Programme news
A message from the National Programme Director
As I reflected on 2024 - and considered the scale of change activity delivered in an NHS environment with so many competing priorities, I continue to be proud of the achievements that we have collectively delivered in supporting our NHS colleagues.
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ndeed, what I would consider to be one of the best sources of illustration - within this edition of ESR News are great local case studies covering a breadth of ESR enabled capability, ranging use of the application technology – including using the Portlet capability to support local Flu Vaccination programmes and leveraging technical data integrations to streamline the National Consultant Information Programme (NCIP) processes, to specific functional usage – including using ESR to support establishment control, flexible working requests and onboarding using the Applicant Dashboard. All of this is packaged alongside other updates about national ESR services and local engagement - including feedback from the newly reformed London Big Special Interest Group (SIG).
As in previous years, I never fail to appreciate that colleagues are working incredibly hard to deliver high quality care – often alongside many operational challenges and priorities. I am once again delighted with the levels of engagement, continued support to the ESR Service team and local ambition to optimise use of ESR – all with the aim of supporting your People.
Working in partnership with NHS organisations and collaboratively with our sponsors - DHSC, and delivery partners in NHS England and NHS Wales, 2024 has been another successful year in terms of service growth.
I would once again like to thank IBM, our technology and service partner, and colleagues within the NHSBSA ESR service team, who together have worked tirelessly to maintain a high-quality service. Ensuring service stability and security remains, and will continue to be, our highest priority.
ESR System Usage and Developments
Optimisation of ESR has continued to grow during 2024. Driven by our Standards and Level of Attainment framework, there has been a renewed focus on Manager Self-Service in particular. Throughout the year, NHS organisations have continued to strive to optimise their use of functionality within ESR and realise many of the associated efficiency and productivity benefits. Having reflected on feedback, we have subsequently reviewed and updated the Standards and Levels of Attainment – please see an update about the Assessment in this edition of ESR News.
Our collaboration with key strategic stakeholders and delivery partners has continued - particularly in relation to supporting workforce policy in England and Wales - including successfully delivering the various pay awards in a timely manner, impacting every NHS employee.
Ensuring that ESR can meet the needs of the NHS remains a priority for the service team. During 2024, as with previous years, there has been a busy development calendar looking at existing capabilities of ESR and enhancing the user experience for NHS employees, managers and professional users. Some key highlights include:
- In May, ESR moved to using the most recent version of the Oracle Learner Homepage. This ensured that ESR is on the correct technical path to take advantage of improvements developed by Oracle - I am also pleased to advise that this includes developments proposed directly by the NHS that we had been unable to incorporate into the previous version.
- In June we launched the new Leavers Dashboard, designed to ensure that ex-employees are still able to access their pay information up to 90-days after they have left their employment. The Leavers Dashboard is a significant enhancement to ESR and not only supports national policy in relation to increased efficiency - by removing the need for local administration of queries after leaving (such as earnings information), but also supported another ESR strategy to remove printing services (payslips etc). You can read more about this in this edition of ESR News.
- In August we withdrew all national printing for payslips and other pay related information. Although over 90% of employees had already opted out of paper payslips, this change was strategically important and again, like the Leavers Dashboard, fully supports the ambitions of delivering operational efficiencies, removes risks associated with sensitive data and supports an environmental ambition to reduce our carbon footprint during the delivery of Services.
Alongside ESR solution developments, our engagement and collaboration in relation to wider workforce transformation has continued to be a priority. Our role in supporting parts of the Future of HR & OD report has continued this year, and the work of our regional teams to encourage the optimisation of ESR Self-Service functionality is a key enabler in support of this vision. Whilst there is a lot of focus on digital transformation, the NHS must complement such tools by maintaining a focus on redesigning processes using the technology and tools that we have available to us – both today and in preparation for the future. As we move into 2025 our regional teams will continue to provide valuable support, guidance and practical assistance to support organisations on a journey to reshape business processes, optimise efficiency and release transactional activity from corporate teams. Whilst such optimisation will benefit NHS organisations and your employee experience today, it will also support your preparation for implementing the Future NHS Workforce solution.
The Future NHS Workforce Solution
During 2024, the Future NHS Workforce Solution Transformation Programme has continued at pace, with the procurement exercise progressing to source a supplier for the future solution and service. As you may know, the supplier of the new agreement will also take on the running of the existing ESR solution and service, that will be succeeded by the future solution.
The programme has very recently completed the third stage of the procurement process - Negotiation and Proof of Concept (PoC). This involved the suppliers demonstrating how their proposed solution(s) could deliver some specific scenarios and functionality, including: new hires, staff transfers, leavers and working across multiple organisations. Several volunteer colleagues from across NHS England and NHS Wales helped the programme during this PoC stage.
Earlier this month, the programme moved into the next stage of the procurement process, Invitation to Submit Final Tender. This stage is where the bidders will refine their tender submissions and proposals based on feedback from the previous negotiation stage, and feedback from the proof-of-concept exercise. It will take several months for this stage to complete, ahead of evaluation, preferred bidder selection and contract award planned during Summer/Autumn 2025.
In parallel to the procurement, the Programme also ran a series of webinars, ‘Potential Unlocked’, aimed at senior and strategic leaders. These webinars were attended by over 1000 colleagues from across England and Wales. Based around the programme’s strategic messaging that was launched in May (Wales) and July (England), the webinars focused on key things that NHS organisations need to be doing now in preparation for the Future NHS Workforce Solution, covering four themes: Transforming; Optimising use of ESR; Data Quality; and Keeping Engaged. You can join the Programme’s FutureNHS workspace to access the webinar recordings.
Chris Price, Transformation Programme Director comments;
I would like to thank everyone who has supported the programme throughout 2024, enabling us to progress to the next stage of the procurement, to plan. Whilst there remains a lot of work to finalise the procurement, I remain confident as we move into 2025.
Coming Soon in 2025
Future NHS Workforce Solution: Organisational Readiness Survey
To understand more about your organisation, nationally, the NHSBSA is asking all Chief People Officers (CPO) and Human Resource Directors (HRD) across England and Wales to complete an ‘Organisational Readiness Survey’. The survey will launch in early 2025, and initial communications are currently being sent to CPOs/HRDs in preparation.
The Future NHS Workforce Solution Transformation Programme is delivering the survey, and all results will inform the national implementation plan of the future solution.
CPOs and HRDs will be asked to collaborate on gathering the information with Chief Information Officers, ESR leads and IT leads.
This is your chance as an organisation to be further involved in the preparations of the future solution, and your contribution will help the Programme team to provide the smoothest implementation and transition possible, for all organisations.
If you’re an ESR Lead you will receive your survey link from your Chief People Officer () or HR Director (HRD). If you’re a CPO/HRD and you’ve not received any initial email, please contact the programme directly.
Thanks, and Best Wishes…
Finally, I hope that you find this December edition of ESR News both interesting and useful. As referenced above, there are great case studies included that really do illustrate how the NHS is maximising their use of the solution to meet local and national objectives.
On behalf of the NHS Business Services Authority and the ESR Service team, may I express our thanks for all of your support throughout 2024, and wish you a Merry Christmas and offer Best Wishes for a healthy and happy 2025.
ESR Self Service Standards and Levels of Attainment for 24/25
Following the launch of the ESR Self-Service Standards and Levels of Attainment Assessment last year, the Standards have been updated this year and NHS organisations are being invited once again to meet with their ESR Functional Account Manager to complete their Assessment for 24/25.
This assessment is intrinsically linked to the Enabling Readiness workstream of the Future NHS Workforce Solution programme that aims to deliver and enable wider workforce transformation as part of the national people digital collaborative across NHS England and NHS Wales.
Consistent with last year, the Assessment examines the digital systems, processes and culture that exists within NHS organisations today and is designed specifically to help Chief People Officers (CPO) and ESR Leads understand where they can introduce transformational change in relation to systems and processes; this is particularly important to the wider readiness activity that will inform plans for the transition to the future NHS workforce solution.
At the beginning of December 106 organisations had completed their Self-Service Standards and Levels of Attainment ESR Assessment, and a further 108 organisations have a date planned in the diary post December into the New Year. This means that 214 organisations out of 308 across England and Wales have completed or have an ESR Assessment booked.
The map below shows the percentage of completed assessments in each region in England and Wales.
Reflecting on feedback, some new standards were introduced this year, along with updates to some of the previous standards. The 10 Standards for NHS England are shown below (new referenced by *). There are separate Standards for user organisations in NHS Wales.
The 10 Standards were agreed following a review of the 23/24 process, including feedback from NHS organisations. This resulted in an opportunity to refine the standards so that the output from the assessment is driving optimisation in the areas of ESR functionality that will bring efficiency, improved user experience for NHS employees and help organisations to build the foundations in readiness for the transition to the future NHS workforce solution.
The ESR Assessment has been extremely well received by Chief People Officers and their Deputies from across the NHS.
Rachel Cust, Assistant Director of Workforce & Organisational Development at Mid Yorkshire Teaching NHS Trust said:
With excellent support from our ESR Regional Team and our internal ESR Steering Group and Champions Network, we have been continuing to optimise our use of ESR so that the transition will be as seamless as possible for our colleagues. Manager self-service is well embedded and our WoVEn scores have (and continue) to improve. Completing our ESR Standards Assessment guided us towards our remaining key focus area (establishment control) and opened doors to sharing learning with other Trusts.
Lisa Cain, Associate Director of Workforce Systems at University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust said:
Since the assessment last year 23/24 and the revised standards this year has helped UHD drive ESR Optimisation forward, although we use it incredibly well we always strive to do better and use as much functionality as possible with considerations of Appraisals and Employee Relations functionality. During the assessment it was highlighted there were elements of Standard 8 (Data Completeness) that were not being achieved. We made the necessary changes immediately to raise us to Level 2. Following our Optimisation meeting, we have reviewed other ESR functionality which will help us to move forward and put us in an optimal position for the transition to the Future NHS Workforce Solution.
Keeley Cooper, Associate Director of People Services at Hertfordshire and West Essex ICB said:
We found the Standards Assessment process really useful, as it’s made us think about how we currently use ESR and how we want to use it in the future. It’s helped us prioritise the developments that we think we should be focusing on over the next year and with Steve’s help, we have already identified some quick wins and some longer-term goals to maximise ESR for our organisation. We are looking forward to how we can develop our optimisation of ESR further. This will help progress us forward and put us in a optimal position for the transition to the new future workforce solution.
If you haven’t yet been invited to undertake your ESR Self-Service Assessment, your NHSBSA ESR Functional Account Manager will be in touch in the very near future. However, if you do wish to request an ESR Assessment then you can contact your NHSBSA ESR Functional Account Manager, and they will book you a date for this to be completed.
Introducing the new ESR Leavers Dashboard
In June 2024, the NHS Leavers Dashboard was implemented as an enhancement to ESR.
This important new functionality was developed following requests from the service and is designed to allow ex-employees access to their payslips, P45’s and P60’s for up to 90 days once they have left an organisation. As part of local leavers processes employees should be advised to access and download all pay related information before their access to ESR in that organisation is terminated, but by enabling access to this important information after they have left this functionality not only reduces the admin burden on busy payroll teams it also reduces anxiety for ex ex-employees who may need to download their pay related documents.
At the end August 2024 the central print facility was withdrawn, resulting in a complete shift to online pay related information for NHS employees in England and Wales, and the launch of the Leavers Dashboard further alleviates the pressure on organisations to print payslips, P45’s and P60’s once people have left.
This major enhancement also supports the national greener NHS ambition; by removing the need for printed material and removing delivery and distribution costs. It also increases security for employees and avoids potential data breaches when printed material can go missing.
How does it work?
Once a Termination Date is entered into ESR and the employee logs into ESR, they are prompted with a message to save all pay details required and are informed that the ESR Leavers Dashboard can be accessed if made available by the organisation.
Once in the ESR Leavers Dashboard the employee will see three portlets: My Payslip, My P45 and My P60 arranged as shown below:
Leavers and employees who have moved to another NHS employer are now able to log in to ESR using their credentials or MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication). It is recommended that all employees enable MFA for their account, regardless of whether they are leaving. Besides the increased security against their user account this also enables them to reset their password via this method. This means that the employee no longer needs access to the work email account to reset their password, which has obvious advantages for ex-employees where this may not be possible.
For leavers MFA must be enabled before they leave, and they will need access to the device they used to register after leaving as this cannot be changed.
The ESR Leavers Dashboard can be available for ex-employees for up to 90 days after their termination date and access is managed locally by the NHS organisation that they have left.
This enhancement has been widely welcomed by the service since being launched.
Laura Sams, Deputy Head of People Services at Lead Employer North East & North Cumbria told us:
Due to the large number of leavers we process during August and September the Leavers Dashboard has significantly saved time. Giving the ex-employees access to their documentation after ending employment has reduced the queries and requests from leavers.
Further information about the ESR Leavers Dashboard is available on the ESR Hub, or you can contact your NHSBSA ESR Regional Functional Account Manager for guidance.
The importance of using Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) process in ESR
The Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) process is an important function for ensuring that NHS employees data is transferred in a timely and accurate manner, thereby streamlining process and improving data quality. We recommend that Trusts utilise this capability and embed it into their recruitment/onboarding process.
What is IAT in ESR?
Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) is an automated process that removes the manual processes associated with NHS Staff Transfer Forms - reducing data entry following the appointment of existing NHS staff from other NHS Employing authorities. Specifically, a Portable Data Set (PDS) of the employee’s data is transferred between NHS organisations (within ESR).
IAT should be used when an employee who works in one NHS Employing Authority is leaving to work for another NHS Employing Authority, following the offer accepted stage.
For NHS Organisations to receive the benefits of IAT, best practice should be followed, ensuring that the relevant User Responsibility Profiles (URPs) and Roles are allocated to users.
National IAT Usage
Over the past 2 years, circa 160,000 IATs have been run by organisations capturing the movement of NHS staff. The graph below shows a breakdown by region during this period.
There are large spikes of IAT use during September 2022 and September 2023 - this is due to Resident Doctor rotations between NHS organisations.
The diagram below shows how IAT works when used according to best practice.
The Benefits of IAT
The Inter Authority Transfer capability is an integral part of the recruitment and transfer of employee information process, and helps deliver many business benefits and needs, such as:
- Improves the range and quality of data transferred between NHS Organisations, including a complete employment service history from Organisations using ESR.
- Facilitates the earlier production of Contracts of Employment as a result of more timely and accurate data transfer.
- Securely transfers details of immunisations and vaccination checks at the pre-employment stage to Occupational Health Advisors (role holders).
- Transfers pre-hire data related to statutory and mandatory competencies to aid induction programmes and remove duplicate training and associated costs.
- Assists in paying staff correctly from commencement of employment reducing the need for retrospective corrections.
- Enables the standard NHS Employers Reference to be sent to a previous employer (internal or external) for completion and returned to the requestor Organisation electronically.
- Highlights at the pre-hire stage, in the standard factual reference notification, an indication as to whether employee relations information exists for an employee.
- Reduces processing costs at Organisation level by automating key tasks and reduces the time delay in obtaining current NHS staff information following transfers.
IAT also supports the efficient onboarding of new starters by enabling a more robust new starters process with reduced repeat administration and having an onboarding process that is effective and professionally managed. It also gives a richer and more efficient induction to new employees joining the organisation.
NHS Organisations are asked to review their recruitment and onboarding processes to ensure they are optimising the full benefits of IAT for the employee, the organisation and the wider NHS.
Further information
If you require any additional information on IAT, it can be found in the ESR User Manual (once logged into the ESR Portal) or please contact your regional NHSBSA ESR Functional Account Manager.
An update about ESR Education
Different groups of staff access ESR, from professional service users - such as HR and Payroll, to Managers, Supervisors and Employees. All users have an important part to play in ensuring that the data in ESR is correct and complete. In order to achieve this, it is vital that all ESR users maintain an understanding on the effective use of functionality available in ESR.
To help support this requirement, the ESR Service offers a comprehensive education programme that is available to all ESR users at no additional cost. The programme, delivered in partnership between the NHSBSA ESR Service team and IBM Education team, aims to meet the varying needs of ESR users, and over the past 12 months has undergone significant redesign to better align to user and service needs.
The following educational support is available:
- The Online ESR User Manual
- ESR Education Online Learning
- New Starter Packs
- Online Webinars and Workshops
- Regional Face-to-Face Training
The Online ESR User Manual
The online ESR User Manual was redesigned in January 2024.
The streamlined design has 42 sections which contain numerous, easy to find functional subdivisions, as shown below.
Feedback from users has been positive, with a consensus that this is now easier to navigate and find specific functional guidance.
Additionally, the user guide is now fully searchable using the ESR HUB search content feature.
The metrics for October show the search function is extensively used, with “Payslips” being the term most searched for at 11,044. This was followed by “Pensions” with 1,292 searches and “Learning” with 1,256 searches.
ESR Education Online Learning
The ESR Education team has created a range of e-Learning resources that allow users to learn or refresh their ESR knowledge at their own pace.
The e-Learning available is split into three categories:
- ESR Portal Dashboards
- Portal Administration
- How To Guides
This additional offering is designed to further complement the ESR education and learning offerings, so as to provide maximum flexibility of access for your NHS staff.
ESR Portal Dashboards
This section is designed to help ESR users understand the different dashboards that are available.
By selecting any of the options you gain access to a step-by-step tutorial for the relevant ESR dashboard.
If you are new to ESR or want to refresh your knowledge, these resources should give you the guidance you need to get you started.
Portal Administration
This section is designed to help ESR users to understand the different portal administration roles.
How To Guides
These resources have been specifically designed to help users understand how to undertake tasks in ESR that they may not have done before, or where they need to refresh their knowledge.
Users can navigate to the remaining e-Learning modules via the pre-defined ESR functionality categories.
New Starter Packs
For inexperienced users of ESR, specially designed new starter packs are available.
The new starter packs guide new users through the online resources to ensure that they have the knowledge to get them up and running with ESR within their organisation.
Online Webinars & Workshops
Throughout the year there is a wide range of national and regional webinars and workshops that are available for ESR users. Information about these events: dates, locations, times and registration links are all available by visiting the ESR Events Calendar.
Delegates are required to register for the webinars, and the link is provided via the ESR Events Calendar.
Feedback from the webinars
The host was very clear and explained concepts in a structured and methodical manner. Being able to access these training sessions is truly appreciated. Thank you for making these events available - ESR BI – Creating BI Content
Trainer was very clear and professional, and I like the style of demonstrating then showing the slides for consolidating – OLM – Enrolments and Subscriptions
Great webinar and great host - I felt engaged the whole time and really found the live demonstrations useful. It was also great to see them recap what was covered in the demonstration - very thorough. The pace of the host was great, and her tone was very uplifting and easy to listen too. ESR can be a tricky system sometimes, but the host made it look easy and I learnt a lot – HR – New Starters
Regional Face-to-Face Courses
The provision of regional face-to-face Education started during February 2024 (see User Notice 3418) and takes place at locations that are hosted by NHS Organisations. This reduces the requirement for users to undertake extensive travel and means that the learning is shared between groups of Organisations in the locality.
ESR offers the following courses on a regional basis:
- ESR Business Intelligence (ESR BI) – Creating BI Content – 1 day.
- ESR Business Intelligence (ESR BI) – Customising National BI Content – 1 day.
- Oracle Learning Management (OLM) – Creating Catalogue Content – 1 day.
- Oracle Learning Management (OLM) – Enrolments and Subscriptions – 1 day.
The regional face-to-face training can take place up to 2 days per month where, for a maximum of 10 delegates, the training can be any combination of the courses listed above.
If you are interested in hosting regional training courses, please provide your expression of interest as follows:
- Email - ESR.IS-ESRCourseReg@nhs.net
- Email Title - Expression of Interest – Regional FTF Training
Email Body - please confirm:
-
- Your region, room capacity and availability*
- Your contact details
- The courses you would like to be delivered at your site.
* To ensure an optimum learning experience IBM are looking for host sites that can offer a room with a minimum capacity of 10, to accommodate 9 delegates and the trainer.
Feedback from the Face-to-Face courses
I would like to say a big thank you to the trainers. I have been in the role for 15 years and know my way around BI reports for what I need, but this gave me a deeper insight into the workings of reports and what goes on behind them – North West
I found the BI face to face interactive training really helpful; the facilitators were so friendly, engaging, patient and supportive. It was so much easier to ‘bounce’ questions around the room and I certainly felt I could confidently shout up if I didn’t understand something.
I also feel there was much more flexibility on the individual sections of the training, so we could speed up on the sections where everyone was pretty confident with and focus more on the sections where one or more of us needed more knowledge or practice on.
I would absolutely recommend the face-to-face training!
Rachel Breese - Workforce Information & ESR Team Leader – Wirral Community Health & Care NHS Foundation Trust
The ESR Education programme is specifically designed to support ESR users at all levels. Our team is here to help and support you to ensure that local knowledge and expertise is maintained, and that ESR is used following best practice guidance. If you want to know more about we can support your ESR education needs please contact your regional NHSBSA ESR team.
Accurate ESR records vital for NHS clinical information platform
The NHS England National Consultant Information Programme (NCIP) has been rolling out to surgeons in England for the past 12 months, giving them online access to individualised quality metrics regarding their own practice. Developed by the Getting It Right First Time programme (GIRFT), NCIP is now available for almost every surgical specialty, and is used by 1 in 3 surgeons.
Trust Workforce Leads can help improve patient safety and clinical quality by keeping up to date records of their consultant staff.
ESR is a key component behind NHS England’s National Consultant Information Programme, an online data platform that shares outcomes and activity metrics with consultant surgeons. While no ESR information is displayed in NCIP, the programme uses a feed from ESR records to identify the Consultants practising in each specialty in each Trust. These Consultants are then given an NCIP account using their Trust email (as recorded in ESR), allowing them to review their surgical activity and improve clinical care and patient safety.
By providing this critical authentication data, ESR is helping thousands of Consultants to access their own outcome data.
NCIP also provides elevated access to Specialty Clinical Leads and Appraisal Leads who are identified using the supplementary role field in ESR. Trusts should make sure this field is accurately completed to ensure access for all those who are eligible.
Trusts can help ensure the data NCIP uses is as accurate as possible by:
- Ensuring the ESR records for your consultants are as complete and up to date as possible.
- Ensuring the contract end date is recorded when a consultant leaves their role.
- Making sure the supplementary role field is completed with either Appraisal Lead and / or Speciality Clinical Lead where required. The ESR User Manual guidance for maintaining supplementary roles can be found here.
There are currently nine surgical specialties live in NCIP, including orthopaedics, urology and gynaecology, and the team plans to include all clinical specialties in time.
You can read more about NCIP here: https://gettingitrightfirsttime.co.uk/associated_projects/ncip/
Midlands & East of England
Flexible working recording at Sherwood Forest Hospitals
At Sherwood Forest Hospitals we did not have a mechanism to record flexible working requests submitted by our colleagues, therefore as part of the People Promise Programme of work, we focused on promoting flexible working conversations and reviewing our policy in line with the new legislation in April 2024.
We explored a range of options for recording requests and outcomes and via a working group concluded that as there is the functionality within ESR, that this would be the best way for us to achieve this. Our colleagues are familiar with the use of ESR and already use it for recording appraisals. With the support of the NHSBSA ESR Service Team we developed a portlet to make the process easier for employees to make a flexible working request.
We produced a step by step written guide and wanted to use visual appeal and engagement using Avatar Videos to explain the importance of positive conversations, and information on how to submit a ‘make a request’ using ESR. We used an avatar of the People Promise Manager and added a voice over to help bring this to life. We also produced separate guidance for managers to record their decisions. With both videos being around 3 minutes long they are short and concise for colleagues to click on and follow in a simple way.
You can watch our videos using the links below.
Colleagues: https://youtu.be/wcbTC33LztI
Managers: https://youtu.be/g0XX3-MokFQ
Benefits
We have had very positive feedback so far with managers saying this will help with the reviewing of flexible working arrangements.
We can also ensure as a people team that we are working in line with legislation around flexible working.
It has also started to improve communication and transparency and shows we value the flexibility of our colleagues.
Further Information
If you would like further information or guidance with using the flexible working request functionality in ESR then please contact your NHSBSA ESR Regional Functional Account Manager.
Cambridgeshire Community Services experience of implementing the Applicant Dashboard
At Cambridgeshire Community Services NHS Trust, we started our Applicant Dashboard project in May 2023 and planned to go live date on 31st December 2023.
A project group was established with representatives attending from all departments that are involved in ESR. This included Recruitment, Learning and Development,
Workforce, Communications, HR and the Executive Board, as well as the NHSBSA ESR Service team who provided support and guidance.
Our aim was to give applicants ‘a taste of who we are and what we do’. The initial discussions identified content that would be added to the dashboard, along with how this would look and feel. There was an emphasis on making it look attractive and interesting without trying to overload the applicants. It was important for the dashboard to be part of the candidate experience model and to encourage them to complete their mandatory training, personal information etc. before they commenced working for the trust. The ESR Central team presented examples of local web portlets that had been developed previously to provide additional ideas of what could be achieved and included.
Process
An initial mock-up was created of how the dashboard would look and what would be included. It was agreed that a portlet detailing the different and wide range of services would be beneficial to add, as well as a picture showing the vast geographical area that is covered as a community trust. To include this information, a separate project group was created with a nominated representative from each service to drive the project.
By the end of the Summer 2023, the majority of the content for our applicant dashboard had been agreed. The Content and Portal Administrators attended training to commence the build with the support of the ESR Central team. The ESR Central team supplied the code to the portlets whilst supporting the Content Administrators to understand how to update the code so updates could be made, as required after the go live date. The build was completed, and all portlets were moved into appropriate positions on the dashboard to make them easy to navigate. For example, the welcome video from the Trust’s Chief Executive Officer was positioned at the top of the dashboard as the first thing an applicant would see.
A soft launch started in December 2023 to 15 applicants across all services. Feedback was obtained for both the recruitment process and the dashboard itself to understand what was liked by the applicants and what could be improved upon for easier navigation or understanding for future users of the applicant dashboard. There was no negative feedback received, with the primary message being that it was easy to access and provided a useful overview of information.
From the go live date, guidance on how to access the applicant dashboard is now sent out with all final offer letters, as well as a link to a New Starters Survey to allow continuous monitoring of how the applicant dashboard is perceived.
Benefits
The benefits that have been realised to date include;
- Provides applicants with relevant information about the organisation as a whole and its values.
- Facility to provide an overview of the full range of services provided by the organisation.
- Data quality and assurances as applicants update personal information via the national portlets.
- Ability to customise the design to the organisation’s colours and branding.
- There is opportunity for applicants to complete training prior to start date, though this is something that will be a focus for the future.
Learning Points
Throughout the journey, several lessons were learnt. With hindsight, including all services from the beginning of our conversations to secure commitment and understanding would have been beneficial in gaining further opinions on enhancing the candidate experience. We would also have included all potential contributors from the beginning to gain their insights and collect everything needed earlier in the process. Additionally, introducing boundaries on what could be included on the dashboard as well as timelines to ensure the project kept on track and the content streamlined.
Considerations need to be made from the beginning about accessing the applicant dashboard from different devices and using accessible colours that also fall within your trust branding. It is great that trust branding can be used to make the dashboard feel like part of our organisation.
We would recommend continuously reviewing the content on the system to ensure that it is always relevant and is being well received by the applicants. A review is completed every 3-4 months by providing each Service with a copy of the current dashboard and requesting any content updates or additions.
Moving Forward
The applicant dashboard is now very well embedded within our organisation and an integral part of the onboarding process. In September 2024 a total of 85 applicants accessed the dashboard, making over 450 dashboard interactions. The intention is to continue to develop the applicant dashboard to ensure the information remains relevant and helpful to new starters and encourage the uptake of completing statutory and mandatory learning.
If you would like to contact Cambridgeshire Community Services to discuss their work on the Applicant Dashboard, then please contact alex.james7@nhs.net
Please visit the ESR Hub to access our helpful Applicant Dashboard Factsheet.
North
Optimising the Flu Campaign Portlet on My ESR Dashboard
Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is the Trust responsible for managing Aintree University Hospital, Broadgreen Hospital, Liverpool University Dental Hospital and the Royal Liverpool University Hospital.
The Trust was created on 1 October 2019 when the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust and Aintree University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust merged. It is one of the sixteen NHS Provider Organisations that are commissioned by Cheshire & Mersey Integrated Care Board (ICB).
Diane Haddock is the Associate Director of Occupational Health at Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust as well as being the Chair of the Cheshire & Merseyside Occupational Health Network (C&MOHN). At the beginning of Flu Campaign in 2023 Diane was looking at different ways of engaging with employees to improve the Flu Vaccination rate. Diane told us:
Every year we always look at the latest ideas and initiatives to help us promote the Flu Vaccine campaign and promote the wider services that the Occupational Health team provides. I was really interested when Mike Winstanley, Senior ESR Account Manager for the North of England spoke to me about how portlets on the Employee ESR Dashboard could help with the campaign.
Following this initial conversation an invitation was extended from the C&MOHN for the ESR North Regional Team to attend a meeting in July 2023 to discuss how utilising a portlet could help promote the uptake of flu vaccines.
Diane added:
Each Trust within the ICB will deploy different strategies to promote flu vaccination uptake within their Organisations. Organisations are always looking at different ways to engage with employees to encourage them to have their annual Flu Vaccine in time for the “Flu Season.
As ESR is used considerably by employees for many functions, including accessing online payslips and keeping personal data up to date, it was felt that developing a Flu Campaign bespoke ESR Portlet to sit alongside other staff portlets to signpost employees to how they can obtain their jab might improve the uptake.
The Portlet is hosted on the ‘My ESR Employee Dashboard’. The North Region ESR team presented a basic concept of how the portlet might work.
The Portlet is made up of 3 sections but can be tailored if any of the sections are not applicable.
Section 1: is a countdown timer for when the flu campaign ends, it is broken down by days, hours, minutes and seconds.
Section 2: this section looks at the uptake of the Flu Jab against each of the respective staff groups that are within the Organisation, e.g. Nursing, Medical, Allied Health Professionals etc… It was felt that having this section clearly visible on the Portlet would encourage those staff groups that had a poor uptake increase their numbers. There is no reliance on this data being entered into ESR to enable this section.
Section 3: this section was dedicated to signposting where employees could obtain their jab.
It was agreed by the C&MOHN that Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (LUHFT) would be the first organisation to go live with the portlet. A meeting was arranged between the Occupational Health Leads, the ESR Portal Site Administrator, the ESR Functional Account Manager and ESR Implementation Advisor to agree the sections it would be useful to have within the portlet.
Diane said:
Initially we only wanted sections 1 and 3 included and we collated the necessary information to build the portlet. We liaised with the ESR Implementation Advisor who talked us through how we could build and publish the portlet. We also developed communications aimed at employees to highlight the portlet was now live. The portlet was launched in September 2023 and not long after the launch we decided to include section 2. Access to the base code for the portlet allowed us to change the staff groups included so they aligned with Frontline Worker Flu Vaccine reporting groups. This proved very useful as it allows us to emphasise which staff group uptake needed to increase while linking with the Trust’s Commissioning for Quality and Innovation targets (CQUIN).
Using ESR also led to workforce data being used more effectively. We developed a robust recording mechanism for vaccinations. During the campaign this helped to identify physical locations where uptake was low and where our Vaccination Team focussed their efforts to increase uptake. We are keen to use the Portlet again this year.
Following the launch of this initiative a further 7 organisations went live with the Portlet on the employee dashboard in ESR. Once the flu vaccination campaign concludes the portlet can be removed from the dashboard and other initiatives can be promoted instead. Following the success of the campaign several organisations in the Merseyside & Cheshire ICS are now looking into the launch of a portlet to promote the work of the Veterans Network across the region.
The principle behind the portlet is that organisations can use the same code and adapt it for other campaigns such as the Staff Survey and any other time sensitive initiatives they are promoting.
Liverpool has used their Flu Campaign portlet again this Autumn/Winter and Diane has told us:
The portal is particularly helpful in affording a quick link into our roving sessions and uptake. It is great to be able to signpost our staff to the page. Its value cannot be underestimated. If we didn’t have this portal, uptake could be worse and certainly when benchmarking against Cheshire & Merseyside Trusts we are comparable and better than some.
For further information please contact Stuart Jones Workforce Information Lead, Liverpool University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust stuart.jones1@liverpoolft.nhs.uk
How the North East & North Cumbria Provider Collaborative - People Digital is optimising ESR in readiness for the Future NHS Workforce Solution
Not going fast alone but going far together
In February 2023 the People Digital Group was created as part of the North East and North Cumbria Provider Collaborative. The purpose of the Group was to explore working together across the ICB to develop a strategy to improve digital capability. Donna Watson is Head of HR Strategy and Transformation at Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals Trust and Chairs the People Digital Group for the Provider Collaborative and she told us:
Over the last few months we have been working together across the collaborative to get a better understanding of our baseline position of the use of ESR. The ESR Self Service Levels of Attainment Assessment has been vital in helping us to understand the overall position.
From the ESR Assessment we could see across the region we had a great level of maturity of Self Service which is a key part of our preparation for the transition to the NHS Future Workforce Solution. Establishment Control in ESR was identified as our priority area. There are many benefits to optimising Establishment Control; it creates great synergy between HR and finance information. Not only does Establishment Control help with the transformation to the future NHS Workforce Solution it also supports the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan.
We recognise the barriers and challenges to this work, and we are not all starting at the same point. The other complexity is the demand for our services at the same time as doing this project. We have collectively discussed as a strategic network along with our NHSBSA ESR Regional Engagement Team about how to navigate this programme alongside the demands of different baselines. To that end we have come up with a couple of solutions; a workshop to help learn from one another and create informal channels to help support one another outside of a formal process.
My advice would be to optimise now to give yourself enough time to transfer over the future NHS Workforce Solution and to engage with your ESR Regional team. This is “about not going fast alone but going far together.
The ESR State of Readiness Workshop took place on 24th September 2024 at a location in central Newcastle. All the organisations who are part of the NENC provider collaborative were present, and the session was Chaired by Donna Watson and facilitated by the North ESR Regional Engagement Team's Mike Winstanley and David Bromilow.
Donna spoke about the NENC People Digital Programme and how that was creating their people digital strategy and change programme. Initially, the programme had identified four development workstreams; innovation, collaborating on HR services, systems and licensing and the ESR state of readiness – in preparation for the future NHS Workforce Solution.
Arlene Atkinson, Deputy Director of Finance at Northumbria Healthcare Trust was present. Arlene spoke about why building establishments is important on the journey of the Provider Collaborative and the importance of finance and ESR teams working together.
The workshop also considered ‘why and how’ to build establishments in ESR, and reflected on lessons learnt which included feedback from other organisations that have implemented Establishment Control. Additionally, Charlotte Cheal and Alice Higgins from the NHSBSA Workforce Optimisation team also presented some insight into supporting Establishment Control projects and how they can offer practical support to organisations.
Following the workshop each organisation is now looking at how they are going to implement Establishment Control and further updates will be provided to the NENC People Digital Group.
If you require any guidance or assistance with implementing Establishment Control or would like to know more then please contact your NHSBSA ESR Functional Account Manager.