Can redesigning your workforce boost staff recruitment and retention?

As the NHS staffing shortage impacts healthcare services across the UK, how can workforce redesign support new and existing staff?

CREDIT: This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared on NHS Employers

Workforce redesign is about seeking new ways of working so that your existing staff can develop their current skills and gain support in building resilience and confidence. It should also help staff to meet the needs of new organisational systems and processes to improve patient care. When changes occur, it is important that staff feel supported and are engaged in the redesign process. Examples of workforce redesign include: 

• Designing new roles for current staff based on their skill sets.
• Introducing brand new roles to tackle workforce challenges such as staff shortages.
• Developing new programmes and models to allow staff to work on other areas of expertise.
• Increasing opportunities for current staff to broaden their skills, such as through apprenticeships.

Implementing workforce redesign effectively – and making sure staff are part of the process – can create significant benefits for staff, teams, patients and the organisation as a whole. These benefits include:

• enhanced patient care and experience;
• improvements in staff retention;
• increases in recruitment;
• increased staff motivation and recognition, as staff feel part of the transformation;
• increased trust and efficient working within teams;
• empowered, more confident, and skilled staff;
• increased staff satisfaction and morale, through development opportunities;
• increased effective system working for organisations.

Resources

Here are some resources that can support the planning and execution of your workforce re-design.

• The roles explorer: hosted on the Future NHS platform, the roles explorer is a collection of resources to support the planning and delivery of workforce redesign to introduce new roles, or innovative adaptations to existing roles already being deployed within a service or system. It provides information on the capabilities, training requirements and career frameworks for different roles, and enables workforce planners to choose the best fit for their service models. It also offers best practice planning methods and case studies which illustrate how roles are being deployed across different system priorities.

• Health Education England’s multi-disciplinary team toolkit: the toolkit provides a comprehensive guide on building and developing effective multi-disciplinary teams across a broad range of professional groups and system structures. It is designed to be relevant in any setting, to any objective and to progress a ‘one workforce’ approach.

• Skills for Care’s principles of workforce redesign: the Skills for Care’s principles can help organisations which are undergoing any form of organisational restructure or transformation to set out the key things that need to be taken into account when changing the way staff work, to ensure they play a role in change.  

• The Supporting integration through new roles and working across boundaries report: commissioned by NHS Employers and the Local Government Association, this report looks at evidence on new roles, and ways of bridging organisational workforce boundaries, to deliver integrated health and social care.