Open Content Email of 25 Mar 2009 to EMR Managers:
For info only; below is our movements since we got all our feedback from SMR and EMR.
The aim has been to alter our course to match what might 'fly' with other regions, in the context of Roster & Attendance, etc, especially in terms of demonstrating clear cost/effort/benefit.
For EMR in particular, which doesn't use the EMSVariation as across the board as does N&W, there is the added benefit, if you went down this track, that online staff replacement delivers all the shifts to you that EMSVariation never quite succeeded in doing at EMR.
I.e., if you ditched EMSVariation, you would not leave a half-vacuum, but rather, you'd finally have all those staff replacement shifts at your fingertips before the timesheets come in. As well as getting shifts filled in a targeted way, and without making so many phone calls per day.
Content of Email of 25 Mar 2009 to SMR Managers:
Just following on from my phone call just now, I'm meeting Janine today, and have had a discussion with Heather (AnnMarie was on message bank), arising from a chat Heather and Janine have had recently.
The things we've been discussing is that we brought to you, last time we met, a raft of ideas about how we might assist to make staff replacement better for you. We were even imagining altering the software to sort and filter staff by their post codes, and things like that.
Coming out of that discussion, and others we had with Eastern etc, and arising from the fact that we've just rolled the tool out an SWS in the last few weeks, with additional learnings, we felt that we should:
...pare back the raft of ideas to just a few simple ideas:
- Start with the casuals and get staff availability onto a screen; and then
- Getting that availability to 'sit' near shifts, pulling managers and supervisors into the system (as distinct from pushing them)
In terms of scope, in light of the fact that anything we implement in the next couple of years may only have a shelf life of 2 (but possibly more) years, any implementation should be:
- Simple, and not have a scope that is not larger than if we were to offer you the excel-based staff replacement system we are phasing out at N&W;
- Guarantee clear cost/effort/benefit in the first few months, such that for every month or year it is in place beyond that is clear benefit; and
- Deliver immediate centralisation of control in terms of enforcing your staff replacement business rukles, and yet still leave you with the option of allowing supervisors and even staff to fill shifts.
Further to previous discussions on doing things better, would be very interested in your feedback, whichever way you are leaning on all of this.
(Emails sent by Damien Ryan-Green)