Change can be daunt­ing, but it can also bring new oppor­tu­ni­ties, and pro­vide the space for explor­ing new ideas and ways of doing things.

The Liv­er­pool New Build project will see our Liv­er­pool Pathol­o­gy team move into a new build­ing in 2023. The change will mean mov­ing from a larg­er space over 4 lev­els, to a small­er space over one lev­el, as well as some dif­fer­ent ways of doing things. Under­stand­ably, staff mem­bers had lots of questions.

This is where the Change Cham­pi­ons came in! Appoint­ed via an EOI, the Change Cham­pi­ons rep­re­sent­ed dif­fer­ent depart­ments and roles who were inter­est­ed, pos­i­tive, resilient and excit­ed about the move.

The Change Cham­pi­ons spoke with oth­er staff to under­stand their con­cerns and helped bring the vision of the move to life – see­ing the plans first-hand and shar­ing infor­ma­tion and updates about what was happening.

They held work­shops over 12 months, which brought staff mem­bers from dif­fer­ent teams togeth­er and pro­vid­ed a friend­ly space where every­one felt safe, respect­ed and lis­tened to. It was an oppor­tu­ni­ty for peo­ple to express their con­cerns and share their views, ideas and suggestions.

Feed­back about the Change Cham­pi­ons pro­gram was that staff felt heard and respect­ed, and appre­ci­at­ed the oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­tribute and have their sug­ges­tions acknowledged.

The pro­gram was an inno­v­a­tive and col­lab­o­ra­tive way to share infor­ma­tion and acquire valu­able feed­back on what will be an impor­tant organ­i­sa­tion­al change.