The Humber, Coast and Vale Workforce Consortium is currently leading a National Project for NHS England and NHS Improvement that aims to retain temporary workers in our area, particularly those that came forward to work during the pandemic.
The project, led by Victoria Wilkins, has reached out to various organisations across Humber, Coast and Vale Health and Care Partnership and linked up with the HCV Partnership Programme Bank in our area as well as those people employed through NHS Professionals, to work in vaccinations, Test and Trace and Rapid Response.
Each candidate enrolled into the project is offered a series of webinars to support them in their quest to move into a permanent role in health and care or to support them to apply for training and/or further education, to either retrain or gain new qualifications. There has been a particular emphasis on the virtual world and how to navigate through job searches, finding training organisations and the interview process. More frequently, Job interviews are held both face-to-face and virtual nowadays, so it has been important to help people to be at their best in both circumstances. Another webinar focuses on how to deal with ‘knockbacks’, ask for constructive feedback and then how to deal with the feedback so you regain the confidence to apply again.
In addition, we have joined forces with a local Career’s Guidance Company who are able to provide one-to-one confidential sessions, with those wanting a more in-depth discussion and support to really identify what direction they wish to go in next.
We are also meeting and having conversations with many candidates and writing anonymous case studies to be shared with organisations, so they can see what qualifications, skills and experiences candidates have and what kind of roles they are looking for. It’s also a great way for employers to find out more about candidates and think about how that candidate could work within the existing framework of the organisation or it could allow them to think differently about the workforce and enhance their skill mix.
From the funding received, we are also developing a new career’s hub website which will draw together different resources from across Humber, Coast and Vale Partnership into one site, from which they can simply click on links and go straight to local organisations, local colleges and perform job searches. The website will have different categories with something for career’s leads in schools, school students, college students and adult learners or those wishing to retrain or return to the sector. The website is shaping up to be a fantastic long-term legacy of the project, which will continue to support and help people well beyond the end of the project in June 2022.
Alongside this, we are also looking at other resources, which will be used to do things differently and bring something different to how we present ourselves, the people we represent and the way in which we work to be more interesting, innovative and reflective of the increasingly virtual world we live and work in now. Where possible, these are long-term solutions to give the project longevity and allow us to continue to work and support people wanting to work in health and care across our region beyond the end of this part of the project.
To refer any talented temporary workers in your organisation to the programme, to support them with a permanent role or get into training, please contact us via hyp-tr.hcv.retentionteam@nhs.net. This can be temporary roles devised directly due to the pandemic, ‘kick starters’ or similar.