Streamlining and improving the quality of Trust Induction

A Case Study by Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust 

Background

Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust provides local general hospital and community services to around 260,000 people in Walsall and the surrounding areas. We are the only provider of NHS acute care in Walsall, providing inpatient and outpatient services at the Manor Hospital, as well as a wide range of services in the community.

The Trust employs approximately 4,500 staff who all access ESR Self Service.

Previous Induction Process

Our previous induction process required new starters to undertake the mandatory e-Learning modules such as Information Governance, Conflict, Equality and Diversity, Safeguarding etc., (8 modules in total) prior to their induction day, as part of the broader one day induction programme. 

This was achieved by giving them access to a third party e-Learning system that hosted our local e-Learning,  but this incurred a cost for the stand alone system, and it also required additional resources in order to add the competencies into ESR following course completion.

Often applicants would encounter technical issues which prevented them from completing the training and resulted in them having to stay behind after their Trust Induction to complete paper assessments.

Whilst this ensured they were compliant on day one, we felt it didn’t give new employees a good introduction to our Trust or a good induction experience. There was too much emphasis on completing training and not on the organisation’s core values, and it became more of a ‘tick box exercise’. In addition, this required the training team to undertake dual entry into both the third party system and ESR.

The Solution

During an on-site IAT workshop with our Regional NHS ESR Account Manager we learned that ESR Employee Self Service functionality enabled applicants to have access directly to their e-Learning prior to their start date. We saw this as a great opportunity to replace our current process using the third party system with ESR, as it would enable our future employees to:

• Undertake their e-Learning at their own pace prior to induction;
• Refocus the Trust Induction on core values;

The New Process

Since March 2018 we have been rolling out and finessing a new induction process that involves giving all successful applicants access to their ESR Self Service account and asking them to complete the mandatory e-Learning modules before their start date.

The process is defined as follows:

Step 1: Recruitment team downloads the successful applicant at the offer accepted stage into ESR from the e-recruitment system

Step 2: ESR generates a user name and password under the Auto Create Account process that have implemented. The ESR team are assigned the Auto Create role and receive the Auto Create account notifications detailing the login details for new starters and applicants.

Step 3: The ESR team copy and pastes the generated usernames/passwords into an internal spreadsheet and add the ESR position number.  This spreadsheet is accessible to all those in the Recruitment and Learning and Development teams.   This enables the Learning and Development team to ensure that the training/competency requirements for the position are set up.

Step 4: The Learning and Development team take the position number information from the spreadsheet and subscribe and enrol the applicants to the relevant learning certifications in ESR.  This means that the only step the applicants have to do when they log into their Employee Self Service account is press the ‘Play’ button on the e-Learning portlet.

Step 5: The Recruitment team issue the final offer letter by email to the applicant (following completion of employment checks), which includes details about their induction day and how they can access their e-Learning modules via ESR. The process varies depending on whether they are current NHS employees or not, and also provides them with their ESR username and password. 

For applicants coming from non NHS organisations we ask them to come in and meet with our ESR team.  We then assist them to log onto ESR and also explain how ESS works and also show them the My ESR App and how to activate remote log in etc.  Historically this would have been done when they collected their Smartcard after starting in the Trust. With employees no longer needing to have an N3 connection for their first log in, we typically only meet with employees if they are experiencing problems accessing from home.

Step 6: Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) – When the  Recruitment team update the applicant’s recruitment status to ‘offer accepted’ in ESR, they then initiate the pre hire IAT process to transfer across any existing valid competencies, which then determines their e-Learning needs prior to their start date.

If applicants have already undertaken relevant training and we have proof, either through IAT or a certificate brought in (where competencies have not been implemented in their previous Trust), then we don’t expect them to repeat this again, therefore streamlining the time to hire process and avoiding duplication of training.  We also subscribe them to all training so that they can then renew in the future at the appropriate time.

Step 7: The Learning and Development team undertakes weekly checks to ensure that the applicant has completed their required e-Learning, and if e-Learning is showing as incomplete they send a reminder email with a deadline date. If e-Learning isn’t completed they may not be allowed to attend the induction and this may delay their start date.

We introduced this new aspect in June and so it’s in the early stages, however we have seen a significant increase in completion rates.

Step 8: Induction Day – We run the applicant competencies report in ESR Business Intelligence (BI) to check what learning has been completed by the applicant. This would include competencies transferred via IAT and what they have done prior to their start date.

New employees are compliant and ready to commence their job roles without the need to be released from wards and departments to complete these mandatory e-learning courses.

Pictured above Halima Begum, Recruitment Team, Joel Marriott, ESR Team and Linda Nicholls, Learning and Development Team

Benefits

As a result of this new process we have realised a range of cost and efficiency benefits for our Trust.

Costs:

• An annual saving of £4,500 per annum achieved by removing the third party local system provider that hosted all local e-Learning, and removing associated admin costs;
• Removal of duplication of work by staff that previously had to input competencies and data into both the third party system and ESR.

Efficiency:

• Improved Induction experience for our new employees;
• Freeing up our L&D team to focus on more values based training for all our staff;
• Enabling our managers to proactively engage with their successful applicants to undertake the e-Learning before they commence employment, ensuring no delays to on-boarding.

'The new process means that Recruitment, ESR and Learning and Development Teams work more closely together to ensure a smooth end to end process is achieved. We are still finessing the process but seeing good outputs and results so far,'

Karen Bendall, Workforce Training Manager

'Although some additional process steps have been introduced to all teams involved, this provides overall, a more streamlined process for the applicant, the department and the organisation.'

Reece Hodgen, Recruitment Team Leader

Since the requirement for an N3 network has been removed, we have switched on the auto create internet access option. This means applicants are automatically given internet access to their account and do not need to come on site, they can log into ESR as soon as they receive their offer letter with their login details.

We have improved the timing of the IAT process to ensure that we can receive competencies already in place for an applicant in good time to avoid any repeat training.

The content of the induction has moved from a paper exercise to e-Learning being undertaken in advance, which enables us to deliver a better quality induction programme with more time spent discussing the values of the organisation.

Key Considerations

As with any project, you learn what works and what you would do differently in the future.  Our recommendations for key considerations to ensure success when undertaking a project like this are:

• Set up a project team and involve key departments e.g. Recruitment, Learning and Development and the ESR/Workforce teams;
• Undertake a process mapping exercise to understand and agree the full end to end process and the responsibilities of each team;
• Ensure that your senior management team support the project. Our chief executive was very supportive of this project.

For More Information

For more information about our project please contact Karen.Bendall1@walsallhealthare.nhs.uk