Mater Private Network and Workvivo: From Buried Stories to Best Workplaces
No one believed healthcare workers wanted recognition. Now, through Workvivo Awards, 71% of Mater Private Network’s staff are recognized by their peers every year.
82%
rise in communication scores since the first Great Place to Work survey
94%
recognition score in the most recent survey
14th
Best Super-Large Workplace in Ireland (2026)
“Healthcare workers don’t require recognition” is a myth
Mater Private Network (MPN) is a private hospital group with 2,750 staff across 10 sites in Ireland and the UK: two large hospitals in Dublin and Cork, cancer centers in Liverpool and Limerick, “two day hospitals,” and four outreach centers.
Every day, in all those buildings, people do work that saves and changes lives – but most of it happens away from the spotlight.
This was the first thing Garry McCabe noticed when he became Chief People Officer. There was no recognition program at all. “I was told, in no uncertain terms, that healthcare workers didn’t require recognition. It wasn’t something they valued,” Garry says.
The effects were already clear. MPN’s first Great Place to Work survey returned an extremely low score with communication, recognition, and connection the weakest points.
People
2,750
Industry
Hospitals & Healthcare
Location
Ireland and the UK
Org Size
Mid-Market
The recognition side of Workvivo has enabled us to connect in ways we could never have done in the past. The patient is getting better treatment and the organization is more profitable. It’s a win-win in every single direction.
Garry McCabe
Chief People Officer, Mater Private Network
Building NERA, Mater Private Network’s recognition program
Garry needed a way to run a real recognition program across 10 sites for all grades and levels of staff who spend their days at the bedside rather than at desks.
So when it came to choosing a platform, one thing in particular tipped the decision: Workvivo’s Awards feature. “The fact that it could deliver an awards program was a huge aspect of why we chose Workvivo,” says Garry. “It’s probably what brought Workvivo over the line for us.”
Workvivo gave staff a nomination form simple enough to fill out on a phone between patients, a single home for every nomination, and a way to read the story behind each one. Today, more than 85% of staff have Workvivo on their phones, so recognition reaches them wherever they are.
NERA, MPN’s National Employee Recognition Awards, launched on Workvivo and has now run for three cycles. Every step was designed to feel personal:
- Nominate: Any employee can recognize any colleague in a couple of taps.
- Acknowledge: Every nominee receives a personal email from the CPO. Between six and 15 people a day write back, just to say thank you.
- Celebrate:The winning nominees, 42 per cycle, are honored at an in-person awards event.
- Keep it going: NERA runs for four months of the year, and shoutouts keep peer recognition flowing every day, all year round.
The target for the first year was 1,500 nominations. They received 2,500, and this was just the beginning.
In the second year, 71% of the staff were recognized by a colleague. “We had 7,500 nominations, which blew our minds. We have amazing stories to share, and we’ve shared them using Workvivo,” says Garry.
A blanket for every new patient
Ask Garry about NERA, and he’ll tell you about one specific nomination from the first year, which shared that a nurse in oncology had been knitting blankets for new chemotherapy patients.
“Even telling you now, the hairs on the back of my neck are standing up,” Garry says. “Those stories are hidden. Nobody knew that story, other than the person who nominated her. It surfaced as a result of Workvivo and our National Employee Recognition Awards.”
Now everyone knows this story, and her compassion has become the standard across the entire organization. “We’ve had many, many stories just like that over the last three years. It’s heartwarming, and it shows the power of our organization and the power of recognition,” says Garry.
Have a little heart
Sometimes recognition came from patients too, like Irish singer-songwriter Luka Bloom, who recovered from cardiac surgery on St Joseph’s Ward.
The care Luka received moved him so much that an album he wrote during this time, titled A Second Wind, was dedicated to the staff that looked after him. He also wrote a song, Have a Little Heart, specifically for them.
A few months later, Luka returned to the hospital, stood in the small oratory in front of the people who had cared for him, and performed for them. “There wasn’t a dry eye in the room. It was just so beautiful,” says Garry. “We videotaped some of it, and we put it on Workvivo to share with all of our staff.”
One of Ireland’s Best Workplaces
The numbers matched the stories:
- 82% rise in communication scores
- 94% recognition score
- #14 Best Workplaces in Ireland 2026, Super-Large category
- Best Workplaces for Women 2026
Workvivo launched before the second Great Place to Work survey, and against the low first survey, the shift was clear. “Since our first survey, our communication scores have gone up 82%, and our recognition scores are at 94%,” says Meaghan Tolan, Internal Communications Manager at MPN.
In 2026, Mater Private Network was named one of Ireland’s Best Workplaces for the first time, ranking 14th in the super-large category, and appeared on the Best Workplaces for Women list.
Meaghan is direct about what carried them there. “Listening to what people said and acting on the feedback was always going to be the most important part. What Workvivo did was give us a vehicle to share what was happening with everybody. It was the biggest enabler in improving our scores.”
Beyond engagement scores, the cultural transformation yielded clear business returns. As Garry explains, reducing turnover and absenteeism directly boosted productivity and discretionary effort across the workforce. The resulting efficiency meant better patient care alongside improved profitability, delivering a clear return on investment and a win across every metric.
Every person, seen
Who said healthcare workers don’t want recognition? Today, over 9,000 award nominations at MPN a year prove otherwise. They always wanted it, but no one had ever asked.
NERA started as a program, but has grown into what Garry calls a repository of stories: the blankets, the songs, and the thousands of small acts of kindness that once went unnoticed in the corridors. The only difference now is that, thanks to Workvivo, none of it goes unseen.
Next, the team is exploring livestreaming and podcasting so even more stories can reach people as they happen. “I think now every single individual in our organization has an opportunity to be seen,” says Garry.