CNTW-hosted organisation shortlisted for two prestigious HR awards

Posted: 01/08/22

A local NHS-hosted organisation is celebrating being shortlisted for two awards for work in transforming HR practice.

WorkforceOne, which is part of an NHS consortia hosted by Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust (CNTW), has been shortlisted for awards by Personnel Today and the CIPD People Management Awards.

The team have been nominated for Best Resourcing Initiative and the Innovation in Recruitment Award respectively, recognising its work with an NHS Foundation Trust which resulted in not only more people being deployed to frontline roles during the Covid-19 pandemic but also supporting a significant transformation of the organisation’s recruitment function.

WorkforceOne was commissioned to carry out a full independent review of an NHS Foundation Trust’s recruitment function. The need for review was heightened by the impact of the pandemic on resource and capacity of frontline workers. It was imperative that the Trust’s recruitment team were able to identify, recruit and retain frontline talent to deliver essential healthcare services to patients.

WorkforceOne created and delivered a recruitment intervention plan which was made up of three phases; operational support to clear a backlog of 300 successful job applicants, the implementation of a digital recruitment platform and the creation of an entirely new methodology and standard operating procedures. Within 12 weeks, the backlog had been successfully completed and long-lasting changes made to how the team operated.

Terry Smith, Director of Operations, said: “We were shocked to see our names on the shortlists. We are just a small team who came up against some much bigger organisations. I’ve worked in the NHS for a long time and sometimes the independent nature of our work means you can lose sight of the impact our work has on patient care. In this project we could really see the impact. Our work was putting people in frontline roles at a time when they were needed most.”

Lisa Barclay, Senior Workforce Solutions Manager, added: “This piece of work had a real impact on people in the local community. Working in services such as ours means you don’t always feel a connection to patients, but this project showed just how much difference it can make to someone’s life.”

This project has fundamentally changed the way in which the NHS Trust manages recruitment. It successfully delivered hundreds of colleagues into key patient-facing roles at a time when they were desperately needed.

This collaborative project was carried out in partnership with the NHS client and support from NTW Solutions who WorkforceOne worked closely with throughout.

WorkforceOne is a specialist consultancy arm of AuditOne, a not-for-profit provider of internal audit, technology risk assurance, counter fraud and workforce consultancy services. It has brought together a unique mix of workforce, investigation and resolution specialists to provide a wide range of workforce support services.

The NHS organisation said of this work: “This really was an exemplary piece of work which will form a key part of our improvement pathway. Both the work itself, and the approach to the work, were simply first class. I am very grateful and would highly recommend the service to colleagues.”

The winners of the CIPD People Management Awards will be announced at a ceremony on Thursday 22nd September and the Personnel Today Awards ceremony takes place on Tuesday 15th November.