Units of Recruitment Activity - NHS 111 & Out-of-Hours Service

Overview

The HR team’s biggest concern was the significant number of unprocessed applications (approximately 500) in the team’s mailbox, which has accumulated over an unspecified period. The client did not want to utilise the traditional Recruitment Agency solution which was not only costly but did not guarantee quality in terms of delivery of resources.

Solution

With limited time to understand the client’s operational processes (1 week from acceptance of solution to go live) much of the solution was based on the Project Leader’s understanding of commissioned services and extensive experience of managing volume recruitment requirements.  Marmion’s solution for the client was to simplify the process and to outsource the front end recruitment procedures. The objective was to remove the administrative burden of processing a large volume of applications for the HR team and to only present suitable candidates for consideration to attend face to face interviews all within very short timescales by:-

• Working with joint IT departments to establish immediate and ongoing access to the clients HR Mailbox
• Screening all enquiries from the inbox and job boards advertising vacancies
• Categorising the applications and prioritising against the more urgent vacancies
• Handling the responses to ensure that the client’s brand was protected and promoted
• Consider and retain applications that may not be needed at the time but may be utilised for later campaigns
• Capture data in accordance with client specific policies
• Minimise the time spent by already stretched Operations teams interviewing unsuitable applicants by ensuring the front-end process was effective in its selection of the right people!

The process included:

• Daily monitoring of the Mailbox and job boards ensuring that applications were responded to within 24 hours. In order to clear the backlog Marmion worked from 08.00hrs to 20.00hrs during weekdays and on weekends for the first 4 weeks. Telephone interviews continued outside normal working hours to accommodate applicants’ shift patterns.
• All CV’s received into the HR Mailbox were reviewed and if suitable an application form was sent to the applicant within 24 hours (same day unless received during the weekend in which case responded to each Monday excluding Bank Holidays)
• Each ‘client’ application form and ‘NHS Jobs’ application form was screened against criteria provided by the client, and if suitable the candidate was invited to participate in an initial telephone interview by email within 24 hours or if a ‘clinical’ applicant a call would be made on receipt of the application in order not to lose the candidate’s interest.

The telephone interview document was designed by Marmion and included basic biographical and competency questions, qualifications, preferred hours and days of work, details of commitments which might affect the applicant’s ability to comply with shift patterns/locations and earliest start dates. As this is a 24/7-hour 365-days service, candidates were also asked to confirm they were happy to work, if on rotas, all bank holidays and weekends. We also checked availability for the required 2-4 weeks induction programme. The form evolved over time to become more role specific. The duration of the telephone interview varied according to the role, clinical and managerial roles could take up to 1-hour to complete. The objective of the interview was to provide greater insight into the role and company to the prospective candidates and also to deselect unsuitable candidates at the earliest stage thus avoiding wasted time interviewing and appointing unsuitable staff.

• If following the telephone interview, it was agreed that the candidate met the client criteria, applicant packs were sent to both the Operational Lead & HR who would then arrange a face-to-face interview.
• Applicants who did not meet the criteria at any of the stages described above were sent emails thanking them for their interest and informing them they were unsuccessful at that time.
• 1 month into the project Marmion was asked to handle all internal applications and to follow the same process for early-stage selection.

Additionally, Marmion:-

• Provided bi-weekly Management Information on all applications received and processed up to the point of face-to-face interviews.
• Provided weekly breakdown of costs of service per location and vacancy.
• Captured all applicant details for future audit purposes.
• Developed MI for the client’s internal use to be used in meetings with commissioners.
• Ensured that we complied with Information Governance in respect of data protection.