and improve your diction. Once you are on this self-improvement kick, you might as well go all in.

Find out ways to help your boss look good to her bosses. One of the best ways to gain your manager’s affection and gratitude is to help her shine in front of her bosses. Just like you, your manager desires to advance in her career. If you could help her with this endeavor, she should be very grateful when it comes time for the promotion talk.

The Promotion Conversation

Now that the heavy lifting has been done, politely request a meeting with your boss.

Prepare a quick pitch that outlines your achievements over the last year and all of the reasons why you deserve a promotion. Clearly, confidently and succinctly tell her about all of your contributions and how you can further add value by being promoted to a higher level. You need to ask for the promotion directly. Politely—yet firmly—ask for the promotion and raise. Since you have been actively working toward this goal all year, you should be prepared with detailed, in-depth examples of all the projects, assignments and tasks that you have successfully accomplished.

A significant part of the conversation will entail selling yourself. The challenge is that while you did a great job and have the data to prove it, you could be uncomfortable with this aspect of the process. No matter how good you are, the facts will only go so far. After citing statistics and analytics, people tend to glaze over. You'll need to be excited, upbeat and positive, and actively sell your boss on why you deserve the promotion. Your passion will become contagious and your manager will pick up on it and be inspired. She will also like the fact that you come across motivated, energetic and feel that you will work harder than the other potential candidates in line for a promotion.

Ready for the next challenge? Click here for Day 13: Keep the conversation going.

Miss a challenge? Click here for Day 11: Learn how to say what you want.

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8 Ways to Have a Fair Process for Promotions

Developing Leaders ,  Employee Experience ,  Leadership & Management ,  Sharing ,  Talent Management

Seven out of ten people in the US workforce believe that managers play favorites at work. This is what we found in our 2018 study of the U.S. workforce. We also found that just 47% of Americans think that promotions are fairly awarded at their workplaces. 

Over my 10 years of consulting, I have spoken with hundreds of employees from different countries and industries. I know that for the vast majority of them, the criteria for promotions is a mystery. Our research also indicates that fairness in promotions is most questioned when people do not have a chance to appeal the decision.

Where employers go wrong

In almost every single client engagement I have with C-suite members, when we discuss promotions, they truly believe that the recipients deserve them. But leaders often make decisions about the professional future of an employee based on what they hear from others and not through their direct experiences.

Traditional hierarchies limit who employees can show their potential and talents to. As a result, employees commonly believe that their bosses don’t allow them to maximize their potential.

We should acknowledge that there’s some confidentiality which prevents leaders from disclosing all information about their decision-making process. However, leaders can definitely do a better job expressing their intuition around people’s ability to succeed in leadership roles.

The good news is that the picture is significantly better at the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For®, where, on average, seven out of ten employees have positive perceptions of promotions and fairness. And when employees have a For All™ leader, nine out of ten employees have positive perceptions of promotions.

For All leaders are those who give their companies the agility and resiliency to thrive in today’s complex times by fostering genuine human connections within and across diverse teams. They enable every employee to bring their unique selves to work, no matter who they are or what they do.

How do the best leaders drive perceptions of fairness in performance appraisals and promotions?

I conducted a deeper dive into leaders at top-scoring companies on the topic. At fair workplaces, For All leaders consistently:

1. Care not only about employees’ professional growth but also about their personal growth

This feeling is beautifully described by an employee of construction company Power Home Remodeling :

“Power gives the tools to be a better you, not only in your career but in your personal life as well. You are encouraged and challenged constantly, which promotes overall growth.”

2. Give people the tools and opportunities to own and define their professional future, rather than deciding it for them

At software company Red Hat , this is how people live it:

“I strongly believe that this is the place where people own their own destiny and can do great things if they want to.”

3. Don’t limit the growth of people by matching their background with the organizational chart

Instead, promote and train for career changes based on contributions and potential, regardless of educational credentials, tenure or experience. As an example, this is how employees at Hilton describe it:

“Whenever I’m visiting a hotel or corporate office, I hear amazing stories from fellow team members, from a housekeeper who worked her way up to be a GM, to someone who has worked in nine different properties on five different continents.

“These stories inspire me and prove that working at Hilton is more than just a job, it’s a career.”

4. Actively mentor people

Employees at Best Companies have a mentor or sponsor in a senior leadership role to turn to for career advice and honest feedback. Here is an example of the support people feel at professional services firm Plante Moran :

“Each employee, from interns through senior managers, are provided a team partner who is their personal coach and mentor throughout their career. As other public accounting firms have moved mentorship responsibilities to lower managers, our firm is deeply committed to mentorship at the earliest levels.”

5. Create opportunities for exposure to senior leadership for everyone

From recurring formal 1:1 skip-level meetings to breakfasts with the CEO, these companies offer several opportunities for employees to build a relationship with senior leadership of all departments.

Professional services firm Kimley-Horn takes it to the next level, making it even easier for people to engage with executives through the program, “Lunch on Kimley-Horn”:

“One of our most popular integration tools is our self-directed career development lunch coupons, which give all new hires a chance to choose from 30 or more senior coworkers and take them to lunch on the company for mentoring and career guidance.

“Our goal is to allow each staff member to discover the role in which he or she will thrive, and these lunches often serve as the catalyst.”

6. Encourage cross-department shadowing for people to develop new skills, and consider a career change in a new department

An employee at Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants explains:

“Kimpton gives all its employees equal opportunities to enhance their education and cross-train to make progress towards their career goals. As vacancies occur, internal applicants are always given the first chance and every internal applicant is interviewed before an external candidate is considered.”

7. Let people show their true selves

At Power Home Remodeling , this is what is possible for their people when they are their true selves:

“No matter your race, gender, or any [other factors], you’re hired based on you as a human. By being yourself you make a fit no matter where you’re placed.”

8. Maximize human potential

Hilton is an exceptional example of a deeply engrained mindset of maximizing human potential, from organizational programs to leadership behaviors. Hilton shared with us this statement to show what’s possible around employee development, which is one of the main reasons people love working there:

“All Team Members deserve a great career, a great leader, and a development path that enables them to thrive personally and professionally ... Our focus on developing great careers For All recognizes that each of our team members has unique goals.

“It isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach, but rather a custom-curated experience that ensures every team member can Learn@Hilton, Lead@Hilton, and Thrive@Hilton!”

Looking at how the 100 Best Companies create a fair workplace and how others try to solve the mystery of promotions, the limitations of traditional hierarchies and career ladders become obvious. Traditional performance management is not maximizing people’s potential at work and certainly not contributing to business performance.

In a world where 53% of employees believe promotions are unfair, it is time to start giving people more opportunities to make their potential visible. It’s time to let employees be seen by someone other than their boss. It’s time to let them own their career decisions rather than having an organization deciding their future for them.

To learn more about how to maximize the human potential of everyone in your organization, get our monthly newsletter.

Lorena Martinez

Lorena Martinez is a former employee survey implementation consultant at Great Place to Work®. With a background in change management consulting and culture transformation, Lorena helped drive global growth within Great Place to Work by building strategic business transformation capabilities in international key markets.

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Employee promotions: How talent assessments help strengthen the promotion process

Employee promotions are an effective way to retain top talent and send a motivating signal to employees that strong performance is recognized and rewarded.

But that’s if promotions are done fairly, transparently, and objectively.

A McKinsey report showed that 35% of employees voluntarily leave their jobs due to a lack of development and promotion opportunities.[1]

At a time when many industries face skills gaps , it’s more important than ever to recognize and retain your top team members, and avoid the consequences of a biased and unstructured promotion process.

This is where using talent assessments can have a transformational impact, bringing objectivity and data-driven decision-making into your promotion strategy.

In this article, we discuss the challenges of employee promotions and several ways you can use talent assessments to identify and retain your best employees while providing your teams with the fair and objective development pathway they deserve.

Table of contents

What are employee promotions, the difficulties with the employee promotion process, how talent assessments help with promoting employees, 7 ways to use talent assessments to improve your employee promotions process, beyond talent assessments: 4 best practices to remember for employee promotions, make your employee promotion process more consistent and objective using talent assessments.

Employee promotions take place when employers officially elevate an employee’s position, often with increased responsibilities, authority, and compensation to reflect their proven capabilities. 

Employee promotions are a strategic tool to recognize and advance the careers of top-performing team members.

There are four main types of employee promotions, and we’ve categorized them based on the level of benefits and career advancement each type offers. 

1. Vertical promotion

This moves the employee up the organizational hierarchy, so they’re elevated to a position with more authority, increased responsibilities, a more senior manager to report to, and usually a higher salary. 

For example, a developer is promoted to a “Team Lead” where they manage a team of developers and report to the head of department.

2. Horizontal promotion

An employee who excels in their current role stays in the same department but receives additional responsibilities and compensation to reflect their advanced skill set.

For instance, a senior developer is promoted to “Senior Java Developer.” This new role involves working on more complex Java-related assignments, training new developers, and being responsible for project outcomes.

3. Dry promotion

These reflect a new job title and/or responsibilities without a pay increase. 

Employers see them as a way to recognize employees' commitment and effort, especially if they’re motivated by a title change. These types of promotions tend to be less favored by employees.

4. Open and closed promotion

As the name suggests, open promotion allows all qualified employees within an organization to apply for the position, so it becomes an internal hiring process. 

On the other hand, closed promotion only considers a specific, informed group of employees within the company to apply.

The benefits of employee promotions

There are many far-reaching and interconnected benefits of employee promotions, but let’s take a look at the six most important ones for HR professionals and employers to consider.

Every human resources team wants to take advantage of these benefits – but what if your approach to employee promotion isn’t working

Let’s take a look at some common challenges associated with promotion processes and why that might be.

Unfortunately, traditional promotion processes and pathways come with major problems that impact employee morale, hiring efficiency , and productivity. 

These problems can often be traced back to a fundamental lack of structure, objectivity, and transparency between leaders and employees across the organization.

Lack of consistency and objectivity

Much like with hiring, traditional promotion processes are often driven by the subjective and qualitative judgments of managers rather than measurable performance criteria.

This reliance on subjectivity can lead to promotion decisions that are driven by unconscious bias and favoritism in the workplace rather than merit. 

Without objective promotion criteria based on performance, even well-intentioned managers struggle to identify and promote the best individual for the promotion. 

This is especially true for large teams where it’s impossible for decision-makers to work closely with all promotion candidates.

Talented employees may be overlooked in favor of people who’ve developed personal relationships with managers or simply spent more time working directly with the decision-making process. 

No transparency in decision-making

When employees are left in the dark about promotion opportunities and how promotion decisions are made, it’s a recipe for resentment and demotivation.

A survey into promotion criteria transparency showed that almost all candidates want employers to be upfront about promotion criteria, but only 39% had access to information about promotions.

Employees need to trust that there’s equal access to information and evaluation for promotion opportunities. 

Providing professional development opportunities

For employee promotions to be successful, you must invest in training to help employees prepare for future roles. 

Even if employers do provide training to support promotions, this training must be hyper-relevant to the competencies and scenarios an employee would face in a more senior position. 

Otherwise, you risk promoting unprepared people who then feel overwhelmed when they’re thrown into the deep end without adequate training.

This problem is exacerbated in industries experiencing skills gaps or going through rapid transformation, where the expected responsibilities for roles are constantly changing.

eLearning Industry’s State of Employee Experience 2023 report found that there’s a major disconnect between employees’ desire for continued training and the training they receive from employers, which is often outdated and not relevant to their desired roles.

Managing employee expectations

Promotions are highly sought-after and represent major milestones in your employees’ career development. 

These are delicate processes where any miscommunications around promotion criteria, responsibilities, eligibility, and remuneration can cause major problems, which, in turn, affect workplace morale and employee retention. 

Without clear documentation that’s accessible by everyone, promotion processes can become a point of contention rather than motivation.

These challenges emphasize the importance of a more objective and fair approach to promotions. 

This is where talent assessments can make your promotion practices more fair and meaningful for everyone involved.

Research from Deloitte shows how organizations are becoming increasingly aware of the pitfalls of traditional hiring and promotion practices that rely on subjective factors and leave room for bias and favoritism:

80% of executives want hiring and promotion decisions to be grounded in skills rather than job history, tenure, and relationships

75% agree that skills-based approaches help to democratize opportunity and access to promotions

Skills-based hiring is the theoretical foundation, and talent assessments are the practical and scalable tool for implementing this framework in employee promotion processes. 

Here’s how:

Data-driven decision-making: Talent assessments replace subjective judgments with measurable performance data, providing decision-makers with objective metrics to identify the best candidate for promotion.

Fairness and bias reduction: Talent assessments enforce standardized criteria, reducing room for personal preferences in promotion decisions. This ensures promotions are based on merit rather than personal connections.

Emotional intelligence and cultural alignment evaluation: Talent assessments effectively identify and evaluate future leaders based on soft factors like emotional intelligence and cultural alignment.

Facilitating talent sharing: By evaluating measurable skills relevant to the role, talent assessments enable HR teams to broaden the pool of promotion candidates beyond departmental constraints. This fosters the development of versatile teams and addresses skills gaps.

Let’s dive deeper into how talent assessments can be implemented throughout the promotion process.

Talent assessments give you much more insight than simply a test score. 

You can use these assessments to evaluate a multitude of competencies, from hard skills to soft skills, helping you build a 360-degree evaluation of your employees to identify the best fit for the promotion:

Here’s how to use these metrics to optimize the promotion process:

1. Use talent assessments to gauge if employees are ready for growth

The first step in a successful promotion process is to establish a method of determining whether a given employee is actually ready for growth, or if they need a bit more time before they’re fully primed.

Promoting an employee who is not quite ready for the move ends up being unproductive for both them and you: They end up more stressed with new responsibilities they aren’t ready for, and your team’s productivity flounders as a result.

Talent assessments play an important role here because they give you hard data about the skills a certain position requires and the skills your employee possesses. This enables you to easily compare the two side by side and determine if an employee is ready to be promoted.

One example is to use leadership assessments to determine whether an employee is ready to move into a more management-focused role.

But suppose you’ve got a long-standing employee who is eager to move up, but your talent assessments are telling you that they aren’t quite ready. 

This doesn’t mean that you should disregard this employee for promotion entirely; instead, this is a good chance to put your employee training and development strategies to work to help your valued employee reach their goal.

You can develop a professional development plan to help this employee develop the necessary skills for promotion. 

For example, if the employee is looking to move into management but comes up short in leadership skills, you can work together to build a leadership development plan to help them advance. 

2. Assess personality and culture because they’re essential promotion factors

Technical skills are just one criterion when assessing a candidate for promotions – intangibles, such as an employee’s personality and culture add , play an equally large role.

And talent assessments can gauge these factors, too. The Big 5 (OCEAN) assessment, for instance, evaluates many key personality traits that you want to consider when eyeballing employees for promotion.

One trait that the Big 5 test evaluates is neuroticism – that is, how much an employee’s emotions affect their work. This can also tell you how well they handle high-stress situations. 

If the Big 5 test tells you an employee in line for promotion has a high neuroticism score, it tells you one of two things:

You may want to guide them toward a more low-stress role for their promotion

You may need to work with them on their ability to handle high-stress situations before promotion

Similarly, to find the most successful candidates for promotion, you should evaluate them for culture add. This refers not only to how well they match with your company culture, but also any new ideas they bring to it.

Innovation is the key to any organization’s success, and the Culture Add test enables you to spot those innovators hiding with your team who you may have otherwise overlooked. 

You can then use this data to inform your internal recruitment efforts to boost these employees to higher positions where they can have more impact.

3. Monitor test scores to spot high-performing employees

Your top performers are an asset to your organization because they’re up to 400% more productive than average performers. 

You need to recognize and reward the work of these high-performing employees before they lose their motivation to give their best to the job. 

Use talent assessments to monitor employees’ test scores and performance over time and across different domains. The three most important times to assess your employees' skills are:

During new employee onboarding

At regular performance evaluations

When conducting a skills gap analysis

Distributing talent assessments to your workers at varied times gives you a much more thorough picture of their skills and their trajectory, which helps you make more informed promotions.

For example, when onboarding a new hire, you might notice that they possess a stellar skill set, so it would be wise to mark them as a candidate for promotion and start building a development plan for them immediately.

Or maybe over the course of performance evaluations and skills gap analyses , you’ve noticed one employee whose skills have been regularly improving the entire time they’ve been with you, letting you know to target them for a promotion to reward their hard work and dedication. 

4. Remove bias from the employee promotion process

There’s often a lot of politics surrounding the promotion process in a company.

Compared to new hires, candidates for promotion are people you already know and have often worked with personally. This means that bias in hiring can creep in.

However, letting bias affect your promotion decisions can easily lead to stellar candidates being overlooked or people being promoted who aren’t ready for the new position. 

This subjective slant can easily be combated with talent assessments, which judge candidates through the objective lens of hard data rather than how much everyone in the company likes them.

Removing this filter also bolsters your diversity hiring efforts by gauging candidates not by how well they fit an established mold but by how well they can do the job.

5. Set up a formal internal mobility program for internal and cross-department promotions

A company-wide program facilitating internal mobility is key to a healthy promotion process.

Such a program broadcasts all promotion opportunities to every employee, making for a fair and transparent process. It also encourages cross-pollination between teams: Employees can apply for promotions not only within their own team but in others, as well. 

This crossover further increases innovation among your workforce.

Consider setting up an internal talent marketplace to serve this purpose. This kind of marketplace lets employees easily browse through all open roles within the company and enables the employer to search through employee profiles.

Use talent assessments in conjunction with this marketplace to make clear the skills necessary for a given position, too. 

For example, if you’re hiring for a software engineer, assess the employees currently in that role to see what skills are necessary for success – such as what coding language they need to know – and then select internal candidates with the right skill set.

6. Implement a continuous development plan based on assessment results

One of the best traits of a high-performing and dedicated employee is the urge to upskill and grow constantly. Even if an employee who applied for a position doesn’t land a promotion, it doesn’t mean they don’t have future potential. 

Perhaps they were outperformed by another candidate with the exact skillset that the role demands. The candidate who wasn’t chosen can still shine with the right nurturing.

Be clear with these candidates about where exactly they fell short, so they know what they need to work toward in the future. 

It’s common for workers to feel resentment if they didn’t get a promotion they thought they deserved, and this level of transparency lets them know why it occurred, keeping them motivated to grow further.

7. Leverage data analytics to predict and enhance employee performance

There’s tons of candidate data from every promotion or hiring drive you conduct. 

It’s time to put that data into use to make unbiased, evidence-based, quick decisions in promotions. 

A data driven recruitment process more accurately predicts future performance and leadership potential by analyzing patterns, trends, and correlations in the assessment data. 

Look at the data you have from previously promoted employees and see what worked and what didn’t. 

Were there certain personality traits that successful promotions all had in common, for example? Did promoted employees from one team or department regularly perform better in their new roles?

Juniper Networks, a networking cybersecurity firm, uses talent acquisition analytics to predict where its best candidates are headed in the long run. They use this data to build development plans to help its employees progress effectively along their desired paths.

Besides talent assessments, there are a few other factors to consider when creating an effective promotion process. 

The four best practices we discuss below focus on making your promotion process more fair so candidates enjoy it and dedicate themselves to their career growth, regardless of whether or not they’re selected in the current round of promotions. 

1. Encourage promotion transparency

Around 49% of candidates declined a job offer due to poor interview experience with the company. 

That shows how critical the candidate experience is if you want to hire the best talents in today’s candidate market. 

When filling up a position internally, create a promotion policy and maintain promotion transparency throughout the process: 

Start by outlining the end-to-end promotion process so they know what to expect next 

Offer personalized feedback at various stages of the process – i.e., on their talent assessment – and emphasize the areas that need improvement.

Be upfront about your expectations from them – the skills, traits, and personality required for the job.

Provide a roadmap that explains how to progress from one role to another. This helps employees form their own paths and spot opportunities along the way.

Welcome opinions and feedback from your candidates and encourage them to speak their minds about the promotion process. 

Communicate each and every outcome from the process and do not keep applicants in the dark.

2. Incorporate multi-rater feedback and listen to your people

Traditionally, feedback is seen as a manager-led process, where the managers give feedback to their subordinates and shine a light on areas that need development. 

However, this approach is only one-sided. There could be biases associated with their decision, or perhaps the manager failed to consider all the parameters to gather feedback. 

This is where multi-rater feedback enters to provide a well-rounded perspective of your employee’s performance. It’s based on data and feedback from multiple channels, giving you a more thorough and detailed picture of a candidate up for promotion. 

Multi-rater feedback includes:

An employee’s self-assessment

Feedback from peers

Feedback from supervisors, team leads, and managers

Customer feedback

Direct reports from subordinates

3. Set up a mentorship program

When you create a culture of learning and upskilling, you build a nurturing work environment where employees learn from each other rather than envying their success. 

Mentoring your motivated employees is crucial if you want to support employees from all backgrounds in their professional journeys. 

It not only helps you nurture budding talents but also increases workplace diversity . 

Here’s how to create your mentorship program:

Pair promoted employees with experienced ones who can guide and support them in their new roles

Set up peer-to-peer mentoring where colleagues can support their peers in the area they excel at and, similarly, receive mentoring from them

Establish clear goals and guidelines for mentors and mentees – make sure only to include employees interested in the program

Use talent assessments to identify what each participant from your mentoring program can offer

Match mentors and mentees based on their shared interests, skill gaps, and career goals

Provide mentors with training and resources to help them coach and develop their mentees

Facilitate regular meetings and interactions between mentors and mentees and monitor their progress and outcome

4. Make promotions an approachable discussion with set career growth opportunities

Asking for a promotion can be an awkward and draining process. There’s always an air of anxiety around promotions – what if the employer says no, or worse, dismisses the topic without giving much clarification?

That’s where you need to step in and normalize the conversations around promotions. 

Help your employees set clear and realistic career paths

Conduct regular performance reviews and career conversations with each employee to discuss their goals, aspirations, and expectations

Provide access to learning and development opportunities that can help them prepare for promotion 

Provide them with a realistic timeline of a promotion process so they know at what stage they are currently

Talent assessments are the key to objectively evaluating a candidate for promotion. 

They help employees self-reflect on their current skills and identify their weak points, and enable employers to reduce the time-to-hire and simplify the selection process.

TestGorilla’s test library is the perfect resource to find a variety of tests to assess your candidates in all the major aspects that determine a successful promotion – hard skills, soft skills, and personality traits.

For example, use the Design Thinking test when promoting for a customer experience position to evaluate a candidate’s creativity and innovation.

Next, learn more about how to set up a solid internal promotion process to help your employees grow within your organization.

De Smet, Aaron, et al. (March 9, 2022). "Gone for now, or gone for good? How to play the new talent game and win back workers". McKinsey & Company. Retrieved November 5, 2023. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/gone-for-now-or-gone-for-good-how-to-play-the-new-talent-game-and-win-back-workers 

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Employee Hiring and Promotion Essay

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The primary responsibility of those involved in the business is the selection of competent employees and subsequent communication with the organization’s staff. Employees guarantee a long-term business perspective due to their personal and professional traits. The issue of equality when applying for jobs and the fight against discrimination based on various factors, such as race, religion, and gender, are relevant in today’s world. Discrimination at work can take many different forms, including how a person is treated upon starting a job, while they are working, and even after they leave.

Equal opportunities and working conditions for all employees maximize the use of human resources and the variety of talents they possess. As a result, the workforce is happier and more motivated, which fosters better labour relations and increases overall productivity. A business owner will be breaking the law if they discriminate against workers or job applicants (Perez, 2020). Any entrepreneur should focus on abilities, skills, and qualifications first since they are essential to the success of their business.

One of the original pieces of legislation that protected job applicants’ rights and curbed discrimination in the US was Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It forbids discrimination based on race, skin colour, religion, sex, national origin, or other factors when determining the working conditions or denying employment or firing someone from a job (Guillaume & Apodaca, 2020). The legislator states that it is unlawful to restrict, isolate, or classify employees or people hired in a way that makes it difficult for them to find work or has other adverse effects on them due to their sex, religion, or country of origin. This means that Shania cannot deny Carlos a job because he is Hispanic and not a Christian.

The interview should be as impartial as possible and concentrate on Carlos’ and Kelsey’s prospects. Shania needs to develop the concept for her coffeehouse and include a set of principles, guidelines, and knowledge. Being a non-Christian, Carlos can converse with Christian visitors because he is very educated. Regarding ethics, there are universal values found in many religions. Shania’s task during the interview is to determine whether Carlos’s worldview is appropriate for a coffeehouse.

Shania must consider the business side as well, so if Carlos is truly knowledgeable about Christian culture and respects this religion, he should be given the opportunity to compete for a position. Carlos should be hired by Shania even though he is not a Christian if he shows that he is a specialist and has excellent work skills. If Carlos lacked the communication skills, work-related skills, and knowledge of Christianity required for the job, he should be rejected for the position due to his lack of qualifications, not because of his religion.

Similarly, the rule that the qualifications and skills of a job candidate should be paramount in the selection of personnel should also apply to Kelsey. Simply because Kelsey is black and Christian, Shania should not give him preference. Shania must determine during the interview whether Kelsey possesses the necessary character traits because it frequently occurs for people who identify as Christians to break the commandments. The Christian faith may be advantageous if the applicant possesses all the necessary skills, but religion should not be a major factor in the selection process.

In conclusion, an employer is not allowed to discriminate against applicants based on factors like race, religion, age, or sex in accordance with the law. Shaina will break the law and risk legal action if she rejects someone because of religion or nationality. As an employer, Shaina must strike a balance between not discriminating against applicants and hiring someone who upholds the standards of the coffeehouse.

Promotion in any business is earned through hard work and long-term service. Employee promotion is a crucial managerial task that enables employers to engage staff in more productive work. Promotion can enhance the company’s internal culture and management’s public image, increase production efficiency, and boost the firm’s ability to compete. According to labour law, promotions are either suggested based on certification results or the basis of precise evaluation criteria. Another option is to promote employees by their professional qualifications, the volume and complexity of the work they perform, and their work output in quantity and quality.

Any manager’s job is to select the employee for promotion who is the best candidate. The law forbids employers from mistreating workers when deciding their working conditions, compensation, or participation in advanced training. Shania needs to show that she supports diversity, so her choice should not be affected by the sex, nationality, or religion of any individual employee. Although the final say always rests with the authorities, other workers still consider which of their coworkers is the most deserving. The business may suffer if the team discovers that the most qualified candidate was passed over for a position solely based on nationality or religion.

According to the postulates of the Bible, the quality of a person’s life directly depends on how hard they work. Christianity transforms work into a religious service by spiritually and morally orienting it and elevating it to higher purposes. Contrary to popular belief, there is no absolute condemnation of wealth as such in the Gospels (Cui & Velasquez, 2019). Only unjustly obtained wealth based on a breach of the fundamental moral precepts governing interpersonal relationships is unacceptable. Shania must provide opportunities for her staff to advance and be paid well.

Shania must be a strategist when conducting business and have a distinct vision. Shania must first take into account the individual characteristics of each employee. A candidate for promotion needs to have a firm grasp of time management skills and the ability to assign tasks and prioritize appropriately. A subordinate may be highly knowledgeable about their position, work quickly to complete tasks, and deliver projects on schedule. Still, more is needed to guarantee they will successfully handle new jobs and projects. It is necessary to determine how competent they are in matters related to the new position and whether they can cope with a more significant load. Being a night shift supervisor is a very responsible job that also requires respect from coworkers.

If Shania chooses a promotion candidate without considering a person’s race or religion, she will achieve diversity. The choice of the most professional employee, regardless of nationality, is her only option. If Shania gives explicit preference to one of the candidates with a different religion or ethnicity to be diverse, this will be discrimination against other workers. It would be fair to give everyone an equal chance of getting promoted. The provision of equal opportunities for all people is the essence of diversity. Shania, in her company, should not tolerate even positive discrimination. Otherwise, such an approach will cause discontent among other workers because it will be unfair to them.

The issue’s ethical side should be considered when Shania evaluates the motivations of each of the candidates. The employee’s primary responsibility must be serving others and wanting to be helpful (Ortiz-Gómez et al., 2020). The candidate for the promotion must be diligent, truthful, and unbiased. Receiving a reward from the boss while harbouring selfish thoughts is not acceptable. Such people frequently engage in mean behaviour and manipulate others to advance their careers. Due to the ethical aspect of the situation, such people do not live up to the Christian ideal and are ineligible for promotions.

In conclusion, the owners must demonstrate zero discrimination if a business wants to show itself as progressive, responsible and fair. Shania, in her options, has only that not to consider the religion and nationality of employees. She should choose the most deserving worker who can handle the responsibilities of the night shift supervisor. Compliance with the standards of Christian morality ought to be one of the selection criteria. An employee should be sincere and not have money or vanity as their primary motivation for receiving a promotion. The qualifications of the employee and the successes they have shown in their position will also be crucial, in addition to personal traits and moral character.

Cui, J., Jo, H., & Velasquez, M. G. (2019). Christian religiosity and corporate community involvement. Business Ethics Quarterly , 29 (1), 85-125.

Guillaume, R. O., & Apodaca, E. C. (2020). Early career faculty of color and promotion and tenure: The intersection of advancement in the Academy and Cultural Taxation . Race Ethnicity and Education , 25 (4), 546–563. Web.

Ortiz-Gómez, M., Ariza-Montes, A., & Molina-Sánchez, H. (2020). Servant leadership in a social religious organization: An analysis of work engagement, authenticity, and spirituality at work . International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health , 17 (22), 8542. Web.

Perez, N. (2020). Governmental-Funded Religious Associations and Non-Discrimination Rules: On Immunity and Public Funding. Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence , 33 (2), 341-367.

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IvyPanda. (2023, December 27). Employee Hiring and Promotion. https://ivypanda.com/essays/employee-hiring-and-promotion-case-study/

"Employee Hiring and Promotion." IvyPanda , 27 Dec. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/employee-hiring-and-promotion-case-study/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'Employee Hiring and Promotion'. 27 December.

IvyPanda . 2023. "Employee Hiring and Promotion." December 27, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/employee-hiring-and-promotion-case-study/.

1. IvyPanda . "Employee Hiring and Promotion." December 27, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/employee-hiring-and-promotion-case-study/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Employee Hiring and Promotion." December 27, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/employee-hiring-and-promotion-case-study/.

How to build a strong case for a job promotion

Text: Devashish Chakravarty Ask for a hot seat: Ask for power to take decisions. With authority, you will get additional responsibilities. That gives you more opportunity to demonstrate achievements. Your request also marks you out as a person hungry for work. To get more authority, you will need to earn it from your boss or employer. Invest in building that trust so that there is little risk to your boss in giving decision making powers to you. Explain how you will mitigate the risk of something going wrong in your exercise of power. Highlight the benefits of what you can achieve for your employer when you take decisions and save them time. After you have succeeded with your new found authority, your case for promotion becomes rock solid.

Balance the ladder

When you climb up a ladder, you not only need to balance your feet but also the ladder. Similarly to get promoted you need to learn not only how to manage the team reporting to you but also how to manage upwards. Like you have established a strong working and inter-personal chemistry with your team, have you done the same with your boss and other managers? Invest time and figure out what are their KPIs and work styles and how can you help them achieve their individual goals. Like you expect complete loyalty from your team, give unstinted support to the ladder above you. Only then does the entire ladder balance well enabling you to climb up quickly.

The only limited resource in your career is your time. Almost all other resources required for success have immense flexibility and can be obtained with some effort. The best time management skill is the ability to say "No". Say "No" to demands on your time that do not add value to your immediate and long term goals. Refuse tasks where there are no specific measurable outcomes. Turn down opportunities and meetings that will occupy your time without advancing you towards your defined goals.

Pick up the hammer

Figure out activities which will help you make the maximum impact at your workplace. How will the impact be measured and attributed to you? Once you have identified the numbers you want to reach in a week, month and year, write down a time-bound plan of how you will get there, what resources you will need and what time you will invest. Stick to the plan rigorously and review yourself against it at the end of each week. Make adjustments as you follow the plan. At the time of promotion, your achieved numbers speak the loudest.

Own the company

Be immensely curious about everything that is going on. Pause and think about what each event or activity means for the company. As you go along, you will acquire the attitude of a company owner. Everything that occurs will have a reason and impact on either the company's revenues or costs. Your communication style will evolve into that of an entrepreneur focused on success. Your actions will align to the company's unspoken needs. Over time, you will also be the first person consulted for every project. Employers tend to promote company owners before mere employees.

Seek the critic

Do you face criticism on your outputs? If not, then you won't get promoted since your work has no space to improve and evolve. If your boss isn't criticising, you have stopped mattering. If your team does not criticise, is it because you react defensively and no one wants to give you feedback? Seek people who are willing to critique what you are doing and express gratitude when they do so. Getting feedback from your team means that you have earned their trust. Filter and use all feedback to improve and work towards the next level.

You demonstrated your sales expertise when you made your CV, sold yourself during the interview and got this job. Now are you doing the same to achieve your annual goals? Go sell your plans to your team, make a presentation to your managers, seek resources for your targets. As you achieve goals, sell your achievements to your boss. Demonstrate how they fit in with his and the company's goals. Your emails and conversations recording your achievements constitute the CV that will be evaluated during promotion-time.

Pick your investments

Choose the people who you will invest time in. List down five people with who you spend the maximum time at office. Your performance is likely to be the average of these five. Are you spending a lot of time with gossip mongers and non-performers? You are unlikely to get far since their image will stick to you. Where possible, choose projects and teams where you spend time with people in the fast track, who are both professional and ambitious.

Face the sun

No one appreciates the rain while commuting to work. Similarly, no one likes a wet dishrag at office who is constantly whining. If you carry a sense of entitlement on account of your education, seniority, past work-ex etc, you will find detractors. Choose to be optimistic and cheerful. Your attitude will attract energetic team members. Your sunny attitude makes it easier for your boss to discuss new projects and responsibilities with you and thus earn you the next promotion!

How not to get promoted

Follow your job description: The easiest way to skip a promotion is to work on only what is expected of you with blinkers on. That includes refusing to see the company vision, not helping co-workers achieve targets and insisting that everything else is not your problem. Rely on your expertise: You were hired for your past experience, right? You know how things were done in previous roles. Why should you invest in learning new skills, ways of doing things or seek new responsibilities? Who wants that promotion and its burdens anyway? Take each day as an adventure: Doesn't every animal in the jungle take each day as it comes? You are an adventurer in life, confident in your abilities to face challenges. Planning each workday in advance and setting goals is for wimps. And for those who seek advancement.

This is how you may skip your promotion

Highlight what is wrong: You are an expert critic and love to tell people what is amiss. You announce what's wrong with your boss, your colleague, the business plan, the company culture and why everything will fail. Solving problems is for those called leaders. Claim the medal: Your team achieved its targets. You tell everyone that only your magnificent contributions made it possible. You believe that sharing credit is a sign of weakness. Then, your non-contributing colleague gets promoted and you don't. Surprising, isn't it?

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Top 5 Employee Engagement Case Studies in India: What Can Your Business Learn?

• August 5, 2023

Social For Action

• Post Views: 226

Table of Contents

What Is Employee Engagement?

Employee engagement refers to the emotional connection and commitment that employees have towards their work, their colleagues, and the organization they are a part of. It goes beyond mere job satisfaction, encompassing a sense of belonging, motivation, and dedication. Engaged employees are enthusiastic about their roles, eager to contribute their best, and align their personal goals with the organization’s objectives. This involves factors such as open communication, opportunities for growth, recognition for achievements, and a positive work environment.

Why Is Employee Engagement Important?

Employee engagement plays a pivotal role in an organization’s success and its employees’ well-being. It goes beyond productivity and has a profound impact on various aspects:

1. Increased Productivity: Engaged employees are more focused and committed, leading to higher productivity levels.

2. Retention: Engaged employees are more likely to stay with the company, reducing turnover and associated costs.

3. Innovation: Engaged employees feel comfortable sharing ideas, fostering a culture of innovation.

4. Customer Satisfaction: Engaged employees provide better customer service, positively influencing customer satisfaction.

5. Health and Well-being: A positive work environment and meaningful engagement contribute to employees’ mental and emotional well-being.

What Are the Benefits of Employee Engagement?

Employee engagement offers a plethora of benefits for both employees and the organization:

• Higher Job Satisfaction: Engaged employees are generally more satisfied with their roles and responsibilities.
• Increased Employee Morale : Engagement boosts employee morale, leading to a positive atmosphere.
• Enhanced Collaboration : Engaged employees tend to work well with others, promoting teamwork and cooperation.
• Better Performance : Engaged employees consistently deliver better results and contribute to achieving organizational goals.
• Employee Development : Engaged employees seek growth opportunities, benefiting from professional development initiatives.

Top 5 Employee Engagement Case Studies in India

Tata consultancy services (tcs).

TCS introduced a comprehensive engagement program that included skill development, mentoring, and work-life balance initiatives. This led to increased employee satisfaction and retention rates.

Infosys implemented an “iCount” program that recognized and rewarded employees for their contributions. This approach significantly improved employee engagement and motivation.

HCL Technologies

HCL’s “Employee First, Customer Second” approach empowered employees to take ownership and make decisions, fostering a culture of trust and engagement.

Wipro’s “Peak Performance” program emphasized continuous feedback and coaching, resulting in improved employee performance and engagement levels.

Godrej Group

Godrej introduced a flexible work policy that allowed employees to balance their personal and professional lives better, leading to increased job satisfaction and loyalty.

In conclusion, employee engagement is not just a buzzword; it’s a critical aspect of organizational success. Engaged employees are more productive, innovative, and committed to their roles, resulting in improved business outcomes and a positive workplace environment.

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EFFECT OF STAFF PROMOTION ON EMPLOYEE PRODUCTIVITY IN AN ORGANIZATION (A CASE STUDY OF MINISTRY OF INFORMATION AND CULTURE IN YOLA STATE, ADAMAWA STATE)

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1       Background to the Study

Generally public organizations have an increasing expectation to be comparable to the best in the private organizations. In strategic plan of Nigeria, the government will embark on a services transformational initiative to respond to the needs of the people and business. This may be about creating efficient and convenient services for people and business in general. In order for people to perform the tasks; the recognition should be reviewed accordingly. This is important to ensure employees are motivated and deliver high quality services to government.

Every of government’s parastatals and ministry in Nigeria has put the interest on development of human capital, especially the mission to become a world class organization. The challenge for ministry of information and culture in Yola Adamawa State employees is providing high quality services. High motivation is also a top management priority as well as expecting employees to follow rules and regulations to perform the tasks assigned to them according to the standards set for them. However, employees expect good working conditions, fair pay, fair treatment, secured career, power and involvement in decision making (Khan et al, 2010).

Performance of any organization largely depends on the performance of its employees. Most organizations that are achieving success in their performances today are increasingly coming to the realization that there are a number of factors that contribute to performance but human resource is clearly most critical (Mello, 2005). No matter the size and nature of the organization, the activity being undertaken, and the operation environment, its success depends largely on its employees, decision and their behavior. The evaluation of employees’ performance in an organization is one of the significant reasons of employing human resource practices. In today’s competitive environment of modern time, organizations are seriously improving performance of their employees by improving human resource practices. Caliskan (2010) postulated that human resource practices are the main source of competitive advantage. Many researchers have proven that human resource practices have a significant and positive relationship with employee’s performance (Tessema and Soeters, 2006). Since motivation vary between top management and employees, it is important to understand what motivates them, what factors influence motivation and which rewards influence motivation in order to enhance productivity (Mills and Walton, 1984)

Among the various approaches that organizations use to motivate their employees is promotion. This is the practice of placing employees from lower grades in the organization into higher grades with subsequent increase in salary on one hand and responsibilities on the other. Promotion can be viewed as a reward for what an employee has contributed to the organization. Based on merit an employee has to the organization, promotion might be a necessity in order to retain that particular employee.

However, as Bedfast (2004) pointed out that promotion should not only be considered as a means of merely rewarding employees but also should be taken as a means towards placement of employees in positions they fit. In this view, promotion touches not only the welfare of the employee but also that of an organization (employer). Therefore, Promotion of employees in organizations should be carefully implemented by following specific policies and procedures. Contrary to that, promotion turns into a setback to the employees’ performance. This study was meant to assess the impact of promotion to employee’s performance for the public organization, the ultimate goal being to identify appropriate recommendations to relevant authorities on the necessary steps to be taken to ensure that the implementation of the promotion practice leads to efficiency and effective in attaining organizational goals.

Edward Thorndike’s law of effect states that behaviours that are rewarded are more likely to be repeated than those that are punished (Schermerthon, 1986). Pinnington et al., (2002) revealed that employees of nowadays require instructive and supportive feedback as well as desired rewards if they have to translate their knowledge into improved productivity and superior quality. Properly administered feedback and rewards can guide, teach, and motivate people in the right direction for positive change. If the performance level is lower than that of others who get the same reward, there is no reason to increase their output. Lawler (2003) argued that success and growth of an organization is determined on how the human resources are treated. When an employee is highly motivated, it leads to actions in pursuit of the interest Armstrong, (2001). Thus, this study aims to investigate the effect of staff promotion on employee productivity in an oganization. The findings of this study are expected to provide references to Ministry of Information and Culture in Yola Adamawa State in developing an appropriate strategy of motivation approach for their employees.

1.2       Statement of the Problem

            Promotion plays a key role to employee motivation-both intrinsically and extrinsically (Flippo, 1961) promotion refers to a change from one job to another that is better in terms of status and responsibility. Ordinarily, the change to the higher job is accompanied by increase in pay and privileges. In this context, we can argue that employees are intrinsically motivated by promotion through the increased responsibility and also extrinsically through the increased status, pay and privileges. Promotion tries to meet the employees’ higher order needs for esteem and self-fulfillment or actualization as suggested by Abraham Maslow in hierarchy of needs. According to Maslow, people need to have respect of others (prestige) and this is what he termed as “Esteem needs”. These include desires for adequacy, achievement, reputation and status. In addition, employees need to develop their potentialities and skills to enable them become what everyone believes is capable of becoming-this is what is termed as “self fulfillment” or “self actualization”.

Promoting employee from lower level to the higher level brings about a feeling of satisfaction among the employees. It improves their job satisfaction and motivation by providing greater income, status and responsibilities. By building up loyalty, promotion reduces, labour turnover. Promotion stimulates self development and creates interest in training and development programmes (Gupta, 2011).

However, the main reason behind organization’s practicing promotion is first to enhance employee motivation and ultimately achieving organizational success; and second, to ensure achievement of the interests of individual employees. In this context, promotion is an important practice in ensuring mutual existence between the organization and employees. It encourages people to stay longer with the organization in order for them to satisfy their needs, which in turn lead to increased organizational stability and performance (Armstrong, 1984).

Therefore, employees’ promotion is an essential component for the survival of any organization, whereby various ways of promotion can be implemented such as merit and seniority. If well implemented, it leads to motivation. However some organizations are not adhering to the procedures that lead to poor performance due to employees’ lack of satisfaction. In order to ensure effectiveness of the practice in organization, clear policy and procedures must be laid down for guidance.

In this view, having a clearly established policy and procedures to guide promotion at hand and the government set resources to provide promotion every financial year, does not mean that there are no problems that face public servants in connection with their promotions. Despite the efforts done by government to promote its employees, the observation made on the promotion trends for Ministry of Information and Culture in Yola Adamawa State was that promotion is usually delayed. To provide these things to the employees in an economic way is very difficult and cumbersome. But in order to retain talented employees it is crucial for any organization to provide promotions timely, although this requires economy which is performing positively and good production turnover. There are some cases where promotions are delayed due to certain circumstances which lead to complaints, labour turnover, and absenteeism from public servants.

It is from this point on view the research has to be conducted on the study on the effect of staff promotion on employee productivity in an organization by using Ministry of Information and Culture in Yola Adamawa State as a case study.

1.3       Objective of the Study

This study mainly intends to assess the effect of staff promotion on employee productivity in an organization. Specifically the study is aimed at accomplishing the following objectives:

• To examine the implementation of promotion procedures at Ministry of Information and Culture in Yola Adamawa State
• To assess the positive effects of promotion to the individual employees and organization performance
• To determine customers satisfaction level with performance of the ministry in service delivery.
• To identify the factors that hinder effective implementation of promotion practice to employees of Ministry of Information and Culture in Yola Adamawa State

1.4       Research Questions

This study aimed at answering one main question: “To what extent promotion contributes towards employees’ productivity? More specifically, the study intended to find answers to the following questions:

• What is the implementation of promotion procedures at Ministry of Information and Culture in Yola Adamawa State?
• What are the positive effects of promotion to the individual employees and organization performance?
• Are customers satisfied with the performance of the ministry in service delivery?
• What are the factors that hinder effective implementation of promotion practice to employees of Ministry of Information and Culture in Yola Adamawa State?

1.5       Research Hypotheses

The research hypotheses that will be tested for this study include:

• There is a significant correlation between employee promotion and employee performance in an organization
• There is no significant correlation between promotion procedures and organizational performance

1.6       Significance of the Study

In recent years, researchers are conducting research on employee’s promotion. The significance of this study is to help Public and Private Organizations by identifying the benefits, problems, analyzing information’s and recommending for the improvement of promotion practices for employees. In addition to that, this study will act as a stepping stone to other researchers who wish to conduct studies in this area and hence contributing to knowledge advancement and solving related problems pertaining to the promotion of employees in Nigeria.

1.7       Scope of the Study

The study was carried out at Ministry of Information and Culture in Yola Adamawa State and was concerning with the effect of staff promotion on employee productivity in an organization in Nigeria. Therefore the findings that generated represent almost true aspects of what is happening in Public sector in Nigeria.

1.8       Limitation of the Study

            Time constraint, the sample size is likely to be influenced by time for doing research and data analysis of data. The less the time allotted, the big the possibility of using small sample size. For a study of this nature, time limitation result in failure to contact many respondents.

Another limitation is inaccessibility to some information. The researcher faced some difficulties in terms of accessing some information, especially some official documents which are sometimes referred as “confidential” by some authorities. This limitation has been addressed by the good introduction meeting or entry meeting as collection of data will be used only for the purpose of the study and nothing else prior to the commencement of research study.

1.9       Definition of Terms

            The following terms were used in the course of this study:

Employee Performance: is the successful completion of tasks by a selected individual or individuals, as set and measured by a supervisor or organization, to pre-defined acceptable standard while efficiently and effectively utilizing available resource within a changing environment by Mathias and Jackson (2009:324).

Employee Productivity: Employee productivity is the value added per employee divided by the average number of employees during the year converted into full-time equivalents.

Motivation: refers to influences that account for the initiation, direction, intensity and persistence of behavior Bernstein (2008). Motivation is a feeling of enthusiasm or interest that makes you determine to do something (Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners, 2007).

Promotion: According to Gupta (2011) promotion refers to advancement of an employee to a higher post carrying greater responsibilities, higher status and better salary. It is the upward movement of an employee in the organization’s hierarchy, to another job commanding greater higher authority, higher status and better working conditions. Promotions are used to reward employees for better performance and to motivate them for greater effort.

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Mental health adjustments – Reasonable adjustments at work

• What reasonable adjustments are
• Mental health adjustments
• Making a request
• Having a meeting
• Failing to make adjustments
• Reviewing and keeping a record
• Having a policy

Mental health includes emotional, psychological and social wellbeing. It affects how someone thinks, feels and behaves.

Mental health problems can:

• happen suddenly, because of a specific event in someone's life
• build up gradually over time
• be hard to spot because everyone has different signs and signals
• be hidden because many people find it difficult to talk about their mental health
• fluctuate over time which means that an employee's ability to cope with the demands of the job might change

If an employee has a mental health problem, their employer should take it seriously, with the same care as for physical illness.

A mental health problem can be a disability under the Equality Act 2010. If an employee has a disability, their employer must make reasonable adjustments.

When making reasonable adjustments for mental health, employers should take into account that:

• every job is different, so what works in one situation might not work in another
• every employee is different, so what works for one employee might not work for another
• mental health changes over time, so what works for an employee now might not work in the future

Examples of reasonable adjustments for mental health

Reasonable adjustments are specific to an individual person. They can cover any area of work.

Working hours and patterns

For example:

• more frequent, shorter breaks
• paid time off for medical appointments
• flexible hours
• part-time or job share arrangements

Changing someone's role and responsibilities

• reviewing tasks or deadlines to help someone have a reasonable workload while managing their mental health
• breaking down work into short term tasks to reduce the complexity of someone's work and to provide structure to the working day
• reviewing someone's responsibilities to reduce those that are more stressful – for example reducing phone calls or customer facing work
• moving someone into a different role or department if their current job has a negative impact on their mental health

Reviewing working relationships and communication styles

• making sure someone is working with trusted people to limit the impact of different working and communication styles
• agreeing a preferred communication method to help reduce anxiety – for example by avoiding spontaneous phone calls

Changing the physical working environment

• allowing someone to work from home to manage distractions or engage in activities that allow them to manage their mental health – for example, so they can take regular breaks without feeling other people are watching them
• relocating someone's workspace to a quieter area to reduce sensory demands
• providing rest areas away from the main staff area to allow someone to rest away from social demands
• providing reserved parking to reduce the stress of commuting

Being flexible with policies

• offering paid time off for someone to attend appointments in work time
• being flexible with trigger points for absence so that someone is not disadvantaged by taking absence when they are unwell
• offering an extended phased return to support someone to build up hours gradually and continue their recovery

Additional support

• modifying supervision to provide regular check-ins, prioritising work and creating structure in the working day
• providing training or coaching to build confidence in skills relevant to the job
• providing a buddy or mentor to be a dedicated person who can support with work tasks

Case studies

Read case studies about making reasonable adjustments for mental health

Talking about reasonable adjustments for mental health

Conversations about reasonable adjustments for mental health might come about because:

• a manager notices that someone in their team is struggling with their mental health
• an employee asks to have a conversation about work adjustments for mental health
• an employee speaks to HR or occupational health and they recommend reasonable adjustments for mental health

What an employer should do

As an employer, you should help an employee who requests reasonable adjustments to:

• look after their mental health at work
• understand what to expect from a meeting about reasonable adjustments

For example, you could:

• ask them how they are
• make it clear they should look after themselves and focus on managing their mental health
• check if they have accessed support available through work – for example mental health support
• let them know about any policies that are relevant to reasonable adjustments for mental health
• let them know that the organisation will try to support them in accessing reasonable adjustments
• explain the reasonable adjustments process and procedures
• agree on a reasonable adjustment meeting date

What an employee should do

Someone experiencing mental health problems might not be sure what they need to manage their mental health. They might not know what adjustments to suggest.

As an employee, there are several things you can think about when deciding what reasonable adjustments will help. This can help you prepare for a conversation with your employer about reasonable adjustments.

Think about how your mental health affects your work

• Are there times in the day or week that are better or harder, or do you feel the same all the time?
• Are there tasks at home or at work that feel possible and easy to do now?
• Are there tasks at home or at work that feel unmanageable now?

Think about how work affects your mental health

• Are there some tasks or situations that make you feel good?
• Are there some tasks or situations that make you feel anxious, worried or numb?

Talk to a friend or family member

You can talk to a friend or family member to ask them what they see and think. People can find it hard to recognise patterns in their behaviour, especially when they are experiencing mental health problems.

For example, you could ask:

• When am I confident, settled and happy? What am I doing? Who am I with?
• When am I unsettled, anxious or withdrawn? What am I doing? Who am I with?

If an employee's mental health problem is not a disability

An employee's mental health problem might not be a disability.

You should still offer support and explore whether adjustments can help. Simple changes to working arrangements or responsibilities could be enough.

Making adjustments for mental health can:

• help employees to stay in work while recovering from or managing a mental health condition
• make sure employees are well, safe and productive
• create a healthy work culture by building awareness and showing a commitment to good practice
• make it more likely that employees will stay at your organisation, reducing recruitment and training costs

If you like, you can tell us more about what was useful on this page. We cannot reply – so do not include any personal details, for example your email address or phone number. If you have any questions about your individual circumstances, you can contact the Acas helpline .

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Embracing Gen AI at Work

• H. James Wilson
• Paul R. Daugherty

The skills you need to succeed in the era of large language models

Today artificial intelligence can be harnessed by nearly anyone, using commands in everyday language instead of code. Soon it will transform more than 40% of all work activity, according to the authors’ research. In this new era of collaboration between humans and machines, the ability to leverage AI effectively will be critical to your professional success.

This article describes the three kinds of “fusion skills” you need to get the best results from gen AI. Intelligent interrogation involves instructing large language models to perform in ways that generate better outcomes—by, say, breaking processes down into steps or visualizing multiple potential paths to a solution. Judgment integration is about incorporating expert and ethical human discernment to make AI’s output more trustworthy, reliable, and accurate. It entails augmenting a model’s training sources with authoritative knowledge bases when necessary, keeping biases out of prompts, ensuring the privacy of any data used by the models, and scrutinizing suspect output. With reciprocal apprenticing, you tailor gen AI to your company’s specific business context by including rich organizational data and know-how into the commands you give it. As you become better at doing that, you yourself learn how to train the AI to tackle more-sophisticated challenges.

The AI revolution is already here. Learning these three skills will prepare you to thrive in it.

Generative artificial intelligence is expected to radically transform all kinds of jobs over the next few years. No longer the exclusive purview of technologists, AI can now be put to work by nearly anyone, using commands in everyday language instead of code. According to our research, most business functions and more than 40% of all U.S. work activity can be augmented, automated, or reinvented with gen AI. The changes are expected to have the largest impact on the legal, banking, insurance, and capital-market sectors—followed by retail, travel, health, and energy.

• H. James Wilson is the global managing director of technology research and thought leadership at Accenture Research. He is the coauthor, with Paul R. Daugherty, of Human + Machine: Reimagining Work in the Age of AI, New and Expanded Edition (HBR Press, 2024). hjameswilson
• Paul R. Daugherty is Accenture’s chief technology and innovation officer. He is the coauthor, with H. James Wilson, of Human + Machine: Reimagining Work in the Age of AI, New and Expanded Edition (HBR Press, 2024). pauldaugh

Partner Center

• Open access
• Published: 10 August 2024

How can health systems approach reducing health inequalities? An in-depth qualitative case study in the UK

• Charlotte Parbery-Clark 1 ,
• Lorraine McSweeney 2 ,
• Joanne Lally 3 &
• Sarah Sowden 4  

BMC Public Health volume  24 , Article number:  2168 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

314 Accesses

Metrics details

Addressing socioeconomic inequalities in health and healthcare, and reducing avoidable hospital admissions requires integrated strategy and complex intervention across health systems. However, the understanding of how to create effective systems to reduce socio-economic inequalities in health and healthcare is limited. The aim was to explore and develop a system’s level understanding of how local areas address health inequalities with a focus on avoidable emergency admissions.

In-depth case study using qualitative investigation (documentary analysis and key informant interviews) in an urban UK local authority. Interviewees were identified using snowball sampling. Documents were retrieved via key informants and web searches of relevant organisations. Interviews and documents were analysed independently based on a thematic analysis approach.

Interviews ( n  = 14) with wide representation from local authority ( n  = 8), NHS ( n  = 5) and voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector ( n  = 1) with 75 documents (including from NHS, local authority, VCSE) were included. Cross-referenced themes were understanding the local context, facilitators of how to tackle health inequalities: the assets, and emerging risks and concerns. Addressing health inequalities in avoidable admissions per se was not often explicitly linked by either the interviews or documents and is not yet embedded into practice. However, a strong coherent strategic integrated population health management plan with a system’s approach to reducing health inequalities was evident as was collective action and involving people, with links to a “strong third sector”. Challenges reported include structural barriers and threats, the analysis and accessibility of data as well as ongoing pressures on the health and care system.

We provide an in-depth exploration of how a local area is working to address health and care inequalities. Key elements of this system’s working include fostering strategic coherence, cross-agency working, and community-asset based approaches. Areas requiring action included data sharing challenges across organisations and analytical capacity to assist endeavours to reduce health and care inequalities. Other areas were around the resilience of the system including the recruitment and retention of the workforce. More action is required to embed reducing health inequalities in avoidable admissions explicitly in local areas with inaction risking widening the health gap.

Highlights:

• Reducing health inequalities in avoidable hospital admissions is yet to be explicitly linked in practice and is an important area to address.

• Understanding the local context helps to identify existing assets and threats including the leverage points for action.

• Requiring action includes building the resilience of our complex systems by addressing structural barriers and threats as well as supporting the workforce (training and wellbeing with improved retention and recruitment) in addition to the analysis and accessibility of data across the system.

Peer Review reports

Introduction

The health of our population is determined by the complex interaction of several factors which are either non-modifiable (such as age, genetics) or modifiable (such as the environment, social, economic conditions in which we live, our behaviours as well as our access to healthcare and its quality) [ 1 ]. Health inequalities are the avoidable and unfair systematic differences in health and healthcare across different population groups explained by the differences in distribution of power, wealth and resources which drive the conditions of daily life [ 2 , 3 ]. Essentially, health inequalities arise due to the systematic differences of the factors that influence our health. To effectively deal with most public health challenges, including reducing health inequalities and improving population health, broader integrated approaches [ 4 ] and an emphasis on systems is required [ 5 , 6 ] . A system is defined as ‘the set of actors, activities, and settings that are directly or indirectly perceived to have influence in or be affected by a given problem situation’ (p.198) [ 7 ]. In this case, the ‘given problem situation' is reducing health inequalities with a focus on avoidable admissions. Therefore, we must consider health systems, which are the organisations, resources and people aiming to improve or maintain health [ 8 , 9 ] of which health services provision is an aspect. In this study, the system considers NHS bodies, Integrated Care Systems, Local Authority departments, and the voluntary and community sector in a UK region.

A plethora of theories [ 10 ], recommended policies [ 3 , 11 , 12 , 13 ], frameworks [ 1 , 14 , 15 ], and tools [ 16 ] exist to help understand the existence of health inequalities as well as provide suggestions for improvement. However, it is reported that healthcare leaders feel under-skilled to reduce health inequalities [ 17 ]. A lack of clarity exists on how to achieve a system’s multi-agency coherence to reduce health inequalities systematically [ 17 , 18 ]. This is despite some countries having legal obligations to have a regard to the need to attend to health and healthcare inequalities. For example, the Health and Social Care Act 2012 [ 19 ], in England, mandated Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), now transferred to Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) [ 20 ], to ‘have a regard to the need to reduce inequalities between patients with respect to their ability to access health services, and reduce inequalities between patients with respect to the outcomes achieved for them by the provision of health services’. The wider determinants of health must also be considered. For example, local areas have a mandatory requirement to have a joint strategic needs assessment (JSNA) and joint health and wellbeing strategy (JHWS) whose purpose is to ‘improve the health and wellbeing of the local community and reduce inequalities for all ages' [ 21 ] This includes addressing the wider determinants of health [ 21 ]. Furthermore, the hospital care costs to the NHS associated with socioeconomic inequalities has been previously reported at £4.8 billion a year due to excess hospitalisations [ 22 ]. Avoidable emergency admissions are admissions into hospital that are considered to be preventable with high-quality ambulatory care [ 23 ]. Both ambulatory care sensitive conditions (where effective personalised care based in the community can aid the prevention of needing an admission) and urgent care sensitive conditions (where a system on the whole should be able to treat and manage without an admission) are considered within this definition [ 24 ] (encompassing more than 100 International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes). The disease burden sits disproportionately with our most disadvantaged communities, therefore highlighting the importance of addressing inequalities in hospital pressures in a concerted manner [ 25 , 26 ].

Research examining one component of an intervention, or even one part of the system, [ 27 ] or which uses specific research techniques to control for the system’s context [ 28 ] are considered as having limited use for identifying the key ingredients to achieve better population health and wellbeing [ 5 , 28 ]. Instead, systems thinking considers how the system’s components and sub-components interconnect and interrelate within and between each other (and indeed other systems) to gain an understanding of the mechanisms by which things work [ 29 , 30 ]. Complex interventions or work programmes may perform differently in varying contexts and through different mechanisms, and therefore cannot simply be replicated from one context to another to automatically achieve the same outcomes. Ensuring that research into systems and systems thinking considers real-world context, such as where individuals live, where policies are created and interventions are delivered, is vital [ 5 ]. How the context and implementation of complex or even simple interventions interact is viewed as becoming increasingly important [ 31 , 32 ]. Case study research methodology is founded on the ‘in-depth exploration of complex phenomena in their natural, or ‘real-life’, settings’ (p.2) [ 33 ]. Case study approaches can deepen the understanding of complexity addressing the ‘how’, ‘what’ and ‘why’ questions in a real-life context [ 34 ]. Researchers have highlighted the importance of engaging more deeply with case-based study methodology [ 31 , 33 ]. Previous case study research has shown promise [ 35 ] which we build on by exploring a systems lens to consider the local area’s context [ 16 ] within which the work is implemented. By using case-study methodology, our study aimed to explore and develop an in-depth understanding of how a local area addresses health inequalities, with a focus on avoidable hospital admissions. As part of this, systems processes were included.

Study design

This in-depth case study is part of an ongoing larger multiple (collective [ 36 ]) case study approach. An instrumental approach [ 34 ] was taken allowing an in-depth investigation of an issue, event or phenomenon, in its natural real-life context; referred to as a ‘naturalistic’ design [ 34 ]. Ethics approval was obtained by Newcastle University’s Ethics Committee (ref 13633/2020).

Study selection

This case study, alongside the other three cases, was purposively [ 36 ] chosen considering overall deprivation level of the area (Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) [ 37 ]), their urban/rural location, differing geographical spread across the UK (highlighted in patient and public feedback and important for considering the North/South health divide [ 38 ]), and a pragmatic judgement of likely ability to achieve the depth of insight required [ 39 ]. In this paper, we report the findings from one of the case studies, an urban local authority in the Northern region of the UK with high levels of socioeconomic disadvantage. This area was chosen for this in-depth case analysis due to high-level of need, and prior to the COVID-19 pandemic (2009-2018) had experienced a trend towards reducing socioeconomic inequalities in avoidable hospital admission rates between neighbourhoods within the local area [ 40 ]. Thereby this case study represents an ‘unusual’ case [ 41 ] to facilitate learning regarding what is reported and considered to be the key elements required to reduce health inequalities, including inequalities in avoidable admissions, in a local area.

Semi-structured interviews

The key informants were identified iteratively through the documentary analysis and in consultation with the research advisory group. Initially board level committee members (including lay, managerial, and clinical members) within relevant local organisations were purposively identified. These individuals were systems leaders charged with the remit of tackling health inequalities and therefore well placed to identify both key personnel and documents. Snowball sampling [ 42 ] was undertaken thereafter whereby interviewees helped to identify additional key informants within the local system who were working on health inequalities, including avoidable emergency admissions, at a systems level. Interview questions were based on an iteratively developed topic guide (supplementary data 1), informed from previous work’s findings [ 43 ] and the research advisory network’s input. A study information sheet was emailed to perspective interviewees, and participants were asked to complete an e-consent form using Microsoft Forms [ 42 ]. Each interviewee was interviewed by either L.M. or C.P.-C. using the online platforms Zoom or Teams, and lasted up to one hour. Participants were informed of interviewers’ role, workplace as well as purpose of the study. Interviewees were asked a range of questions including any work relating to reducing health inequalities, particularly avoidable emergency admissions, within the last 5 years. Brief notes were taken, and the interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim and anonymised.

Documentary analysis

The documentary analysis followed the READ approach [ 44 ]. Any documents from the relevant local/regional area with sections addressing health inequalities and/or avoidable emergency admissions, either explicitly stated or implicitly inferred, were included. A list of core documents was chosen, including the local Health and Wellbeing Strategy (Table 1 ). Subsequently, other documents were identified by snowballing from these core documents and identification by the interviewees. All document types were within scope if produced/covered a period within 5 years (2017-2022), including documents in the public domain or not as well as documents pertaining to either a regional, local and neighbourhood level. This 5-year period was a pragmatic decision in line with the interviews and considered to be a balance of legacy and relevance. Attempts were made to include the final version of each document, where possible/applicable, otherwise the most up-to-date version or version available was used.

An Excel spreadsheet data extraction tool was adapted with a priori criteria [ 44 ] to extract the data. This tool included contextual information (such as authors, target area and document’s purpose). Also, information based on previous research on addressing socioeconomic inequalities in avoidable emergency admissions, such as who stands to benefit, was extracted [ 43 ]. Additionally, all documents were summarised according to a template designed according to the research’s aims. Data extraction and summaries were undertaken by L.M. and C.P.-C. A selection was doubled coded to enhance validity and any discrepancies were resolved by discussion.

Interviews and documents were coded and analysed independently based on a thematic analysis approach [ 45 ], managed by NVivo software. A combination of ‘interpretive’ and ‘positivist’ stance [ 34 , 46 ] was taken which involved understanding meanings/contexts and processes as perceived from different perspectives (interviewees and documents). This allowed for an understanding of individual and shared social meanings/reasonings [ 34 , 36 ]. For the documentary analysis, a combination of both content and thematic analysis as described by Bowen [ 47 ] informed by Braun and Clarke’s approach to thematic analysis [ 45 ] was used. This type of content analysis does not include the typical quantification but rather a review of the document for pertinent and meaningful passages of text/other data [ 47 ]. Both an inductive and deductive approach for the documentary analysis’ coding [ 46 , 47 ] was chosen. The inductive approach was developed a posteriori; the deductive codes being informed by the interviews and previous findings from research addressing socioeconomic inequalities in avoidable emergency admissions [ 43 ]. In line with qualitative epistemological approach to enquiry, the interview and documentary findings were viewed as ‘truths’ in themselves with the acceptance that multiple realities can co-exist [ 48 ]. The analysis of each set of themes (with subthemes) from the documentary analysis and interviews were cross-referenced and integrated with each other to provide a cohesive in-depth analysis [ 49 ] by generating thematic maps to explore the relationships between the themes. The codes, themes and thematic maps were peer-reviewed continually with regular meetings between L.M., C.P.-C., J.L. and S.S. Direct quotes are provided from the interviews and documentary analysis. Some quotes from the documents are paraphrased to protect anonymity of the case study after following a set process considering a range of options. This involved searching each quote from the documentary analysis in Google and if the quote was found in the first page of the result, we shortened extracts and repeated the process. Where the shortened extracts were still identifiable, we were required to paraphrase that quote. Each paraphrased quote and original was shared and agreed with all the authors reducing the likelihood of inadvertently misinterpreting or misquoting. Where multiple components over large bodies of text were present in the documents, models were used to evidence the broadness, for example, using Dahlgren’s and Whitehead’s model of health determinants [ 1 ]. Due to the nature of the study, transcripts and findings were not shared with participants for checking but will be shared in a dissemination workshop in 2024.

Patient and public involvement and engagement

Four public contributors from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Research Design Service (RDS) North East and North Cumbria (NENC) Public and Patient Involvement (PPI) panel have been actively engaged in this research from its inception. They have been part of the research advisory group along with professional stakeholders and were involved in the identification of the sampling frame’s key criteria. Furthermore, a diverse group of public contributors has been actively involved in other parts of the project including developing the moral argument around action by producing a public facing resource exploring what health inequalities mean to people and public views of possible solutions [ 50 ].

Semi-structured interviews: description

Sixteen participants working in health or social care, identified through the documentary analysis or snowballing, were contacted for interview; fourteen consented to participate. No further interviews were sought as data sufficiency was reached whereby no new information or themes were being identified. Participant roles were broken down by NHS ( n  = 5), local authority/council ( n  = 8), and voluntary, community and social enterprise (VSCE) ( n  = 1). To protect the participants’ anonymity, their employment titles/status are not disclosed. However, a broad spectrum of interviewees with varying roles from senior health system leadership (including strategic and commissioner roles) to roles within provider organisations and the VSCE sector were included.

Documentary analysis: description

75 documents were reviewed with documents considering regional ( n  = 20), local ( n  = 64) or neighbourhood ( n  = 2) area with some documents covering two or more areas. Table 2 summarises the respective number of each document type which included statutory documents to websites from across the system (NHS, local government and VSCE). 45 documents were named by interviewees and 42 documents were identified as either a core document or through snowballing from other documents. Of these, 12 documents were identified from both. The timescales of the documents varied and where possible to identify, was from 2014 to 2031.

Integrative analysis of the documentary analysis and interviews

The overarching themes encompass:

Understanding the local context

Facilitators to tacking health inequalities: the assets

Emerging risks and concerns

Figure 1 demonstrates the relationships between the main themes identified from the analysis for tackling health inequalities and improving health in this case study.

Diagram of the relationship between the key themes identified regarding tackling health inequalities and improving health in a local area informed by 2 previous work [ 14 , 51 ]. NCDs = non-communicable diseases; HI = health inequalities

Understanding the local context was discussed extensively in both the documents and the interviews. This was informed by local intelligence and data that was routinely collected, monitored, and analysed to help understand the local context and where inequalities lie. More bespoke, in-depth collection and analysis were also described to get a better understanding of the situation. This not only took the form of quantitative but also considered qualitative data with lived experience:

‛So, our data comes from going out to talk to people. I mean, yes, especially the voice of inequalities, those traditional mechanisms, like surveys, don't really work. And it's about going out to communities, linking in with third sector organisations, going out to communities, and just going out to listen…I think the more we can bring out those real stories. I mean, we find quotes really, really powerful in terms of helping people understand what it is that matters.’ (LP16).

However, there were limitations to the available data including the quality as well as having enough time to do the analysis justice. This resulted in difficulties in being able to fully understand the context to help identify and act on the required improvements.

‘A lack of available data means we cannot quantify the total number of vulnerable migrants in [region]’ (Document V).

‛So there’s lots of data. The issue is joining that data up and analysing it, and making sense of it. That’s where we don’t have the capacity.’ (LP15).

Despite the caveats, understanding the context and its data limitations were important to inform local priorities and approaches on tackling health inequalities. This understanding was underpinned by three subthemes which were understanding:

the population’s needs including identification of people at higher risk of worse health and health inequalities

the driving forces of those needs with acknowledgement of the impact of the wider determinants of health

the threats and barriers to physical and mental health, as well as wellbeing

Firstly, the population’s needs, including identification of people at higher risk of worse health and health inequalities, was important. This included considering risk factors, such as smoking, specific groups of people and who was presenting with which conditions. Between the interviews and documents, variation was seen between groups deemed at-risk or high-risk with the documents identifying a wider range. The groups identified across both included marginalised communities, such as ethnic minority groups, gypsy and travellers, refugees and asylum seekers as well as people/children living in disadvantaged area.

‘There are significant health inequalities in children with asthma between deprived and more affluent areas, and this is reflected in A&E admissions.' (Document J).

Secondly, the driving forces of those needs with acknowledgement of the impact of the wider determinants of health were described. These forces mapped onto Dahlgren’s and Whitehead’s model of health determinants [ 1 ] consisting of individual lifestyle factors, social and community networks, living and working conditions (which include access to health care services) as well as general socio-economic, cultural and environmental conditions across the life course.

…. at the centre of our approach considering the requirements to improve the health and wellbeing of our area are the wider determinants of health and wellbeing, acknowledging how factors, such as housing, education, the environment and economy, impact on health outcomes and wellbeing over people’s lifetime and are therefore pivotal to our ambition to ameliorate the health of the poorest the quickest. (Paraphrased Document P).

Thirdly, the threats and barriers to health included environmental risks, communicable diseases and associated challenges, non-communicable conditions and diseases, mental health as well as structural barriers. In terms of communicable diseases, COVID-19 predominated. The environmental risks included climate change and air pollution. Non-communicable diseases were considered as a substantial and increasing threat and encompassed a wide range of chronic conditions such as diabetes, and obesity.

‛Long term conditions are the leading causes of death and disability in [case study] and account for most of our health and care spending. Cases of cancer, diabetes, respiratory disease, dementia and cardiovascular disease will increase as the population of [case study] grows and ages.’ (Document A).

Structural barriers to accessing and using support and/or services for health and wellbeing were identified. These barriers included how the services are set up, such as some GP practices asking for proof of a fixed address or form of identification to register. For example:

Complicated systems (such as having to make multiple calls, the need to speak to many people/gatekeepers or to call at specific time) can be a massive barrier to accessing healthcare and appointments. This is the case particularly for people who have complex mental health needs or chaotic/destabilized circumstances. People who do not have stable housing face difficulties in registering for GP and other services that require an address or rely on post to communicate appointments. (Paraphrased Document R).

A structural threat regarding support and/or services for health and wellbeing was the sustainability of current funding with future uncertainty posing potential threats to the delivery of current services. This also affected the ability to adapt and develop the services, or indeed build new ones.

‛I would say the other thing is I have a beef [sic] [disagreement] with pilot studies or new innovations. Often soft funded, temporary funded, charity funded, partnership work run by enthusiasts. Me, I've done them, or supported people doing many of these. And they're great. They can make a huge impact on the individuals involved on that local area. You can see fantastic work. You get inspired and you want to stand up in a crowd and go, “Wahey, isn't this fantastic?” But actually the sad part of it is on these things, I've seen so many where we then see some good, positive work being done, but we can't make it permanent or we can't spread it because there's no funding behind it.’ (LP8).

Facilitators to tackling health inequalities: the assets

The facilitators for improving health and wellbeing and tackling health inequalities are considered as assets which were underpinned by values and principles.

Values driven supported by four key principles

Being values driven was an important concept and considered as the underpinning attitudes or beliefs that guide decision making [ 52 ]. Particularly, the system’s approach was underpinned by a culture and a system's commitment to tackle health inequalities across the documents and interviews. This was also demonstrated by how passionately and emotively some interviewees spoke about their work.

‛There's a really strong desire and ethos around understanding that we will only ever solve these problems as a system, not by individual organisations or even just part of the system working together. And that feels great.’ (LP3).

Other values driving the approach included accountability, justice, and equity. Reducing health inequalities and improving health were considered to be the right things to do. For example:

We feel strongly about social justice and being inclusive, wishing to reflect the diversity of [case study]. We campaign on subjects that are important to people who are older with respect and kindness. (Paraphrased Document O).

Four key principles were identified that crosscut the assets which were:

Shared vision

Strong partnership

Asset-based approaches

Willingness and ability to act on learning

The mandated strategy, identifying priorities for health and wellbeing for the local population with the required actions, provided the shared vision across each part of the system, and provided the foundations for the work. This shared vision was repeated consistently in the documents and interviews from across the system.

[Case study] will be a place where individuals who have the lowest socioeconomic status will ameliorate their health the quickest. [Case study] will be a place for good health and compassion for all people, regardless of their age. (Paraphrased Document A).

‛One thing that is obviously becoming stronger and stronger is the focus on health inequalities within all of that, and making sure that we are helping people and provide support to people with the poorest health as fast as possible, so that agenda hasn’t shifted.’ (LP7).

This drive to embed the reduction of health inequalities was supported by clear new national guidance encapsulated by the NHS Core20PLUS5 priorities. Core20PLUS5 is the UK's approach to support a system to improve their healthcare inequalities [ 53 ]. Additionally, the system's restructuring from Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) to Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) and formalisation of the now statutory Integrated Care Systems (ICS) in England was also reported to facilitate the driving of further improvement in health inequalities. These changes at a regional and local level helped bring key partners across the system (NHS and local government among others) to build upon their collective responsibility for improving health and reducing health inequalities for their area [ 54 ].

‛I don’t remember the last time we’ve had that so clear, or the last time that health inequalities has had such a prominent place, both in the NHS planning guidance or in the NHS contract. ’ (LP15). ‛The Health and Care Act has now got a, kind of, pillar around health inequalities, the new establishment of ICPs and ICBs, and also the planning guidance this year had a very clear element on health inequalities.’ (LP12)

A strong partnership and collaborative team approach across the system underpinned the work from the documents and included the reoccurrence of the concept that this case study acted as one team: ‘Team [case study]'.

Supporting one another to ensure [case study] is the best it can be: Team [case study]. It involves learning, sharing ideas as well as organisations sharing assets and resources, authentic partnerships, and striving for collective impact (environmental and social) to work towards shared goals . (Paraphrased Document B).

This was corroborated in the interviews as working in partnership to tackle health inequalities was considered by the interviewees as moving in the right direction. There were reports that the relationship between local government, health care and the third sector had improved in recent years which was still an ongoing priority:

‘I think the only improvement I would cite, which is not an improvement in terms of health outcomes, but in terms of how we work across [case study] together has moved on quite a lot, in terms of teams leads and talking across us, and how we join up on things, rather than see ourselves all as separate bodies' (LP15).

‘I think the relationship between local authorities and health and the third sector, actually, has much more parity and esteem than it had before.' (LP11)

The approaches described above were supported by all health and care partners signing up to principles around partnership; it is likely this has helped foster the case study's approach. This also builds on the asset-based approaches that were another key principle building on co-production and co-creation which is described below.

We begin with people : instead of doing things to people or for them, we work with them, augmenting the skills, assets and strength of [case study]’s people, workforce and carers. We achieve : actions are focused on over words and by using intelligence, every action hones in on the actual difference that we will make to ameliorate outcomes, quality and spend [case study]’s money wisely; We are Team [case study ]: having kindness, working as one organisation, taking responsibility collectively and delivering on what we agreed. Problems are discussed with a high challenge and high support attitude. (Paraphrased Document D).

At times, the degree to which the asset-based approaches were embedded differed from the documents compared to the interviews, even when from the same part of the system. For example, the documents often referred to the asset-based approach as having occurred whilst interviewees viewed it more as a work in progress.

‘We have re-designed many of our services to focus on needs-led, asset-based early intervention and prevention, and have given citizens more control over decisions that directly affect them .’ (Document M).

‘But we’re trying to take an asset-based approach, which is looking at the good stuff in communities as well. So the buildings, the green space, the services, but then also the social capital stuff that happens under the radar.’ (LP11).

A willingness to learn and put in action plans to address the learning were present. This enables future proofing by building on what is already in place to build the capacity, capability and flexibility of the system. This was particularly important for developing the workforce as described below.

‘So we’ve got a task and finish group set up, […] So this group shows good practice and is a space for people to discuss some of the challenges or to share what interventions they are doing around the table, and also look at what other opportunities that they have within a region or that we could build upon and share and scale.’ (LP12).

These assets that are considered as facilitators are divided into four key levels which are the system, services and support, communities and individuals, and workforce which are discussed in turn below.

Firstly, the system within this case study was made up of many organisations and partnerships within the NHS, local government, VSCE sector and communities. The interviewees reported the presence of a strong VCSE sector which had been facilitated by the local council's commitment to funding this sector:

‘Within [case study], we have a brilliant third sector, the council has been longstanding funders of infrastructure in [case study], third sector infrastructure, to enable those links [of community engagement] to be made' (LP16).

In both the documents and interviews, a strong coherent strategic integrated population health management plan with a system’s approach to embed the reduction of health inequalities was evident. For example, on a system level regionally:

‘To contribute towards a reduction in health inequalities we will: take a system wide approach for improving outcomes for specific groups known to be affected by health inequalities, starting with those living in our most deprived communities….’ (Document H).

This case study’s approach within the system included using creative solutions and harnessing technology. This included making bold and inventive changes to improve how the city and the system linked up and worked together to improve health. For example, regeneration work within the city to ameliorate and transform healthcare facilities as well as certain neighbourhoods by having new green spaces, better transport links in order to improve city-wide innovation and collaboration (paraphrased Document F) were described. The changes were not only related to physical aspects of the city but also aimed at how the city digitally linked up. Being a leader in digital innovation to optimise the health benefits from technology and information was identified in several documents.

‘ Having the best connected city using digital technology to improve health and wellbeing in innovative ways.’ (Document G).

The digital approaches included ongoing development of a digitalised personalised care record facilitating access to the most up-to-date information to developing as well as having the ‘ latest, cutting edge technologies’ ( Document F) in hospital care. However, the importance of not leaving people behind by embedding digital alternatives was recognised in both the documents and interviews.

‘ We are trying to just embed the culture of doing an equity health impact assessment whenever you are bringing in a digital solution or a digital pathway, and that there is always an alternative there for people who don’t have the capability or capacity to use it. ’ (LP1).

The successful one hundred percent [redacted] programme is targeting some of our most digitally excluded citizens in [case study]. For our city to continue to thrive, we all need the appropriate skills, technology and support to get the most out of being online. (Paraphrased Document Q)

This all links in with the system that functions in a ‘place' which includes the importance of where people are born, grow, work and live. Working towards this place being welcoming and appealing was described both regionally and locally. This included aiming to make the case study the place of choice for people.

‘Making [case study] a centre for good growth becoming the place of choice in the UK to live, to study, for businesses to invest in, for people to come and work.’ (Document G).

Services and support

Secondly, a variety of available services and support were described from the local authority, NHS, and voluntary community sectors. Specific areas of work, such as local initiatives (including targeted work or campaigns for specific groups or specific health conditions) as well as parts of the system working together with communities collaboratively, were identified. This included a wide range of work being done such as avoiding delayed discharges or re-admissions, providing high quality affordable housing as well as services offering peer support.

‘We have a community health development programme called [redacted], that works with particular groups in deprived communities and ethnically diverse communities to work in a very trusted and culturally appropriate way on the things that they want to get involved with to support their health.’ (LP3 ).

It is worth noting that reducing health inequalities in avoidable admissions was not often explicitly specified in the documents or interviews. However, either specified or otherwise inferred, preventing ill health and improving access, experience, and outcomes were vital components to addressing inequalities. This was approached by working with communities to deliver services in communities that worked for all people. Having co-designed, accessible, equitable integrated services and support appeared to be key.

‘Reducing inequalities in unplanned admissions for conditions that could be cared for in the community and access to planned hospital care is key.’ (Document H)

Creating plans with people: understanding the needs of local population and designing joined-up services around these needs. (Paraphrased Document A).

‘ So I think a core element is engagement with your population, so that ownership and that co-production, if you're going to make an intervention, don't do it without because you might miss the mark. ’ (LP8).

Clear, consistent and appropriate communication that was trusted was considered important to improve health and wellbeing as well as to tackle health inequalities. For example, trusted community members being engaged to speak on the behalf of the service providers:

‘The messenger is more important than the message, sometimes.’ (LP11).

This included making sure the processes are in place so that the information is accessible for all, including people who have additional communication needs. This was considered as a work in progress in this case study.

‘I think for me, things do come down to those core things, of health, literacy, that digital exclusion and understanding the wider complexities of people.’ (LP12)

‘ But even more confusing if you've got an additional communication need. And we've done quite a lot of work around the accessible information standard which sounds quite dry, and doesn't sound very- but actually, it's fundamental in accessing health and care. And that is, that all health and care organisations should record your communication preferences. So, if I've got a learning disability, people should know. If I've got a hearing impairment, people should know. But the systems don’t record it, so blind people are getting sent letters for appointments, or if I've got hearing loss, the right provisions are not made for appointments. So, actually, we're putting up barriers before people even come in, or can even get access to services.’ (LP16).

Flexible, empowering, holistic care and support that was person-centric was more apparent in the documents than the interviews.

At the centre of our vision is having more people benefiting from the life chances currently enjoyed by the few to make [case study] a more equal place. Therefore, we accentuate the importance of good health, the requirement to boost resilience, and focus on prevention as a way of enabling higher quality service provision that is person-centred. [Paraphrased Document N).

Through this [work], we will give all children and young people in [case study], particularly if they are vulnerable and/or disadvantaged, a start in life that is empowering and enable them to flourish in a compassionate and lively city. [Paraphrased Document M].

Communities and individuals

Thirdly, having communities and individuals at the heart of the work appeared essential and viewed as crucial to nurture in this case study. The interconnectedness of the place, communities and individuals were considered a key part of the foundations for good health and wellbeing.

In [case study], our belief is that our people are our greatest strength and our most important asset. Wellbeing starts with people: our connections with our friends, family, and colleagues, our behaviour, understanding, and support for one another, as well as the environment we build to live in together . (Paraphrased Document A).

A recognition of the power of communities and individuals with the requirement to support that key principle of a strength-based approach was found. This involved close working with communities to help identify what was important, what was needed and what interventions would work. This could then lead to improved resilience and cohesion.

‛You can't make effective health and care decisions without having the voice of people at the centre of that. It just won't work. You won't make the right decisions.’ (LP16).

‘Build on the strengths in ourselves, our families, carers and our community; working with people, actively listening to what matters most to people, with a focus on what’s strong rather than what’s wrong’ (Document G).

Meaningful engagement with communities as well as strengths and asset-based approaches to ensure self-sufficiency and sustainability of communities can help communities flourish. This includes promoting friendships, building community resilience and capacity, and inspiring residents to find solutions to change the things they feel needs altering in their community . (Paraphrased Document B).

This close community engagement had been reported to foster trust and to lead to improvements in health.

‘But where a system or an area has done a lot of community engagement, worked really closely with the community, gained their trust and built a programme around them rather than just said, “Here it is. You need to come and use it now,” you can tell that has had the impact. ' (LP1).

Finally, workforce was another key asset; the documents raised the concept of one workforce across health and care. The key principles of having a shared vision, asset-based approaches and strong partnership were also present in this example:

By working together, the Health and Care sector makes [case study] the best area to not only work but also train for people of all ages. Opportunities for skills and jobs are provided with recruitment and engagement from our most disadvantaged communities, galvanizing the future’s health and care workforce. By doing this, we have a very skilled and diverse workforce we need to work with our people now as well as in the future. (Paraphrased Document E).

An action identified for the health and care system to address health inequalities in case study 1 was ‘ the importance of having an inclusive workforce trained in person-centred working practices ’ (Document R). Several ways were found to improve and support workforce skills development and embed awareness of health inequalities in practice and training. Various initiatives were available such as an interactive health inequalities toolkit, theme-related fellowships, platforms and networks to share learning and develop skills.

‛We've recently launched a [redacted] Fellowship across [case study’s region], and we've got a number of clinicians and managers on that………. We've got training modules that we've put on across [case study’s region], as well for health inequalities…we've got learning and web resources where we share good practice from across the system, so that is our [redacted] Academy.’ (LP2).

This case study also recognised the importance of considering the welfare of the workforce; being skilled was not enough. This had been recognised pre-pandemic but was seen as even more important post COVID-19 due to the impact that COVID-19 had on staff, particularly in health and social care.

‛The impacts of the pandemic cannot be underestimated; our colleagues and services are fatigued and still dealing with the pressures. This context makes it even more essential that we share the responsibility, learn from each other at least and collaborate with each other at best, and hold each other up to be the best we can.’ (Document U).

Concerns were raised such as the widening of health inequalities since the pandemic and cost of living crisis. Post-pandemic and Brexit, recruiting health, social care and third sector staff was compounding the capacity throughout this already heavily pressurised system.

In [case study], we have seen the stalling of life expectancy and worsening of the health inequality gap, which is expected to be compounded by the effects of the pandemic. (Paraphrased Document T)

‘I think key barriers, just the immense pressure on the system still really […] under a significant workload, catching up on activity, catching up on NHS Health Checks, catching up on long-term condition reviews. There is a significant strain on the system still in terms of catching up. It has been really difficult because of the impact of COVID.’ (LP7).

‘Workforce is a challenge, because the pipelines that we’ve got, we’ve got fewer people coming through many of them. And that’s not just particular to, I don't know, nursing, which is often talking talked [sic] about as a challenged area, isn't it? And of course, it is. But we’ve got similar challenges in social care, in third sector.’ (LP5).

The pandemic was reported to have increased pressures on the NHS and services not only in relation to staff capacity but also regarding increases in referrals to services, such as mental health. Access to healthcare changed during the pandemic increasing barriers for some:

‘I think people are just confused about where they're supposed to go, in terms of accessing health and care at the moment. It's really complex to understand where you're supposed to go, especially, at the moment, coming out of COVID, and the fact that GPs are not the accessible front door. You can't just walk into your GP anymore.’ (LP16).

‘Meeting this increased demand [for work related to reducing ethnic inequalities in mental health] is starting to prove a challenge and necessitates some discussion about future resourcing.’ (Document S)

Several ways were identified to aid effective adaptation and/or mitigation. This included building resilience such as developing the existing capacity, capability and flexibility of the system by learning from previous work, adapting structures and strengthening workforce development. Considerations, such as a commitment to Marmot Principles and how funding could/would contribute, were also discussed.

The funding’s [linked to Core20PLUS5] purpose is to help systems to ensure that health inequalities are not made worse when cost-savings or efficiencies are sought…The available data and insight are clear and [health inequalities are] likely to worsen in the short term, the delays generated by pandemic, the disproportionate effect of that on the most deprived and the worsening food and fuel poverty in all our places. (Paraphrased Document L).

Learning from the pandemic was thought to be useful as some working practices had altered during COVID-19 for the better, such as needing to continue to embed how the system had collaborated and resist old patterns of working:

‘So I think that emphasis between collaboration – extreme collaboration – which is what we did during COVID is great. I suppose the problem is, as we go back into trying to save money, we go back into our old ways of working, about working in silos. And I think we’ve got to be very mindful of that, and continue to work in a different way.’ (LP11).

Another area identified as requiring action, was the collection, analysis, sharing and use of data accessible by the whole system.

‘So I think there is a lot of data out there. It’s just how do we present that in such a way that it’s accessible to everyone as well, because I think sometimes, what happens is that we have one group looking at data in one format, but then how do we cascade that out?’ (LP12)

We aimed to explore a system’s level understanding of how a local area addresses health inequalities with a focus on avoidable emergency admissions using a case study approach. Therefore, the focus of our research was strategic and systematic approaches to inequalities reduction. Gaining an overview of what was occurring within a system is pertinent because local areas are required to have a regard to address health inequalities in their local areas [ 20 , 21 ]. Through this exploration, we also developed an understanding of the system's processes reported to be required. For example, an area requiring action was viewed as the accessibility and analysis of data. The case study described having health inequalities ‘at the heart of its health and wellbeing strategy ’ which was echoed across the documents from multiple sectors across the system. Evidence of a values driven partnership with whole systems working was centred on the importance of place and involving people, with links to a ‘strong third sector ’ . Working together to support and strengthen local assets (the system, services/support, communities/individuals, and the workforce) were vital components. This suggested a system’s committed and integrated approach to improve population health and reduce health inequalities as well as concerted effort to increase system resilience. However, there was juxtaposition at times with what the documents contained versus what interviewees spoke about, for example, the degree to which asset-based approaches were embedded.

Furthermore, despite having a priori codes for the documentary analysis and including specific questions around work being undertaken to reduce health inequalities in avoidable admissions in the interviews with key systems leaders, this explicit link was still very much under-developed for this case study. For example, how to reduce health inequalities in avoidable emergency admissions was not often specified in the documents but could be inferred from existing work. This included work around improving COVID-19 vaccine uptake in groups who were identified as being at high-risk (such as older people and socially excluded populations) by using local intelligence to inform where to offer local outreach targeted pop-up clinics. This limited explicit action linking reduction of health inequalities in avoidable emergency admissions was echoed in the interviews and it became clear as we progressed through the research that a focus on reduction of health inequalities in avoidable hospital admissions at a systems level was not a dominant aspect of people’s work. Health inequalities were viewed as a key part of the work but not necessarily examined together with avoidable admissions. A strengthened will to take action is reported, particularly around reducing health inequalities, but there were limited examples of action to explicitly reduce health inequalities in avoidable admissions. This gap in the systems thinking is important to highlight. When it was explicitly linked, upstream strategies and thinking were acknowledged as requirements to reduce health inequalities in avoidable emergency admissions.

Similar to our findings, other research have also found networks to be considered as the system’s backbone [ 30 ] as well as the recognition that communities need to be central to public health approaches [ 51 , 55 , 56 ]. Furthermore, this study highlighted the importance of understanding the local context by using local routine and bespoke intelligence. It demonstrated that population-based approaches to reduce health inequalities are complex, multi-dimensional and interconnected. It is not about one part of the system but how the whole system interlinks. The interconnectedness and interdependence of the system (and the relevant players/stakeholders) have been reported by other research [ 30 , 57 ], for example without effective exchange of knowledge and information, social networks and systems do not function optimally [ 30 ]. Previous research found that for systems to work effectively, management and transfer of knowledge needs to be collaborative [ 30 ], which was recognised in this case study as requiring action. By understanding the context, including the strengths and challenges, the support or action needed to overcome the barriers can be identified.

There are very limited number of case studies that explore health inequalities with a focus on hospital admissions. Of the existing research, only one part of the health system was considered with interviews looking at data trends [ 35 ]. To our knowledge, this research is the first to build on this evidence by encompassing the wider health system using wider-ranging interviews and documentary analysis. Ford et al. [ 35 ] found that geographical areas typically had plans to reduce total avoidable emergency admissions but not comprehensive plans to reduce health inequalities in avoidable emergency admissions. This approach may indeed widen health inequalities. Health inequalities have considerable health and costs impacts. Pertinently, the hospital care costs associated with socioeconomic inequalities being reported as £4.8 billion a year, mainly due to excess hospitalisations such as avoidable admissions [ 58 ] and the burden of disease lies disproportionately with our most disadvantaged communities, addressing inequalities in hospital pressures is required [ 25 , 26 ].

Implications for research and policy

Improvements to life expectancy have stalled in the UK with a widening of health inequalities [ 12 ]. Health inequalities are not inevitable; it is imperative that the health gap between the deprived and affluent areas is narrowed [ 12 ]. This research demonstrates the complexity and intertwining factors that are perceived to address health inequalities in an area. Despite the evidence of the cost (societal and individual) of avoidable admissions, explicit tackling of inequality in avoidable emergency admissions is not yet embedded into the system, therefore highlights an area for policy and action. This in-depth account and exploration of the characteristics of ‘whole systems’ working to address health inequalities, including where challenges remain, generated in this research will be instrumental for decision makers tasked with addressing health and care inequalities.

This research informs the next step of exploring each identified theme in more detail and moving beyond description to develop tools, using a suite of multidimensional and multidisciplinary methods, to investigate the effects of interventions on systems as previously highlighted by Rutter et al. [ 5 ].

Strengths and limitations

Documentary analysis is often used in health policy research but poorly described [ 44 ]. Furthermore, Yin reports that case study research is often criticised for not adhering to ‘systematic procedures’ p. 18 [ 41 ]. A clear strength of this study was the clearly defined boundary (in time and space) case as well as following a defined systematic approach, with critical thought and rationale provided at each stage [ 34 , 41 ]. A wide range and large number of documents were included as well as interviewees from across the system thereby resulting in a comprehensive case study. Integrating the analysis from two separate methodologies (interviews and documentary analysis), analysed separately before being combined, is also a strength to provide a coherent rich account [ 49 ]. We did not limit the reasons for hospital admission to enable a broad as possible perspective; this is likely to be a strength in this case study as this connection between health inequalities and avoidable hospital admissions was still infrequently made. However, for example, if a specific care pathway for a health condition had been highlighted by key informants this would have been explored.

Due to concerns about identifiability, we took several steps. These included providing a summary of the sectors that the interviewees and document were from but we were not able to specify which sectors each quote pertained. Additionally, some of the document quotes required paraphrasing. However, we followed a set process to ensure this was as rigorous as possible as described in the methods section. For example, where we were required to paraphrase, each paraphrased quote and original was shared and agreed with all the authors to reduce the likelihood to inadvertently misinterpreting or misquoting.

The themes are unlikely to represent an exhaustive list of the key elements requiring attention, but they represent the key themes that were identified using a robust methodological process. The results are from a single urban local authority with high levels of socioeconomic disadvantage in the North of England which may limit generalisability to different contexts. However, the findings are still generalisable to theoretical considerations [ 41 ]. Attempts to integrate a case study with a known framework can result in ‘force-fit’ [ 34 ] which we avoided by developing our own framework (Fig. 1 ) considering other existing models [ 14 , 59 ]. The results are unable to establish causation, strength of association, or direction of influence [ 60 ] and disentangling conclusively what works versus what is thought to work is difficult. The documents’ contents may not represent exactly what occurs in reality, the degree to which plans are implemented or why variation may occur or how variation may affect what is found [ 43 , 61 ]. Further research, such as participatory or non-participatory observation, could address this gap.

Conclusions

This case study provides an in-depth exploration of how local areas are working to address health and care inequalities, with a focus on avoidable hospital admissions. Key elements of this system’s reported approach included fostering strategic coherence, cross-agency working, and community-asset based working. An area requiring action was viewed as the accessibility and analysis of data. Therefore, local areas could consider the challenges of data sharing across organisations as well as the organisational capacity and capability required to generate useful analysis in order to create meaningful insights to assist work to reduce health and care inequalities. This would lead to improved understanding of the context including where the key barriers lie for a local area. Addressing structural barriers and threats as well as supporting the training and wellbeing of the workforce are viewed as key to building resilience within a system to reduce health inequalities. Furthermore, more action is required to embed reducing health inequalities in avoidable admissions explicitly in local areas with inaction risking widening the health gap.

Availability of data and materials

Individual participants’ data that underlie the results reported in this article and a data dictionary defining each field in the set are available to investigators whose proposed use of the data has been approved by an independent review committee for work. Proposals should be directed to [email protected] to gain access, data requestors will need to sign a data access agreement. Such requests are decided on a case by case basis.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to our Understanding Factors that explain Avoidable hospital admission Inequalities - Research study (UNFAIR) PPI contributors, for their involvement in the project particularly in the identification of the key criteria for the sampling frame. Thanks to the research advisory team as well.

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Charlotte Parbery-Clark

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Parbery-Clark, C., McSweeney, L., Lally, J. et al. How can health systems approach reducing health inequalities? An in-depth qualitative case study in the UK. BMC Public Health 24 , 2168 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-19531-5

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Gen AI’s next inflection point: From employee experimentation to organizational transformation

After nearly two years of debate, the verdict is in: generative AI (gen AI) is here to stay, and its business potential is massive . We’ve already witnessed an exponential rate of gen-AI-related innovation , which promises to accelerate automation and enhance productivity, innovation, and the quality of work, as well as the employee and customer experience. The companies that fail to act and adapt now will likely struggle to catch up in the future.

Despite all the buzz, most companies have yet to scratch the surface of gen AI’s promise. A recent McKinsey Global Survey  reveals that employees are far ahead of their organizations in using gen AI, 1 The online survey was in the field from February 27 to March 8, 2024, and garnered responses from 592 participants representing the full range of regions, industries, company sizes, functional specialties, and tenures. Of those respondents, 127 say they are using publicly available or internal gen AI tools almost always at work; 51 say they use public tools never or rarely and that they never use internal tools, or that internal tools are not available to them; and the other 414 say they use either internal or public tools sometimes, often, or at varying frequencies by the type of tool. as companies have been slow to adopt in ways that could realize gen AI’s trillion-dollar opportunity. To harness employees’ enthusiasm and stay ahead, companies need a holistic approach to transforming how the whole organization works with gen AI; the technology alone won’t create value . This means applying gen AI in ways that enable the business strategy: by reinventing operating models and entire domains , 2 That is, specific workflows, processes, journeys, and even functions. by reimagining talent and skilling, and by reinforcing changes through robust governance and infrastructure.

To harness employees’ enthusiasm and stay ahead, companies need a holistic approach to transforming how the whole organization works with gen AI; the technology alone won’t create value.

Employee use is at an inflection point, while their organizations lag behind

According to our research, employees are forging ahead with gen AI, a broadly accessible technology that puts AI’s potential at everyone’s fingertips. Nearly all respondents (91 percent) say they use gen AI for work and the vast majority are enthusiastic about it (Exhibit 1). Nine in ten also believe the tools could positively impact their work experience and most believe gen AI will help with a range of skills, from critical thinking to creativity.

In this respect, most companies are lagging behind their employees. As high as employee usage is, organizational maturity with gen AI is strikingly low. In our survey, only 13 percent of respondents’ companies have implemented multiple use cases, a group we call “early adopters” (Exhibit 2). 3 We define early adopters as those companies, according to respondents, that have implemented six or more gen AI use cases to date. Among them, there’s a larger share of heavy users: that is, employees who use either public or internal gen AI tools every day or two. Compared with others, this group is likelier to use gen AI for a range of work activities and report greater productivity gains. 4 Survey respondents were asked to rate the frequency of their use of gen AI tools, both publicly available and internally developed tools, at work—as well as their use of public tools for nonwork purposes. For all of these questions, potential responses were “never,” “rarely (that is, once per month),” “sometimes (that is, once per week),” “often (that is, two to three times per week),” and “almost always (that is, every day).”

The chief information officer of a global heavy industry company sees these trends at his own organization. Employees are experimenting with gen AI through publicly available and embedded tools, 5 Such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Copilot. which is increasing curiosity and encouraging greater openness to experimentation. Yet he notes that there’s no easy-to-prove business case for employee-driven adoption and the piecemeal implementation of use cases.

The next inflection point: Moving from individual experimentation to strategic value capture

Technology adoption for its own sake has never created value , which is also true with gen AI. Whether technology is itself the core strategy (for example, developing gen-AI-based products) or supports other business strategies, its deployment should link to value creation opportunities and measurable outcomes (for more, see sidebar “‘People led, tech powered’: Walmart’s vision for gen AI”). Our survey findings suggest that early adopters are on track: 63 percent of early-adopter respondents say their organizations’ AI and gen AI strategies align greatly with their business strategies, compared with only 17 percent of respondents at “experimenter” companies. 6 We define experimenters as those companies, according to respondents, that have implemented one to five gen AI use cases.

“People led, tech powered”: Walmart’s vision for gen AI

At Walmart, leaders have created a technology vision and strategy that aligns with its strategic focus on customer and employee experience, the two domains the company targeted with its generative AI (gen AI) implementation. For customers, Walmart introduced gen-AI-based features such as autogenerated shopping lists, “Shop with Friends” (a social shopping app), and “InHome” (an automated delivery service). For associates, Walmart invested in tools such as My Assistant, which minimizes time spent on administrative and HR tasks, and the Me@Walmart app, which includes a reality-powered feature for real-time inventory management.

To capture gen AI’s full potential, companies must consider how the technology can redefine the way the organization works. Our experience and research point to three steps to prepare for gen AI’s next inflection point: reinvent the operating model by translating vision into value, domain by domain; reimagine the talent and skilling strategy; and reinforce changes through formal and informal mechanisms that ensure continuous adaptation.

Reinvent domains by translating vision into value

Companies can only reap gen AI’s full benefits, which range from faster innovation and enhanced productivity to improved employee and customer experience, when they use technology to make transformative changes. More specifically, this means embracing holistic changes to the operating model, including key processes, ways of working, capabilities, and culture. Because anyone can use gen AI, these tools can act as a gateway technology for all other digital and tech transformations.

To start, companies should prioritize the right unit of transformation by focusing on specific domains, such as product development, marketing, and customer service. This domain-based approach  allows for end-to-end, technology-led transformation that integrates multiple use cases within a single value-creating workflow, process, journey, or, occasionally, entire function. Since domains often span organizational boundaries, implementing gen AI and other technologies at the domain level can deliver greater value than one-off solutions.

Here are examples of what’s possible with a domain-based transformation, and the implications for roles and day-to-day work:

• In software development, gen AI can revolutionize work by delivering higher-quality, resilient products much faster; think days instead of months. This will require changes across the product life cycle and closer collaboration between product and engineering teams. Comprehensive product data, prompt-based proofs of concept, and automated requirements can shorten ideation-to-prototyping timelines, allowing for a greater number of iterations. The use of self-writing code, autogenerated user guidance, and continuous code testing would also transform engineers from task completers to systems designers.
• In marketing, gen AI could (finally) enable the vision of true personalization at scale. Companies such as Netflix and Spotify have started on this path with hyperpersonalized video previews and personalized user playlists. These types of practices can enhance engagement and loyalty, allow brands to integrate seamlessly into customers’ lives, boost productivity of content creation, and improve ROI across the sales and marketing funnel. By doing so, the marketing organization’s silos could break down, especially between the creative and analytics teams.
• In customer service, gen AI can transform teams into centers of customer delight by proactively addressing issues and offering new products, all at reduced costs. AI-empowered humans will work with gen AI agents , using real-time trends and customer insights to become empathetic problem solvers and supervisors of customer experience. In the process, customer service agents and supervisors will make more use of technology, apply systems thinking, balance empathetic and commercial mindsets, and work more closely with the customer experience and product teams.
• Gen AI is also set to revolutionize cross-cutting domains, such as performance management and team management. For the latter, gen AI can put coaching prompts at managers’ fingertips and make it easier to access employee resources. This can meaningfully shift the time managers spend on certain tasks: less on administrative to-dos, more on checking in with team members and developing soft skills.

Reimagine talent and skilling by putting people at the center

As the examples above highlight, gen AI’s implications for talent and skill needs are massive. The technology’s potential to accelerate automation and transform operating models will significantly affect the roles and skills that organizations need. According to other McKinsey research , half of today’s work activities could be automated between 2030 and 2060, accelerating previous, pre-gen-AI projections  by a decade. This puts pressure on organizations to understand their talent and skill needs quickly, adopt various strategies to close skill gaps, and invest in upskilling and reskilling. A gen-AI-based talent transformation isn’t something companies can simply hire their way out of, as it affects the entire organization and its ways of working.

Our research shows that early adopters prioritize talent and the human side of gen AI  more than other companies (Exhibit 3). Our survey shows that nearly two-thirds of them have a clear view of their talent gaps and a strategy to close them, compared with just 25 percent of the experimenters. Early adopters focus heavily on upskilling and reskilling as a critical part of their talent strategies, as hiring alone isn’t enough to close gaps and outsourcing can hinder strategic-skills development. Finally, 40 percent of early-adopter respondents say their organizations provide extensive support to encourage employee adoption, versus 9 percent of experimenter respondents.

Companies can capitalize on employees’ enthusiasm for gen AI by investing in both technology adoption and skills (for more, see sidebar “Taking the granular view on gen AI’s workforce implications”). As previous McKinsey research  shows, macroeconomic investments in both enable productivity gains that organizations can also see. This will require a tailored approach to reskilling and upskilling and close collaboration between business and tech leaders and HR. Given the criticality of people topics, HR plays an especially important role in gen AI and technology transformations, both by transforming the people domain and by acting as a gen AI copilot for all employees. One executive noted that for every $1 spent on technology, $5 should be spent on people.

Taking the granular view on gen AI’s workforce implications

A collection of Asian financial institutions did a thorough assessment of generative AI’s (gen AI’s) implications on its roles and skills. They first analyzed the potential capacity that could be freed up across all roles. Then, based on gen AI’s potential impact on certain roles and cohorts, the institutions determined their upskilling, reskilling, and employee redeployment needs. Using this comprehensive fact base, these institutions defined specific interventions to prepare each cohort for gen AI’s effects on its work. For example, shifting skill proficiencies toward technical areas (such as application development and integration) and designing learning journeys for technical team members in areas such as large language model operations and responsible AI policy.

With gen AI, building capabilities across the entire enterprise is crucial. As it’s a rapidly evolving, widely accessible technology, employees must adapt to the new skills (such as prompt writing, contextualization, and data-driven decision making) that gen AI demands. While specific skills shifts will vary greatly by company, all organizations will need to take a dynamic approach to talent development, based on their operating-model transformations; building skills is an ongoing process. As gen AI and automation reshape roles, employees will also need strong cognitive, strategic thinking and social and emotional skills to handle more complex tasks that complement AI.

Within specific roles, the tech talent who are scaling gen AI and future technologies will need to build, train, and fine-tune AI models. These newer skills will require immersive learning in areas such as software development, cloud integration, and security. Tech talent must also be able to contextualize and apply their judgment when translating business needs into technology solutions. Furthermore, companies will need tech-adjacent roles to manage the governance, operational, HR, and legal aspects of AI. Some roles, such as chief AI officers, will be brand new.

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For domain-based talent, many will need intensive upskilling as their roles evolve. This will include different types of on-the-job learning and formal training opportunities. For example, healthcare professionals might take courses on personalized treatment planning and AI-driven diagnostics that are supplemented with mentoring and real-world projects.

And for all employees, including leaders and managers, it’s vital that everyone learns to use gen AI effectively and safely. Examples include comprehensive learning programs that cover responsible use and effective interaction with AI, as well as more augmentation-focused trainings, such as using gen AI coaching that allows managers to practice giving feedback.

About QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey

QuantumBlack, McKinsey’s AI arm, helps companies transform using the power of technology, technical expertise, and industry experts. With thousands of practitioners at QuantumBlack (data engineers, data scientists, product managers, designers, and software engineers) and McKinsey (industry and domain experts), we are working to solve the world’s most important AI challenges. QuantumBlack Labs is our center of technology development and client innovation, which has been driving cutting-edge advancements and developments in AI through locations across the globe.

A European telecommunications company put tailor-made reskilling into practice by implementing an AI coach for its customer service agents. By analyzing call transcripts from frontline employees, the AI coach assessed people across 20 different soft and hard skills. Both team members and leaders could access a dashboard that tracked progress on these skills and delivered real-time feedback using customer quotes and examples. The AI coach also suggested improvements and learning content based on agents’ performance and behavior, creating a hyperpersonalized learning experience. This tool resulted in a 10 percent reduction in average handling time, a 20 percent increase in customer satisfaction, and a 15 percent increase in the rate of first-time-right responses.

Reinforce the changes to continue transforming

How, exactly, should organizations tackle these massive transformational changes? Real success with gen AI requires a comprehensive, integrated approach to creating value. Our survey indicates that the most useful enabler of future adoption is better integration of gen AI into existing systems, cited by 60 percent of respondents. To make gen AI changes stick, organizations need the right infrastructure to support continuous change and win over hearts and minds.

McKinsey’s original survey research

The first step is establishing the right governance for gen AI (for more, see sidebar “Good gen AI governance at work”). In our experience, this means creating a centralized structure that oversees the organization’s AI adoption, sometimes with a chief AI officer leading these efforts. Nearly all early-adopter respondents (91 percent) say they have implemented some governance structure for gen AI, compared with a smaller share (77 percent) of experimenters. A centralized model with a gen-AI-dedicated center of excellence helps align AI vision with execution. This model also facilitates the implementation of strategy, continuous measurement, adaptation to new insights, and further experimentation—specifically, which experiments to scale or to stop, based on priorities and risks.

Good gen AI governance at work

To enhance its productivity with generative AI (gen AI), a leading multinational bank identified the processes with the highest potential for improvement. This exercise enabled the development of a clear strategy and road map and of a business-led center of excellence, including experts in technology, AI, and risk management. The center of excellence evaluates use cases, implements AI guardrails, tracks metrics, and shares knowledge across the organization. What’s more, the bank integrated active use of gen AI into performance evaluations, ensuring a formal commitment to AI integration.

The second step is treating these changes like a true transformation . This means defining the transformation’s infrastructure, roles, and measurement criteria; ensuring accountability within business units; and implementing a regular cadence to monitor progress—and adjusting as needed.

Third is addressing employee mindsets and behaviors across the organization. We know from extensive transformation research  and countless conversations with executives that changing mindsets and behaviors is vital to any successful transformation. Indeed, in our survey, early adopters focus more than others on the four tenets of the influence model  that enables such changes: role modeling, fostering understanding and conviction, building capabilities, and reinforcing new ways of working (Exhibit 4).

In the gen AI context, this means:

• Role modeling. Leaders should visibly adopt generative AI in their own ways of working. For instance, using AI tools to generate insights and make data-driven decisions showcases the technology’s benefits. It sets a strong example when a CEO uses AI to streamline workflows or a senior executive uses AI-driven analytics for business reviews, encouraging others to follow suit.
• Fostering understanding and conviction. Organizations should communicate the reasons behind implementing gen-AI-related changes through internal communications, town hall meetings, and training sessions. Highlighting AI’s potential to improve efficiency, accuracy, and decision making aligns the team with the new direction. Informative content such as video tutorials and success stories can build collective conviction in AI’s advantages.
• Building capabilities. Successful AI adoption requires comprehensive training programs. This includes training on data analysis, machine learning algorithms, and understanding AI-generated outputs. Collaborating with online education platforms to provide courses and setting up internal AI boot camps for hands-on experience ensures proficiency in AI technologies.
• Reinforcing new ways of working. Companies should integrate AI goals into performance metrics and evaluation processes. They can set targets related to AI adoption, measure AI’s impact on key performance indicators, and recognize employees who effectively incorporate AI into their work. For instance, sales teams could set targets that include leveraging AI for customer segmentation and lead generation, with bonuses tied to successful AI-driven strategies. Tracking and celebrating milestones such as efficiency gains or innovative AI applications embeds these practices within the organization’s fabric.

No matter where an organization is on its gen AI journey, the time for making transformational change is now. Employees are already asking their organizations for more, and some companies have begun moving from experimentation to value capture. By gen AI’s next inflection point, the downside of lagging behind—and missing out on gen AI’s potential benefits—may be even greater. With employees’ embrace of gen AI and the technology’s rapid evolution, companies can capitalize on the current momentum by addressing organizational barriers to adoption, which requires no less than fundamentally transforming the company’s operations and preparing people for continuous change.

Charlotte Relyea is a senior partner in McKinsey’s New York office, Dana Maor is a senior partner in the Tel Aviv office, Sandra Durth is a partner in the Cologne office, and Jan Bouly is an associate partner in the Brussels office.

The authors wish to thank Alex Sukharevsky, Ariel Cohen Codar, Bryan Hancock, Cleo De Laet, Esther Wang, Federico Marafante, Joachim Talloen, Julian Raabe, Julie Goran, Kiera Jones, Michael Chui, Nina Gandhi, Rita Calvão, and Sanjna Parasrampuria for their contributions to this article.

This article was edited by Daniella Seiler, an executive editor in the Washington, DC, office.

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