You are browsing the archive for 2010 March.

Shared Services – A Recipe for Waste?

March 31, 2010 in Corporate Services, Public Services, Shared Services and Outsourcing

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The advice from many experts suggests the government should accelerate shared service implementation across the public sector.

The proponents of shared services claim this will reduce costs through economies of scale and improve  services through standardisation and improved performance management.

It’s clear the case for shared services is being increasingly well orchestrated, though independent evidence for success is not easy to come by and cases of both success and failure have been in the public eye.

Suggesting it is inappropriate to apply lessons and techniques from mass-production environments to service organisations, John Seddon, MD of Vanguard and professor at Cardiff university argues shared service operations are a recipe for poor service, waste and inefficiency. Read the rest of this entry →

IOD Push for Public Sector Shared Services and Outsourcing

March 29, 2010 in Corporate Services, Public Services, Shared Services and Outsourcing

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In a recent report, the Institute of Directors (IOD) suggests rapid moves to impove procurement, implement shared services and outsourcing services should reduce government deficits.

The IOD highlights the potential for outsourcing, to the private sector, services provided by a number of public service bodies, especially the operational agencies of government.

The IOD says the case for shared services is “self-evident” and encourages the government to accelerate widespread adoption across the public sector, suggesting that outsourcing can bring similar benefits to shared services while working faster. Read the rest of this entry →

Are Shared Services and Business Partners Effective?

March 26, 2010 in Corporate Services, Leading and Managing Results, Shared Services and Outsourcing

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Even before public sector organisations began to implement shared services, they were adopting the language of the Ulrich model.

Rather than HR Managers, job adverts increasingly referred to “Business Partners”.

But in those organisations will anything have really changed … and if they are now looking to implement HR shared services, have they thought about how this works differently? Read the rest of this entry →

NHS Savings – Absence Management

March 25, 2010 in Leading and Managing Results, Workforce Management

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Photo:AnA oMeLeTe, Flickr

The UK needs to reduce public expenditure and government departments are now publishing their savings plans.

The Department of Health has adopted a £555m savings target for reduced sickness in the NHS – taken from the 2009 Boorman review.

Having published the target, Government spokesman are being asked how this particular saving can be realised – the intimation being that the target is not deliverable.

The detailed answer, not often proferred in interviews, is that government have adopted the recommendations of the Boorman report, which involves -

  • the production of staff health and well-being strategies,
  • providing staff health and well-being services, including stronger occupational health services,
  • using new information tools to assess performance,
  • improving NHS leadership and development,
  • implementing new governance, compliance and regulatory measures to oversee all the above.

While all these actions might help prevent ill-health and reduce absence, they are solutions with a long “lead times”.

In fact, acheiving major improvements on absence, delivering better productivity and significant financial savings needs no “magic” solutions. Read the rest of this entry →

Cost Pressures and HR Job Prospects

March 22, 2010 in Corporate Services, Public Services

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According to press reports, public sector employers are anticipating having to make workforce reductions of between 5% and 20% over the next few years.

In that context, back-office functions, including Human Resources, may see proportionately larger cuts as employers seek to protect front line services.

There is no doubt a financial squeeze of the scale being discussed requires major change and reorganisation of front-line service delivery.

It’s important to demonstrate corporate teams are reviewing their own activities and resources alongside front-line teams. As public services are reduced it would be inappropriate to leave corporate functions undisturbed.

There are certainly significant savings available for organisations which identify their back-office teams are working inefficiently. Change here could reduce costs without impacting service quality. It’s important to recognise these functions correspond to a small fraction of the entire workforce however. Read the rest of this entry →

Smart Acquires HMT

March 18, 2010 in Workforce Management

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The acquisition of HMT Systems, the suppliers of Rosterpro, by SMART brings together two of the most widely-used staff scheduling solutions within the NHS.

Two of the solutions available under the NHS procurement framework will now come from one group.

Linking with partners, SMART can bring together nursing and administrative scheduling, medical workforce rostering and expenses administration systems. Read the rest of this entry →

Line Management and HR Capacity in the Public Sector

March 14, 2010 in Corporate Services, Leading and Managing Results, Public Services, Shared Services and Outsourcing

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Commentators suggest poor performance is more tolerated in the public sector than the private sector.

The prevalent view says the public sector exhibits significant shortcomings in performance management.

If this perception is accurate, it forms part of the context in which public sector human resources functions operate.

Where front-line managers lack capability and confidence organisations tend to look to the HR function to drive efforts to tackle poor performance. Even the most capable and dynamic HR practitioners however, cannot (should not), substitute for effective front-line managers.

With simultaneous demands for improving front-line performance and productivity, management skills are at a premium. With organisations trying to reduce back-office expenditure, how can line managers and HR teams respond effectively? Read the rest of this entry →

Benchmarking Goes Live

March 10, 2010 in Our Track Record

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Attractor’s benchmarking solution was made available to our early client group this week.

Selected historic sample data from NHS organisations as well as benchmark information from other employment sectors in the UK and elsewhere will be available for the first time.

Client teams can now start to collate and enter data items on their own productivity and efficiency. This work will contribute to a growing database revealing, for the first time, how NHS organisations fare in relation to back-office productivity.

This new source of reliable business intelligence for NHS corporate teams will support efforts to improve services in relation to quality of outcomes and cost effectiveness. Read the rest of this entry →

QIPP for the NHS Back-Office

March 8, 2010 in Corporate Services, Leading and Managing Results

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The NHS QIPP programme is likely to focus attention on front-line service provision.

This is where quality and innovation have direct impacts on patient care – which makes change high-profile and potentially controversial.

It is also where productivity gain has the biggest potential benefit for improving costs and affordability, protecting service provision and positive health outcomes.

But back-office functions need to play their part! While supporting front-line service change, back-office teams will also be looking to make efficiencies.

Corporate functions are now operating in an environment where it is important to prove value and provide measurable results. In coming years, corporate departments which are unable to provide evidence on their results will face serious challenges to their future existence.

Read the rest of this entry →

Next Generation “Insight-Driven” HR

March 4, 2010 in Corporate Services, Leading and Managing Results, Workforce Management

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HR practitioners are currently engaged with the difficult changes needed to ensure organisations survive the downturn and the anticipated financial squeeze.

Only a few, lucky, individuals have the time to spend on real strategic thinking.

As one might hope from a professional institute, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) have published a report looking at the lessons learned from recent organisational failures.

It sets out some real “blue sky” strategic-thinking and proposes some new challenges for the HR community. “Next Generation HR“ looks at the organisation of the future, and sets out a case for a business-savvy, risk-focused and assertive HR function which makes a stronger contribution to an organisation’s ongoing success and survival. Read the rest of this entry →