Deployment of our ESR Portal

A Case Study by Tameside & Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust

Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust serves a community of 250,000 people across Tameside and Glossop. As a busy Integrated Care Foundation Trust we provide a range of high quality elective, emergency and specialist services for adults and children. The Trust employs in the region of 3,900 staff and approximately 600 of those are based in the community.

When the new ESR Portal was launched last year we could see the potential benefits for our Trust and our employees. Eleanor Devlin, Senior HR Business Partner, explained:

“I was really excited by the look of the ESR Portal and could see immediately how staff would benefit from having access to it. My.ESR plays a key part in our staff retention strategy, allowing our staff to access their own information is an essential part of the modern day workplace. The launch of the Portal also presented us with an opportunity to streamline some of our internal processes such as limiting the use of personal information change forms as these changes could now be undertaken by the individual directly in ESR”.

Amanda Bromley, Director of Human Resources, is a strong advocate of the Portal and commenting on its launch said:

“I just love My ESR and the ability to be able to access important information such as my ESR record, payslip, P60 etc. on a range of devices anytime, anywhere. In addition, the fact that My ESR is another mechanism for us to engage with our staff and for them to have the ability to receive information via the Portal, see at a glance their mandatory training status and view their payslip/P60 and have access to their benefits is just brilliant.”

Once the decision to implement and roll out the Portal had been taken we wanted to promote our launch in an effective way. Eleanor explains:

“As an Organisation we wanted to do something catchy to promote our launch of the Portal. Working with our Communications & Engagement Team we decided that posters and banners would be an effective way promoting the launch and the benefits that the Portal would bring to our staff.  We designed and published a number of posters and banners and also used our Trust Facebook page to promote the launch of My.ESR with regular posts about the benefits of the Portal.”

Above is an example of the Facebook post used to promote My.ESR

The roll-out was positively received by our Managers and employees across the Trust. Led by Hayley Walker, Workforce Information Manager we ran a number of sessions across the Trust including our Executive Team Brief and drop in sessions for staff who were also encouraged to download the My ESR App, because we felt it would be easier to log into My.ESR via the internet. Eleanor added:

“The ESR App has really helped with the implementation of My.ESR as it means that our staff have an easy access point. The added bonus of using the App is that it tells you when the system is being withdrawn for maintenance etc. which is extremely important for our staff that are potentially accessing ESR twenty four hours a day, seven days a week”.

Above is the reverse cover of a leaflet and poster used to promote the launch of My.ESR

Our Managers have quickly begun to see the benefits that the Portal has given them in their role. Anita Fleming, Deputy Chief Nurse, said:

“I really like My ESR. It’s all there for you, and staff can access their training and their payslips so easily. I know a few people who have accessed their TRS statements now, which they hadn’t done before, as the previous system was so complicated”.

Above is an example of Screen Saver deployed across the Organisation

Our Communications & Engagement Team have welcomed the ability to publish announcements via the Portal. Paul Thorpe, Communications Manager said:

“My ESR has presented us with another, more effective way to communicate with our staff. What makes MyESR quite unique is the smartphone app. This means that colleagues can access a lot of information about their employment and just general news via their smartphone or tablet. Traditionally they would have had to log on to their Trust mailbox account to get this information. This is especially effective with groups of staff who we regard as hard to reach; such as Domestics and Catering staff”.

Our Communications & Engagement Team have already made use of the Announcement functionality to promote the Staff Survey and “Catch up with Karen” which is the regular Blog of our Chief Executive. We have made full use of the Twitter portlet and also have a number of links on the Portal to our Exit Questionnaire, e-rostering system and Trust Facebook site.

Our Training and Development Team have also enthusiastically embraced My.ESR. Compliance across our Organisation is currently running at 91.1%. The Training and Development Manager commented:

 “Since the introduction of MyESR, we have found that all members of staff (not just those that receive this report) are checking their compliance and completing training. This is fantastic, and is absolutely what MyESR is there for”.

Lessons Learnt

Reflecting on the roll-out of the Portlet Eleanor said:

“The implementation of the Portal has been a really positive experience for both our Managers and our Employees. The main issue that we faced related to staff not being able to access the Portal via the internet. It is important that you remind staff that they do need to request internet access from an N3 connection. We have also started to utilise e-learning more and this highlighted where we had issues with incorrect training and competency data, but it has enabled us to fix the problem and give people confidence in the system.”

Next Steps

• We will continue to promote and use more functionality within the Portal and ESR.
• We are looking to use Portal Announcements to help us encourage our staff to take part in the Staff Survey.
• Remove the personal information changes form and have all these changes completed by employees in the Portal.
• Encourage more staff to switch off paper pay slips which will help with environmental considerations and data protection.
• We are exploring the potential of using Manager and Supervisor Self Service via the Internet which includes access to BI.
• We intend to access more e-Learning via the Portal

For further information

For more information about our Portal launch and internal Communications and Engagement approach please contact Eleanor Devlin at Eleanor.Devlin@tgh.nhs.uk