The Human Resources team at Royal Papworth previously managed their HR cases using spreadsheets. Over time it became clear that this approach was not meeting their needs.
Project highlights
- Generating case hearing packs previously took 1.5 days and can now been created in 60 minutes
- Aiding training and development for next generation of HR practitioners
- Greater transparency and oversight of cases by looking at the bigger picture
Overview
Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is the UK’s largest specialist cardiothoracic hospital and the country’s main heart and lung transplant centre. Having established an international reputation for excellence in research and innovation, it treats over 50,000 patients each year.
The Trust employs around 2,100 staff and has values deeply embedded in compassion, excellence and collaboration. One of the pillars within its recently developed People Strategy led by the HR team, aims to develop efficient and effective workforce processes that align with the overall core values and principles of the Trust.
Situation
Like many other NHS Trusts, the Human Resources team at Royal Papworth previously managed their HR cases using spreadsheets. Over time it became clear that this approach was not meeting their needs and the team encountered obstacles that made the process time consuming. For instance, information had to be filtered and merged manually and only one user could access the spreadsheet at any given time. This presented challenges when extrapolating data for reporting and made cross collaboration amongst the team difficult.
Jade Butler, Workforce Business Partner at Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Our existing spreadsheet was not supporting the team in the way we needed it to. We found that it was taking around 2-3 days to generate reports and get them ready to present to our Workforce Committee and sometimes files would corrupt – the process was consuming a lot of staff hours.”
As part of a wider drive to introduce new processes and utilise technology, the HR team sought a new system to track, manage and resolve HR cases. One that would provide increased efficiency to aid reporting, as well as greater transparency and detail of their case data.
Customer profile
Generating case hearing packs manually previously took 1.5 days, using the new solution now allows HR practitioners to complete in up to 60 minutes
Solution
Working closely with sector specialists Conformity Software, Royal Papworth went live with CaseworkER in June 2023. The cloud-based HR case management system delivers great efficiency and compliance of HR policies. It provides the Trust’s team of HR advisors, business partners and workforce operation leads with real-time access to the information they need and provides visibility to the deputy HR director.
Managing a high case load per month, the system is used to ensure compliance across five case policies, these include long-term and short-term sickness, disciplinary, grievance and dignity at work. With all information and documentation securely stored in CaseworkER, the Trust is utilising the case hearing pack functionality within the system to quickly compile case information in preparation for employment tribunal hearings.
With the Trust’s HR policies mirrored in CaseworkER, the team are guided through each policy stage and associated actions. This ensures consistency and also provides HR assistants with transparency of the process to aid their training and development.
Jade Butler concludes: “Using CaseworkER to create case hearing packs has generated significant time savings, especially compared to the manual method we used previously. Having the flexibility to add additional information to the pack in the lead up to a hearing is incredibly useful and one of the standout features.”
Benefits
Compared to the previous manual spreadsheet process, leveraging the case hearing pack feature within CaseworkER has significantly reduced the workload for HR practitioners. Generating case hearing packs manually previously took 1.5 days, using the new solution now allows HR practitioners to complete in up to 60 minutes.
CaseworkER has provided the Trust with greater transparency and oversight of cases by looking at the bigger picture and understanding historic trends. Resources can be aligned accordingly in these areas to provide additional support to assist with patterns or themes that may be arising in particular areas or teams which assist with other Trust initiatives such as recruitment and retention allowing practitioners to be proactive rather than reactive.
The solution aids training and development for wider HR assistants. The structured step by step process helps ongoing development of wider team members by providing a good introduction of the employee relations landscape. This allows assistant-level employees to look at policy areas and enrol on extra training, aspiring them to develop into a future role.
Share post
Further news
Copart wanted to streamline its case management process, drive efficiencies and ensure compliance with its HR policies and ethical practises. Having previously used spreadsheets, the team found the process to be too manual and it slowed down the pace at which cases could be managed
As a forward-thinking and dynamic department, the Employee Relations (ER) team at Ashford and St Peter’s Hospitals wanted to modernise its existing case management solution and utilise a more flexible approach to managing and tracking ER cases.
