Strategic Recruitment Supports NHS Service Transition
Company Background
Our client with circa 20,000+ employees is an NHS Trust and primary care supplier in the South-East of England. As a key public sector organisation, they hire over 20,000 employees to provide exceptional care and customer service to patients. Their high-performing workforce requires efficient planning and support to ensure service delivery continuity. Aligned with NHS objectives to enhance patient outcomes and reduce costs through digital technology, our client required contingent staff to support an area of service transformation through introducing electronic prescription management.
Client
Contact
Business Type
Staffing Type
Recruitment Challenge
When our client invested in an Electronic Prescription Management platform to improve speed of access to prescription services for its vast patient community, the implementation of this new service, came with the natural service continuity pressures that come from any important change projects. To support the transition period, additional support was needed in the form of Customer Service Advisors to help patients with the change in service experience. Our client needed 15 temporary customer service staff to work onsite with a staggered four-week shift rota to ensure that all shifts were covered and patient support needs were fully met during a four-month transition period.
Recruitment Solution
Our first step was to understand the scale of the change programme and it’s potential impact on patient. Our Tate experts discussed the service demand volumes and pattern of demand to help establish the scale and shape of contingent workforce required. Due to the highly trusted and responsible
nature of the job role in scope, we knew that vetting candidates for integrity and experience of handling personal and sensitive data, would be key. Using our experience of managing temporary staff, we were able to factor in accurate absenteeism, attrition, and annual leave factors that would influence the number of staff needed to ensure optimal cover throughout the entire transition project. Our already-established candidate community in Sussex
meant that we were able to draw from quality customer service advisors with relevant previous experience and attract new talent through optimised job adverts across job boards and social media. Combining these efforts meant that we were able to find the highest quality talent within the local area available for immediate start.
Recruitment Journey
Due to the nature of the role, which required high levels of patience and empathy, we knew it was crucial to ensure that our candidates had the necessary experience to manage patient calls and queries, but also the right behavioural qualities for this role. Our advisors were the first point of contact for candidates, ensuring that telephone screening, availability, and attitude was aligned with our NHS Trust’s needs. Our web-based testing platform was used to evaluate our candidates’ behavioural aptitude, ensuring that our candidates were aligned with patient needs.
Our uniform approach to application management meant that all candidates were familiar with the DBS check and screening requirements ahead of registering for these roles, reducing time-to-hire. To maximise staff retention, we held weekly in-office meetings with the team of Customer Service Advisors to discuss anything they wished to, building trust and proactive service relationships with each person so that they felt confident and comfortable coming to the Tate team with any queries about their role, freeing up the client to focus on the service transition.
The Results
Our work resulted in:
- 85 applicants
- 15 placements
- 20 candidates selected
- 10% temp-to-perm
- <4-week time-to-hire
- More than 4 months of patient service support
