ESR supporting the COVID 19 Vaccination Programme: Utilising the Applicant Dashboard
To support the vaccination effort against Covid-19, St Helens & Knowsley Teaching Hospital NHS Trust (STHK) was identified as the Lead Employer for the Large Scale Covid Vaccination Project in Cheshire and Merseyside. The Trust had to react quickly and collaboration across departments was going to be key to the successful delivery of the project.
On-boarding a significant number of staff effectively was paramount to the commencement of vaccinations in the region and so an urgent review of on-boarding processes was undertaken. The challenge that we faced was recruiting and training over a thousand, clinical and non-clinical staff that would be based at St Helens Totally Wicked Stadium, for the first phase of public vaccinations. We decided that the ESR Applicant Dashboard functionality would be key to this recruitment and training activity.
The Trust was already using TRAC for the recruitment of these additional staff and so it was important that the ESR and TRAC teams at the Trust worked closely together. All individuals with a status “Offer Accepted” in ESR would have access to the Applicant Dashboard allowing the pre-hire IAT and immediate access to e-Learning in ESR. Most of the first cohort of applicants were existing NHS Employees and the pre-hire IAT meant that we could check training records without applicants having to repeat existing statutory and mandatory training. This was a key part of the strategy as there were limited opportunities for face to face training due to the social distancing measures required.
Using ESR meant the cohort were able to access the online training covering the Oxford AstraZeneca and Pfizer modules before their pre-employment checks were completed. By allowing applicants to log on and complete the required learning (linked to competencies via a certification) prior to their start date meant that they were able to be deployed as soon as shifts became available. This not only decreased the time from application to deployment in our large vaccination centre it also improved the employee experience having a positive impact on the employer-employee relationship.
The Trust also encouraged applicants to use the dashboard to amend personal information such as bank account details. As a large number of these applicants were current NHS staff the IAT functionality in ESR would pull through current bank details from the source VPD, applicants could then confirm or update the details. This increased the accuracy of payroll information but also assisted in reducing the need for new starter paperwork and therefore adapting current payroll processes to be more Covid friendly and secure.
Nicola Trebicki, Vaccine Support Administrator, was one of the employees who took advantage of the Applicant Dashboard. Nicola said:
Prior to starting in my role I found it very beneficial to be able to access the Electronic Staff Record (ESR) Portal. This not only allowed me to feel part of the trust before my first day but, it also gave me access to essential learning prior to starting. This was especially beneficial in my role of supporting at the Mass Vaccination Centre and being able to complete the vaccine training to be able to hit the ground running on my first day and provide vital support during the pandemic.
Claire Horrocks, ESR and Workforce Administrator confirmed how useful the Applicant Dashboard has been in ensuring staff are compliant before commencing work. Highlighting this Claire said:
Working within a small team on the mass vaccination project, it quickly became clear how useful the ESR applicant dashboard was. Giving applicants this early access meant they were able to complete their online learning prior to starting and speed up the entire training process, which was paramount during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Due to lockdown procedures there was less opportunity for face to face interactions with new staff. The dashboard helped to support applicants in understanding the trust and gave them ready access to information about our organisation.
Over a 1000 staff were recruited and trained in various competencies in order to be ready to start supporting the vaccination project.
Overall St Helens & Knowsley Teaching Hospital NHS Trust found the Applicant Dashboard fundamental in the recruitment of over 1,000 applicants for the Covid-19 Vaccination Project and feedback has been excellent both from within the Trust and for this cohort of applicants. Following the successful utilisation of the Applicant Dashboard in the project we are now reviewing future plans and hope to implement the Applicant Dashboard across all future recruitment and on-boarding activity within the Trust.
For further information about our experiences using the ESR Applicant Dashboard please contact Julie Weeks, ESR Project Manager, St. Helens & Knowsley NHS Teaching Hospitals Trust: Julie.Weeks@sthk.nhs.uk
Delivering Training during a pandemic
The North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care (NCIC) System was formed in October 2019 with the acquisition of North Cumbria University Hospitals by Cumbria Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. As a result of this acquisition the HR team underwent a restructure, as did much of the newly formed organisation.
The HR team delivered training in person; traveling to deliver ‘HR Systems Education Clinics’ to groups of managers. These sessions included topics such as:
- What is ESR?
- Why is data quality important and what is it used for ?(locally, regionally and wider health economy),
- Employment forms managers needed to complete (starter, change, leaver) and why we ask for the information we do,
- Supervisor/employee Self Service (recording appraisals and absence, viewing payslips on line etc.),
- Importance of the supervisor hierarchy,
- Electronic expense and timesheet systems,
- Approvals/approver process,
- Counter fraud,
- Scenarios, issues and answers, and
- Where to find help and support.
We found these sessions really useful to engage and educate our managers and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. We ran this alongside individual training for new supervisors about how to record absence and appraisals and approving various claims on our other systems.
Post merge
It took the team a few months to review, align and consolidate processes in the team. Given the amount of change in the new Trust, the teams were busy keeping on top of BAU and had little time to sit down and re-evaluate everything.
Impact of COVID on training
Once processes had been aligned, we needed to communicate any changes to our customers. We used our usual channels of communication; direct email to managers/supervisors, Trust news, intranet and email signatures – however, not all the messages were getting through. Due to the pandemic and restrictions on face to face engagement we were unable to restart the HR Systems Education Clinics. That coupled with the fact that managers were also very busy and wouldn’t be able to spend any length of time in an MS Teams session, we had to think differently, and this is where we developed the bitesize webinar sessions.
Bite Size ESR Webinar Sessions
We started with Employee Self Service to help new starters and staff who had been away from the workplace for any length of time navigate ESR, view payslips, change bank account details etc.
Our managers were confused as to why the appraisal compliance in their areas was not as high as they expected. The team performed some analysis on what had been entered into ESR and it became apparent there were data quality issues. To help managers improve their data quality we ran live webinars specifically about appraisal recording covering areas such how to record the appraisals so that the activity was picked up in the appraisal reports. The compliance rate increased quickly as managers that attended the webinars knew what was expected of them. Another addition to our bitesize webinars covered which HR forms managers need to complete and when, the purpose of ESR is also included, along with the importance of data quality and how we are measured on this. There are pre-recorded versions of all our webinars available on the intranet which staff can access on or off the Trust network for maximum flexibility.
Feedback from managers and attendees has been positive and this has shown in the increase in correctly entered information. These sessions for managers have not replaced the remote 1:1 new supervisor training; they’re purely for refresher or point of reference purposes.
I found the webinars very useful, as a busy manager/clinician it was great to have some easily accessible training that only took half and hour. Easy to access wherever I was, so no travelling or swapping appointments etc. Great use of time would be grateful for more in the future.
Gail James, Specialist Respiratory Nurse/Joint Team Lead
I found the bitesize session that I attended extremely helpful. The fact that they were short and to the point and on a specific topic was really helpful and meant that I didn’t have to shuffle meetings and priorities about so much to be able to attend. They were much more accessible because of this. The training was specific to my role and also gave me confidence that I knew where and who to ask for help on that topic should I need it in the future. I would recommend them to anyone.
Marti Irving, Communications & Engagement Manager
Future Sessions
Commenting on the success of these sessions and plans for the future Julie Thompson, Head of HR Services said “These sessions have proven to be extremely popular and there are two further topics we are working on which should be live in the next few weeks: recording absence in ESR, and recording clinical, management and safeguarding supervision.”
For further information please contact Julie Thompson: Julie.Thompson2@ncic.nhs.uk