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Being an Employer of Choice
Our commitment to invest in learning and development for our entire workforce has continued to be a priority during 2019-2020. We offer a range of learning opportunities to enable our staff to consistently deliver high quality people-centred care. .
This year, staff completed 96% of all their mandatory training requirements and we consistently exceeded our contractual performance target of 90% for the whole year. 100% of our new starters completed their corporate induction programme and xx new employees completed their Care Certificate within their first 12 weeks of employment. The Care Certificate builds on the Common Induction Standards and aims to ensure a consistent approach to induction and support the development of a competent, caring and compassionate workforce.
We made effective use of monies allocated from Health Education England for staff development. This included advancing clinical skills in diabetes, minor illness, leadership development and supporting progression of our workforce as part of our Grow Our Own Talent strategy. This also enabled four staff to undertake non-medical prescribing courses to advance their practice, develop confidence and support clinical decision making.
Provide has supported the Continued Professional Development (CPD) of its workforce. Over £28,000 of employee training was funded throughout the year with applications for training being assessed and supported through the L&D Strategy Group. The CPD activity included attendance at external learning events and clinical conferences, enhancing clinical practice and leadership development. Importantly this funding supported four employees to undertake the full time District Nurse PGDip programmes commencing in January 2020 and six Advanced Care Practitioner (ACP) MSc delivered by Anglia Ruskin University.
Provide continued to maximise the use of the Apprenticeship Levy to support both clinical and non-clinical career pathways for new starters and also developing existing staff. At the end of the year 18 staff commenced on a Levy-supported apprenticeship with 17 successfully completing their programme of study. Following successful completion of the Foundation Degree in Nursing, two Provide staff started their Registered Nurse Higher Apprenticeship (Top up) at Anglia Ruskin University in May 2020. This training will support our commitment to deliver responsive high-quality healthcare to people in their own homes and communities by highly qualified and experienced community nurses.
Provide teams continue to support students placed with us in practice from Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) and University of Essex (UoE) across a number of professions such as nursing, speech and language therapy, paramedics, physiotherapist and occupational therapists. Throughout the year Provide supported 228 weeks of high-quality student placements. Provide teams continue to receive great feedback from students who are keen to acknowledge the support they have received whilst on placement.
Students working in our Integrated Care teams shared their feedback:
Throughout the year over 60% of our staff were trained in the principles of excellent customer service through the Mary Gober International programme. This programme was delivered in-house to strengthen our teams’ capability to build strong positive relationships with our customers, patients and service users by giving them confidence that they can always provide a way forward to meet their needs.
As one of the partners in the Mid and South Essex STP, now known as the Health and Care Partnership (HCP), our staff have had the opportunity to be part of a number of training programmes, including development programmes for nonregistered staff in Bands 1-4, leadership programmes such as the Essex Mary Seacole and specific programmes for black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) staff and Quality Improvement training, as well as access to mentors and coaching. Provide has been actively involved in the design and roll out of the new High Potential Scheme across organisations in the HCP. Although delayed due to COVID-19, plans are underway for this to recommence in the latter end of 2020.
Fourteen staff undertook our in-house development programme called the New Managers’ Survival Programme. The programmes consists of a focus on leadership, service development (using project management methodologies), and practical workshops on all aspects of people management. Delegates also undertake the IOSH qualification whilst on the course. The HR and OD team designed new training on unconscious bias to support our equality and inclusion action plan and all participants undertook this training as part of the programme.
This year’s conference theme was Resilience - Improving your health, wellbeing and energy. The event boasted an audience of over 210 delegates, special guests, and exhibitors. The three speakers were outstanding and the general
consensus was that it was the best conference to date. During the presentation from Matt King OBE the delegates were mesmerised by his journey and inspired by his strength and praise of the nurses that helped him through the difficult times. Steve Head’s unique style had the audience guffawing while he imparted his knowledge and experience in a highly engaging way. The speakers and workshops were very well received and feedback throughout the day was exceptional. Delegates danced in their seats, hula hooped and were treated to some delicious afternoon cakes and desserts.
Recruitment Nationally and locally it is recognised that the scale of the workforce challenges now facing the health service poses a threat to the delivery and quality of care over the next 10 years. In response to this challenge we have continued to strengthen our recruitment practices, developed enhanced career pathways, redesigned roles and services to support greater staff engagement and job satisfaction.
In the light of these challenges we have generally been able to recruit to key roles and to maintain turnover through voluntary resignations at around 14%.
We have extended our use of social media to promote our organisation as an ‘employer of choice’ and to highlight roles. We have reviewed the information on our internet page ‘Working for Us’ to make it easier for people to navigate, increased the utilisation of other recruitment technologies such as LinkedIn, and continued to develop our onboarding intranet site. We are implementing Trac, a new applicant tracking recruitment software which will further streamline our recruitment processes and enable enhanced reporting to ensure that our recruitment service is efficient for both prospective employees and the managers we support. Feedback on our recruitment process by applicants using NHS Jobs consistently places us above the national average.
In the last 12 months we have continued to develop our own staff bank arrangements through Provide Workforce Solutions and through targeted recruitment and open days at some of our workplaces we have significantly increased the number of workers engaged through the service and the number of hours worked. Some bank staff have moved into substantive roles within the organisation, which is encouraging and supports one of the fundamental objectives of this project in creating a natural pipeline for development and progression and supporting recruitment. The project also aims to reduce further the reliance on agency staffing.
We have continued to build on the portfolio of benefits we offer to staff and in December 2019 launched a recognition package, which allows managers and staff to send e-cards recognising achievement or giving thanks to each other. This was also used to send a small gift to employees just before Christmas to thank them for their hard work over the year.
We have also undertaken work this year to introduce a salary exchange option for those who are members of our Provide Group Personal Pension. This will come into effect on 1 April 2020 and has a number of benefits as it allows members of the scheme to choose a percentage of salary to invest in their pension, whilst also delivering savings in NI payments.
Diversity and Inclusion
We have developed a comprehensive action plan from our Workforce Race Equality Scheme data this year and continue to promote opportunities for black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) staff through programmes such as Stepping Up. We have continued to encourage participation in the NELFT BAME network and some of our staff attended their excellent conference earlier in the year.
Health and wellbeing
Provide has some of the lowest sickness absence levels of community services providers across the country. This has been maintained at low levels for the past six years through the successful application of our attendance management policy, a programme of monitoring and support.
However, it is recognised that staff working in the health and social care field can experience significant pressures and so Provide continues to invest in health and wellbeing activities for our staff.
We have commenced a refresh of our Health and Wellbeing Strategy and have started to focus on financial wellbeing. In February 2020 we launched a new financial information benefit package called My Eva which gives employees guided information on how to maximise their financial wellbeing depending on their personal circumstances.
Our volunteer Wellbeing Champions have run a range of engaging activities for staff over the year, including a staff hydration challenge, seated massage, yoga sessions, craft sessions, cycling and walking challenges.
Technology
Provide continues to drive improvements and efficiencies through the use of online technologies. All payslips are electronic, annual leave and sickness absence are all managed through ESR or our e-rostering system and 95% of training bookings are made by ESR self-service. Less than 1% of travel expenses are now claimed on paper.
A programme of ESR supervisor self-service continues to be rolled out to help reduce form filling, ensuring better oversight and reduced duplication of effort.
Staff survey
We have continued to run our staff survey in bitesize chunks over the year. In November, January and March all employees received survey questions, as we have some questions that need to feed into statutory returns. However, for the other months only a sample of employees were sent a survey.
We ask just five or six questions each month and it takes under two minutes to complete. The responses are communicated to staff through our monthly communications cascade system, Team Brief. This allows us to focus on key issues each month and to align our interventions throughout the year to respond to the changing feedback.
This year 90% of staff respondents indicated that they would recommend friends and family to receive care from Provide. 74% would recommend Provide to friends and family as a place to work. 90% of respondents believe they can make a valuable contribution to the success of Provide.
We also provide an opportunity for staff to supply comments on their experience of working for Provide and below are a couple of the positive comments received.
‘I have felt completely and fully supported since day dot here at Provide. The team around me are so friendly and I feel we are all working from the same page, towards a shared goal, and morale is high. We all make time for each other personally and professionally and look out for others to offer guidance to those above and below our bandings. It’s a really great place to work.’
