Each winner of the HR Excellence Awards has proven their impact on business by backing up their award-winning strategies with facts and figures.
Here's how Leeds Community Healthcare took the top prize for its stellar recruitment strategy.
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Best Recruitment and Workforce Planning Strategy 2023: Leeds Community Healthcare
Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust was facing a recruiter’s nightmare. Record vacancy numbers combined with high sector churn had hit service levels hard, making it near impossible to fill roles.
The Trust had previously relied on the NHS online jobs board, but had found it to be ineffective in the turbulent market conditions. Leaders of the Trust decided, therefore, to take recruitment into its own hands and recruit directly.
Instead of waiting for candidates, the team actively sought recruits from the communities that successful candidates would be working in.
Taking on three temporary staff, the team hatched a plan. By targeting recruitment from low-income areas close to its vacant roles, it could help change peoples’ lives by giving them secure work, cut its own turnover rates and help patients.
The Trust's team approached a variety of local charities, bringing on board expert advice. This meant that the Trust was able to target its recruitment at some of the most marginalised people in Leeds.
Processes had to be changed, including providing interview expenses, as some interviewees would have had to skip meals to afford the travel. The Trust also had to be flexible about allowing paper-based applications where candidates lacked the technology to apply online.
The Trust's team likewise opened 10% of the roles as apprenticeships, to help support people without other qualifications into roles; flexible working arrangements were granted, as many applicants were single parents.
The team’s approach to marketing the roles was commendable, too, holding sessions in high-traffic areas and local hotspots, and posting flyers through doors in high-deprivation areas.
It was a high-effort strategy, but it has paid off. A third (33%) of the people who were recruited had previously been unemployed. A further 6% were coming off zero-hours contracts.
A quarter (25%) of hires live in the most deprived areas of Leeds, providing a real socio-economic benefit to the city. Many of the new staff members can walk or cycle to work, which has helped with both their health and retention.
Over 18 months, retention was better than the Trust-wide average. One new healthcare support worker said: “I can see myself being here for a very, very long time. I wouldn’t have got the job without the support I have had.”
Not only has the level of service jumped – with a 35% increase in staff in one hospital alone – but the quality too. With more local people giving the care, the connections between patient and carer are stronger, and the sense of purpose behind each role is brought even more sharply into focus.
Better service, faster hires and the filling of unfillable vacancies – it is fair to call the strategy a triumph. An added bonus, though, is that the 130 hires were delivered on a shoestring budget of £10,000 over the 18 months.
It is no surprise, therefore, that the Trust is in talks with two others about how they might adopt similar approaches.
Our judges were thrilled, and praised the team’s passion and creativity.
One summed it up well: “The person who drove this strategy clearly cares deeply about what they do. These are really strong results from limited resources, and a deserved win.”
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