Spring In-Brief 2019 - Flipbook - Page 5
Continued from previous page.
But these adaptations caused the beast to be unable to
adapt to a warming climate, ultimately leading to its
extinction. To me, this is analogous to teams such as tiny,
hyper-specialised teams having caseloads spiral out of
control as they cannot readily adapt to the variance in
demand which comes from catering to such a small
population.
There is an inherent balancing act between useful
specialisation and having services which are suitably
sized to cope with fluctuating demand; after-all what is
“survival” in this context analogous to? Providing the most
clinically useful interventions to the greatest amount of
people?
Understanding the dynamics at play and how services will
cope with day-to-day fluctuations in demand and longterm changes in demand can often seem like a dark art. A
complex simulation modelling tool, such as Sim:pathy,
has been developed specifically for the healthcare sector
to address this problem, thereby providing intelligent, realworld answers to address the challenges that subtle
service evolution create.
By James Sharwin,
Head of Analytics, Niche
The NHS workforce retention challenge
Joanna Protopapas examines the recurring issues for services
The NHS Long Term Plan states that workforce shortages
are currently the biggest challenge facing the health
service. There are an increasing number of providers
struggling to maintain a sufficient number of employees
across provider services. What was once an issue for
hospitals located in sparsely populated areas is now
becoming a problem nationwide, including London.
In recent years, the focus has shifted from investing
heavily in recruitment to retaining the existing workforce
instead. Many organisations across the NHS are already
implementing comprehensive strategies to tackle the
issue of frequent staff churn. This analysis presents a few
interesting examples from healthcare providers across
England.
Starting off on the right foot
Many trusts struggle with high turnover of staff who have
been recently hired. For example, at East Kent Hospitals
University NHS Foundation Trust, a deep dive into
employee turnover identified that staff leaving the Trust
within their first year of employment accounted for 40.3%
of the Trust's overall turnover of 11%. In order to address
this issue, the Trust transformed the way in which it
advertised jobs and focused on Values Based
Recruitment [VBR]. This was aimed at reducing turnover
by ensuring that newly recruited employees possessed
the right values that fit with the organisation.
This also gave them an opportunity to find answers for
any questions they did not have a chance to ask during
their job interview or early induction.
Another example of establishing an early relationship with
new starters can be found at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS
FT (GSTT). In order to reduce the post-offer dropout rate,
managers were encouraged to keep in touch with
appointees and to start the engagement relationship early
by, for example, inviting the successful candidates to
attend team meetings and team events.
Career transferability
Supporting individuals in designing their ideal career
pathway can help incentivise them to remain within the
organisation. There are many learning and development
opportunities which organisations could offer to staff
without financial strain, such as secondments, specialist
qualifications, stretch projects as well as mentoring and
coaching.
Additionally, the Trust focused on how they engaged with
new starters in the period between the initial offer of
employment and their official start date. An online portal
was commissioned with the main purpose of supporting
and nurturing the successful candidates throughout their
first year, right from the start, thereby allowing new
starters to familiarise themselves with the Trust and its
values early on.
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