Virtual recruitment at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust

Key benefits and outcomes

• Hosting a recruitment fair online allows for a greater geographical reach for attendees.
• By using existing software, the trust has been able to make the event cost effective.
• The lack of physical travel needed to reach a virtual event made it easier for contacts and colleagues to attend. As such, attendance increased.

What the organisation faced

Each year The Christie hosts two recruitment events. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, these events would take place at least once a year, onsite in the hospital or at universities. The pandemic forced the events online. The recruitment team was presented with the challenge of replicating the experience and success of the face-to-face recruitment fairs in a virtual space.

What the organisation did

The Christie’s recruitment team needed to find answers to the following questions:

1. What platforms are available?
2. What did the trust want the event to accomplish?
3. What would be the best approach to showcase its offer to prospective new staff?
4. What will candidates be able to see that will keep them engaged throughout?
5. How could the trust promote the event in a way that creates the widest possible reach?

The answers to some of these questions lay within the organisation but outside of the recruitment team. The nursing directorate and the marketing team were enlisted to help plot a map of desired outcomes and possibilities running the event virtually presented, which became practical plans to take forward.

After understanding what the nursing directorate needed the event to do, a decision was taken to run it on MS Teams, a platform the organisation was already using. The recruitment team planned plenary sessions and smaller break out rooms, one for each area of nursing – 12 in total.

The event used PAGETIGER, a piece of software that allowed the trust to create an interactive guidebook delegates could engage with pre, during and post event. The interactive guidebook contained information on how to join the event, the agenda and how the breakout sessions would work, further information about the trust’s services, teams and careers, and the opportunity for candidates to feedback on their experience. It effectively replicated and replaced printed resources delegates would receive at a face-to-face event.

The trust’s chief nurse addressed all candidates, and the lead nurse from each directorate chaired the breakout session in their area of expertise. The chief nurse’s presentation was broadcast from the trust’s auditorium, which retained the professional feeling and gravitas that would have been provided should the event have been held face-to-face.

The trust’s marketing team promoted the event through three channels: the trust website, the organisation’s web team developed a designated event page; NHS Jobs, event information was added in the about the organisation section; and through social media sites Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Paid advertising was used to promote the event on Facebook, a decision that provided best value for money.

The marketing strategy was a success. Roughly 220 contacts, drawn from a wider geographic area than previously seen at face-to-face events, signed up to the recruitment fair. 130 attended on the day and an initial 14 contacts were offered a job in inpatient services, as the first cohort of recruits.

The trust followed the following process between running the event and offering interested attendees a role: vacancies specifically for candidates who had attended the event were set up on TRAC, candidates were then offered the chance to register to the trust’s talent pool, job opportunities that became available post-event were then offered to candidates and expressions of interest accepted, informal conversations or interviews were then arranged at a time that suited candidates.

The trust is building on the successful approach by planning a smaller, theatre service recruitment event where candidates will be interviewed virtually on the day.

Roughly six to seven weeks pass between the recruitment fair taking place and nurses being appointed to posts.

Induction

The Christie organises monthly corporate inductions for all new starters to attend. The sessions give newly recruited staff an opportunity to learn more about the aims and values of the trust, hear how the trust can support staff health and wellbeing and meet the organisation’s Freedom to Speak Up guardian. The event is interactive and staff can ask questions and participate in polls.

The chief executive leads the induction with a presentation and open Q&A to demonstrate the importance induction and the welcoming of new staff holds in the organisation.

New starters are also invited to an informal chat on Microsoft Teams with corporate services.

Local inductions take place in addition to the monthly corporate session. The recruitment team provide hiring managers with a checklist of all the things they must inform new starters of. This includes vital information such as where to collect PPE, supervision arrangements, orientation to workplace environment, job roles and responsibilities etc.

All new employees are signposted to an employee app which provides regular, up to date information on the organisation. It is also used as a staff engagement tool where staff can complete monthly customer satisfaction surveys which are fed back for action to the organisation’s workforce committee.

Results and benefits

The Christie has been able to continue its recruitment fairs despite the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Their innovative approach has widened the reach of its recruitment, saved the organisation money and has supported the method of partnership working across the organisation.

By making good use of technology, the trust has been able to successfully promote their events and continue to place candidate experience at the forefront of their recruitment processes.

The trust has done a lot to keep candidates informed before they start work through corporate and local inductions as well as a trust app.

Overcoming obstacles

The success of a recruitment fair relies on an established project group where colleagues from different functions can identify and manage challenges together. Each department comes with its own expertise, expectations, and ideas for the event, so it is important to select a project manager to be the central point of contact to engage with various stakeholders, set up communication plans and organise team availability.

It is important to be clear on what can realistically be achieved and to communicate this information in a way that retains the engagement of the different people involved.

Inducting people during a pandemic also poses unique challenges – presenters need to wear PPE while presenting and employees attending the event on site must maintain social distancing. Availability of staff is a further issue, so all new starters are offered multiple opportunities to attend the corporate induction.

Getting the balance right between the information shared with new starters before they start their roles and the information provided in the corporate induction is a challenge.

Neither duplicating the information nor allowing the induction to run for hours to cover everything is ideal. Overcoming this challenge and picking the most appropriate information to share and asking which corporate services to join is an evolving conversation between teams and stakeholders.

Going forward, when the pandemic is over, flexible working will be continued and therefore The Christie will need to figure out how to facilitate such events with an audience accessing the channels through different mediums.

​ Further information ​

For more information about the work in this case study, contact Jingwen Yang, resourcing lead, The Christie NHS Foundation Trust: Jingwen.yang1@nhs.net