Beccles Medical (NHS Trust)

Employee relationship management: Increasing employee engagement by 15%

The Practice offers health checks under the national NHS scheme to help prevent the onset of specific health problems. Their services are wide-ranging from ante-natal to minor surgeries. The establishment is part of Norfolk and Waveney Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) that ensures that communities and patients receive the right standard of service.

STRATEGIC CHALLENGES

HR INFRASTRUCTURE TO SUPPORT OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE AND EASE PRESSURE ON STAFF

In line with the NHS initiatives at the time, the surgery was set to start giving the coronavirus vaccine out as soon as it was possible. However, this project naturally required additional resources and extra effort from the hard-working Beccles team. Due to the speed of constant ideas that flow into the NHS and GP services, whilst the practice adopted a forward-thinking strategy for future-proofing (even prior to COVID-19 hitting the world), having the right HR infrastructure to support everyday operations and ease the pressure on staff became of paramount importance.

EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCES: STAFF DIDN’T FEEL SUPPORTED

With a paper-based appraisal system, performance management became a tick box exercise that managers carried out once a year then filed away until the following year. This approach had meant holding individuals accountable for their past behaviours as opposed to focusing on the future and driving growth. Staff weren’t always sure where they stood and without a platform for regular discussions and feedback; day to day successes that lift morale was often forgotten.

EFFICIENT REMOTE WORK: ACCESSING OPERATIONAL AND EMPLOYEE INFORMATION WAS DIFFICULT

Although the practice has an intranet, important information that was part of the surgery’s Business Continuity Plan had to be downloaded and printed, with managers required to carry physical copies of various documents with them.

HR faced further challenges with having to request information from the Practice Administrator via e-mail, which could take days or weeks to turn around. There was no infrastructure or provision in place to be able to access information off-site.

Decision making: running reports based on numerous Excel sheets

In the absence of a central system, the types of reports HR had to produce in order to support strategic decisions meant sifting through and compiling information held within a number of Excel sheets.

As NHS staff rarely work 9-5, employees have different working patterns based on the hours they work. Consequently, payroll also had to check individual working patterns and annual leave entitlement against numerous Excel sheets.

To ensure that holidays and absences were logged, staff first had to e-mail the practice administrator who in turn would seek approval from direct line managers and eventually confirm the outcome of the request.

However, if the administrator wasn’t in on the day the request came through or the request was lost in high volumes of e-mails, employees often had to wait weeks for confirmation. All of this added up to duplicate efforts, missed data, several days’ worth of extra admin time and ultimately a cumbersome process.

Solutions and Results

Engagement at 87% high: Real personal experiences and moments

With the implementation of StaffCircle, the Beccles team can now get and give regular feedback to each other on the go (on their mobile) allowing employees to record and celebrate daily successes when they do a good job with patients or support each other. This in turn positively impacts their individual experience and morale, which is especially important during these stressful and uncertain times.