Understanding the pre-hire IAT process
What do you know about the Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) process in ESR?
IAT is a key automated piece of ESR functionality unique to the NHS. It is designed to remove the manual processes associated with NHS Staff Transfer Forms and therefore reduces the amount of data entry following the appointment of existing NHS staff from other NHS Organisations.
IAT Workshops in the Midlands
In recent weeks, NHS Senior Account Manager Maria Scott has been running on-site workshops for NHS organisations in the Midlands to help them understand the process and the associated benefits.
It is an objective of the National Streamlining Programme to implement pre hire IAT across all regions and across the West Midlands - with ten workshops already run, there is certainly a growing interest in utilising this area of ESR functionality to speed up the recruitment process.
The workshops have been particularly successful when the audience has been a mix of Recruitment, L&D/Training, HR and payroll staff. This has helped the various departments better understand the end to end process and the crucial part that they play to ensure that the IAT is initiated and acted upon in a timely manner, in order to gain the maximum benefits of the data that is transferred both pre and post hire.
The University Hospitals Coventry & Warwickshire NHS Foundation Trust recently participated in one of the largest workshops to date with 22 people and Otto the guide dog - who was happy to sleep through the event!
Dave Mander, ESR & Workforce Information Manager worked with Maria to organise this during one of their regular team training days and attendees from the ESR & Workforce Information Team, Payroll, Learning and Development and Recruitment all took part.
Dave who is currently reviewing the overall end to end recruitment and induction process for the organisation told us:
“To ensure that our new employees get the best possible experience when they join our Trust we are currently undertaking a review of certain processes and looking to move them between the various departments that manage ESR such as Resourcing and Payroll.
Part of this review has included how we transfer an employee’s service history and training details from other Trusts, the benefits of this would reduce the amount of training we would have to provide during their initial starting period and enable our Learning and Development team to streamline induction offerings to suit the training needs of the new staff. This would also provide the correct information regarding annual leave entitlement as this also links to our e-Rostering system.
One of the most important tasks to get right first time is the Pre-hire IAT’s and we understood that it was vital to give our staff the correct training and support to do this, so Maria kindly offered to deliver some training for us at UHCW and we were delighted with the turnout on the day.
The group enjoyed the workshop and asked plenty of questions of Maria, and I am sure from the feedback we have received that the group found it very informative. It will certainly help us going forward and we hope that our use of IAT will help reinforce a level of confidence amongst our new starters when they join us and use Employee Self – Service to update their Mandatory training on line”.
In another part of the region Sandwell & West Birmingham NHS FT organised an IAT workshop for members of the Recruitment, L&D and ESR workforce teams and Sue Sutton, ESR Self Service and Data Input Manager shared their experiences;
“The training that we received before we implemented a Trust process at the beginning of May was great because it brought together ESR, recruitment and L&D so that all departments can see the benefits of running Pre-hire IAT’s.
The Recruitment team find it easy and we plan extending access to all users. Our L&D team found the session interesting, in that it showed the correct way to use ESR and the IAT process to reduce the need to train or retrain NHS staff as their records move with them. This fits into what we are planning to do with our induction programme and with a regional plan to streamline mandatory training”
The Benefits of IAT
The Inter Authority Transfer process is intended to meet the following business requirements:-
- Remove the completion and mailing of paper Staff Transfer Forms between NHS Organisations.
- Reduce the staff transfer processing costs at Organisation level by automation of the process.
- Reduce the time delay in obtaining current NHS staff information following transfers.
- Improve the range and quality of data transferred between NHS Organisations.
- Facilitate the earlier production of Contracts of Employment as a result of more timely and accurate data transfer.
- Securely transfer immunisations and vaccination checks data at the pre-employment stage to Occupational Health Advisors.
- Transfer pre hire data related to statutory and mandatory competencies to aid induction programmes and remove duplicate training and associated costs.
- Assist in paying staff correctly from commencement of employment, reducing the need for retrospective corrections.
- Enables the standard NHS Employers Reference to be sent to an applicant’s previous employer for completion and returned to the requesting organisation electronically.
And finally Maria commented: “It is really important that organisations understand the real benefits that the IAT process brings and how this can support their recruitment and induction processes, which speeds up the time to hire, ensuring key staff are ready to undertake their role quickly”.
If you would like to run an IAT workshop on site in the Midlands then please contact Maria directly on maria.scott2@nhs.net
For more information on the IAT process refer to the Guidance on KBase here or look at our on line e-learning here