Case study · Multi-academy trust
From feeling unheard to stronger engagement
A six-month AmbiSense® programme helped a UK multi-academy trust address the organisational conditions behind low staff engagement and rising turnover.
Book a Pressure Map conversationMeasured over six months. The trust is anonymised at its own request.
The challenge
Engagement was falling, turnover was rising, and short- and long-term absence was climbing with it. Each vacancy was getting harder to fill.
The trust already had an Employee Assistance Programme. Hardly anyone used it. It was there to support individuals in difficulty, but it was not touching the reasons people were becoming dissatisfied in the first place.
Following a leadership change, staff reported feeling unheard and undervalued. The gap was not access to support. Leaders could see the numbers moving in the wrong direction, but not the pattern underneath them — what people were actually experiencing day to day, and which organisational conditions were driving morale, trust and retention.
The approach
AmbiSense® started by mapping the pressure: a review of the trust's existing KPI information, then conversations with senior leaders, middle managers and a cross-section of employees — the same organisation seen from three different vantage points.
Over the following six months, a structured SENSE™ programme was aligned to the trust's own improvement priorities rather than bolted on beside them.
Learning forums
Focused sessions on psychological safety, trust, emotional intelligence and communication.
One-to-one coaching
Confidential sessions, so people could explore their own experience without it costing them anything.
Facilitated group reflection
Colleagues heard perspectives they had not heard before, and named practical improvements themselves.
Agreed actions and review
What individuals and teams learned was connected to decisions taken at organisational level.
This was not another heavy system. It was a repeatable way to surface what was happening, decide what to do about it, and check whether it worked.
What changed
Within six months, engagement scores were up 15% and staff turnover was down 10%.
Underneath those two numbers, employees reported feeling more valued, better supported and more connected to the people they worked with — and clearer about what their work was for.
AmbiSense has been a game-changer for our trust. It has created a culture of open communication and mindful reflection, which has led to a significant improvement in employee morale and productivity.
Chief Executive of the trust
The takeaway
When engagement and retention start to slide, individual support is rarely enough on its own. An EAP waits for people to reach the point of needing it. It cannot tell leaders what keeps producing that point.
Leaders also need to see what their people are experiencing, create safe routes for the patterns to surface, and turn what they learn into changes to how work is actually set up.
This is not about lowering standards. It is about building an organisation that helps people function well enough to meet them.
Where this starts
You do not have to change everything at once.
One pattern. One bridge. One review.
Book a Pressure Map conversation20 minutes. We look at:
- where pressure keeps repeating
- what may be sitting underneath
- what has already been tried
- what small bridge could help next