by Healthdaq | Nov 22, 2023 | News
Last evening in London, Healthdaq® (formerly known as HealthSectorTalent®) won Talent Acquisition Partner of the Year 2023 for a record second time at the prestigious Personnel Today Awards.
Healthdaq is tackling the fact that social care is finding it hard to attract recruits because there are many higher-paid roles in the wider economy that are also perceived as less demanding. Working with one of Northern Ireland’s health and social care trusts, Healthdaq’s objective was to attract more people into the occupation who otherwise would never have considered it.
Healthdaq helped design, build and manage a talent attraction strategy incorporating a series of recruitment open days held across the Trust’s main localities. In addition to managing the recruitment advertising across traditional and digital channels, Healthdaq provided the Trust’s relatively small in-house recruitment team with transactional and technological support to enhance the recruitment experience for both candidates and the hiring managers.
Given the estimated 165,000 vacant posts in social care across the UK and having increased by 50% between 2021 and 2022 – the highest in a decade according to the King’s Fund, the results delivered by Healthdaq in partnership with the Trust are outstanding.
In total, the campaign delivered 974 expressions of interest and 302 formal applications, a level of reach into the Trust’s community that was far beyond what had been achieved in the past. A 162 candidates attended the recruitment events – a massive 700% increase on the proceeding two-month period, where normal recruitment processes were used. The number of candidates that received a conditional offer was 157 – a success rate of 97 per cent and 129 candidates have since been appointed exceeding the target of 60 hires by 114 per cent.
“Working with a health Trust, they secured a record number of job applications, significantly reduced candidate withdrawals and made a dramatic improvement in the average cost to hire. “Compelling” said one Judge.”
Personnel Today Awards 2023.
“The positive impact on service users results from the increased number of staff available to commenced employment in the shortest time possible, particularly for those who have been awaiting a package of care and specifically in hard-to-fill rural rotas”.
Southern HSC Trust.
“We pride ourselves in being different, but then everyone says that. What’s different about Healthdaq is that regardless of how many candidates this particular client recruited as part of this campaign, they paid the same fixed cost. As a Company, we believe every employer can successfully manage their own recruitment with a little bit of help and support. That’s why we provide both single and complementing services to employers that span the entire recruitment lifecycle enabling employers to pick’n’mix the services that they need. Given that this is our second time winning Talent Acquisition Partner of the Year, 2021 and now 2023, we know that what we offer is different and that it works for employers.”
Stephen McLarnon, Chief Executive, Healthdaq.
by Healthdaq | Mar 25, 2022 | News
On 24 March 2022 at the HSJ Partnership awards ceremony held at Park Plaza, Westminster, London, Northern Ireland’s HSC Workforce Appeal received a high commendation for Staffing Solution of the Year at this year’s HSJ Partnership Awards. Following a rigorous judging process, the HSC Workforce Appeal had been chosen as a finalist, followed by this very special recognition.
The awards ceremony was attended by leaders and professionals from both the NHS and private sector as well as figures from non-clinical backgrounds. Hosted by celebrity guest Tom Allen, the evening was a true celebration of the achievements and collaborative partnerships in healthcare across a total of 18 categories.
The HSC Workforce Appeal was established by the Department of Health Northern Ireland to manage the urgent recruitment and deployment of health and social care professionals as well as administration and support staff on a temporary basis during the initial outbreak of Covid-19.
Comprising of nine separate organisations including the Department of Health, the Belfast HSC Trust, the Southern HSC Trust, the Northern HSC Trust, the South Eastern HSC Trust, the Western HSC Trust, the Public Health Agency NI, the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service and Healthdaq® (formerly known as HealthSectorTalent®), the initiative has transformed temporary recruitment within the NHS in Northern Ireland, bringing a more collaborative, digital-first and candidate-centric approach.
The impact of this initiative can be seen across Northern Ireland’s health and social care system from acute hospitals to care homes, elective surgery, contact tracing and Covid-19 vaccination programme.
Dave West, Health Service Journal’s Deputy Editor congratulated the team on their successful win;
“This year’s entrants displayed a varied range of projects and partnerships, all working together to benefit the nation’s healthcare sector. On this occasion, I congratulate the HSC Workforce Appeal on getting highly commended in the Staffing Solution of the Year and I look forward to learning the future of their projects, now with the added accolade from the HSJ family.”
On receiving this special mention from the judges, Stephen McLarnon, Chief Executive of Healthdaq and the Project Director for the HSC Workforce Appeal comments;
“On behalf of all the stakeholders, we are absolutely delighted to get a high commendation. It means a great deal to all the recruitment teams across each of the organisations to be recognised in this way and we’re confident that the positive impact of this award will help to create a long-lasting legacy. We’re proud to be considered part of the awards alumni – a community bound by a commitment to improve healthcare for all.”
by Healthdaq | Oct 28, 2021 | News
Following on from their recent win at this year’s CIPD Northern Ireland Awards, Healthdaq® (formerly known as HealthSectorTalent®) has picked up another industry accolade at The Recruitment Marketing Awards in London for “Skills Shortage Resourcing”.
Established in 1980, The Recruitment Marketing Awards are the UK’s leading industry awards for recruitment marketing and talent management, and regularly attract the UK’s leading employer brands including Amazon, Next, Balfour Beatty and even MI6 (The British Secret Intelligence Service).
This year’s Skill Shortage Resourcing category sought entries from employers and their respective agencies that clearly demonstrated the ability to recruit effectively in an area that is notoriously difficult, requiring effort and some unconventional thinking to overcome its obstacles.
Healthdaq represented Northern Ireland’s Health and Social Care (NHS) at this year’s ceremony taking home the Best Skill Shortage Resourcing Campaign for the multi-award winning “HSC Workforce Appeal”, an initiative of the Department of Health Northern Ireland to boost workforce capacity during Covid.
In this category, Judges looked for entries that found a “needle in a haystack” and “the winning entry needed that moment of brilliance, that eureka moment, an initiative that defied the odds.”
“As of 30 June, this year, we carried more than 5,000 vacancies across the health and social care system. The largest numbers were vacancies in relation to nurses and midwives, with a total of 1,786 across the system. In addition to those vacancies, the system is experiencing a higher than normal rate of absence due to COVID-19. The latest available figures show that almost 1,900 staff are absent across the health and social care sector, ill with COVID-19 or self-isolating. That adds 2·6% to the absence rate across the system. I have taken action to try to address that issue through the HSC Workforce Appeal. The response, to date, has been positive, with more than 5,000 applications.”
Robin Swann, Northern Ireland’s Minister of Health
by Healthdaq | Oct 8, 2021 | News
In partnership with the Department of Health Northern Ireland, Healthdaq® (formerly known as HealthSectorTalent®) launched the HSC Workforce Appeal in March 2020 to boost the health and social care workforce of Northern Ireland during Covid-19. Healthdaq’s efforts in designing, implementing and managing this regional workforce initiative were recently recognised at the CIPD Northern Ireland HR Awards 2021.
The awards are highly regarded and deemed the most prestigious for the HR profession in Northern Ireland. They highlight organisations and individuals who have delivered impactful initiatives and have gone above and beyond during these unprecedented times. The entries are judged by a panel of leading HR and business professionals from a range of organisations from across the UK ensuring that only the very best are shortlisted.
This year’s “External Consultancy” category recognised the partnership between an individual consultant or consultancy and a client organisation working on a specific people-related project to address a strategic issue.
In winning this year’s award for Best External Consultancy, the panel of judges stated that Healthdaq’s entry “was of particular interest to the judges as it involved an ongoing project which will have touched much of the population in Northern Ireland in some way or another; grappling difficult issues which have been under enormous public scrutiny and pressure in these extraordinary times and continue to impact our society across Northern Ireland. Managing complex, multiple stakeholder relationships has been fundamental to delivering desired outcomes and objectives, and at times clearly balancing conflicting and competing priorities.”
by Healthdaq | Nov 26, 2020 | News
Healthdaq® (formerly known as HealthSectorTalent®) was today named Resourcing Supplier of the Year in the UK at this year’s Personnel Today Awards for its work in managing one of the largest recruitment campaigns in the history of the NHS during the initial outbreak of Covid-19.
Led by the Department of Health Northern Ireland, an emergency temporary staffing recruitment campaign was created and launched with the urgent objective of ensuring additional capacity was available in the event of the health and social care system being overwhelmed.
The HSC Workforce Appeal was designed, built and managed by Healthdaq on behalf of the Department of Health, the five Health and Social Care (NHS) Trusts and Northern Ireland’s Ambulance Service.
The strategy included rapidly creating a recruitment brand for the health and social care system in Northern Ireland; assembling a recruitment project team representing each of the key stakeholders and forming a central recruitment command and control centre to act as a single point of contact for all stakeholders and suppliers.
Pathways and workarounds were required to overcome strict protocols around the recruitment of clinical professionals including the application and interview process, employment checks and onboarding in a world of social distancing and remote working.
Over the course of 35 days, the Covid-19 Recruitment Project Team of 162 people working across 9 organisations (mostly working remotely due to social distancing and travel restrictions) delivered the largest recruitment campaign of its kind in Northern Ireland.
Personnel Today Award Judges Stated;
“Healthdaq impressed our judges with its emergency response to the first wave of the Covid-19 epidemic in Northern Ireland. It rapidly built up a contingent workforce of clinical and non-clinical healthcare workers, attracting, selecting and deploying workers into the health and social care system. Our judges described its work as “amazing” in a unique and challenging situation.”
by Healthdaq | Nov 16, 2020 | News
Healthdaq® (formerly known as HealthSectorTalent®) a global healthcare talent consultancy is behind one of the UK’s first mass vaccination recruitment advertising campaigns for Northern Ireland’s Public Health Agency.
Having already designed, built and managed the HSC Workforce Appeal on behalf of the Department of Health Northern Ireland earlier in the year, the highly successful Workforce Appeal was reopened by the Minister of Health in October to meet the rising demand for clinical and non-clinical temporary staff across the whole of the health and social care system in Northern Ireland.
Over the past 9 months, the HSC Workforce Appeal has generated over 30,000 applications and delivered thousands of candidates directly to the five NHS Trusts, Ambulance Service, Independent Care Sector and more recently the Public Health Agency for Contact Tracing.
As countries and governments around the world gear up to roll-out their Covid-19 mass vaccination programmes, Healthdaq has created an additional campaign under the existing Workforce Appeal to source and recruit thousands of Registered Healthcare Professionals, Healthcare Support Workers and Administration staff to support and assist in the provision of Northern Ireland’s regional vaccination programme.
