East of England was an early adopter of the One NHS Finance Inclusive Talent Management Strategy. As a region, we set out the challenge to complete a full cycle of talent management during the 2024 calendar year.
What is Talent Management?
In simple terms, it is ensuring that we support the development needs of our finance teams in both the short term and into the future. This involves staff talking with their line managers about future aspirations (which may well be to develop in their current role) and planning development opportunities which will support these aspirations. These discussions take place in a career conversation, which may be part of the annual appraisal, 6 month review or part of a separate process depending on the organisation. The findings of the career conversation are used to develop individual development plans and to help the senior finance team to plan for the future more effectively by holding talent pipeline conversations within the organisation and the wider system.
Pilot year timeline
January 2024 – Talent Management Leads identified in each organisation (list below).
February 2024 – Talent Management lead briefings
March 2024 – Organisations and systems to agree local processes. Existing processes to be used where already in place, otherwise One NHS Finance model to be used as the basis for local implementation.
April – December – Career conversations taking place between all individuals and line managers. Senior teams in organisations and systems holding talent pipeline conversations and consider
July, September and December – quarterly progress updates, including % of talent management conversations held
January 2025 – Feedback and improve processes for 2025
Pilot year results
Results for 2024/25 were collected via a survey by organisational talent management leads, looking to understand the progress made on undertaking talent management/career conversations and developing the results of these discussions into talent pipeline discussions.
All 29 of our NHS organisations responded to the survey with 20 organisations reporting that Talent Management was fully implemented or in progress. 17 organisations reported that career conversations had been completed for over 85% of their staff, with the total career conversations reported for 1,114 staff (almost 73% of the staff covered).
The key findings from the survey can be found here.
Introduction to Inclusive Talent Management Sessions
Introductory events for talent management leads were held during the year. A recording of the intro event held at the East of England finance conference can be accessed via the Skills Development Network.
Upcoming dates for the Introductory sessions:
If you are familiar with the basics of talent management, but would like to find out more about tools available and share ideas from across the patch why not come along to our new regional Talent Management catchup (25 September 2-3), ideal for talent management leads and others interested in this important area.
Training for Line Managers & all staff on Career Conversations
A series of training events to help managers to hold positive career conversations is available via the SDN. Booking is open for the latest set of events:
- Positive Career Conversations (for managers) 17 September 9:30-12:30 online – book
- Positive Career Conversations (for staff) 21 October 13:30-16:30 online – book
Organisational Talent Management Leads
BLMK:
- Bedfordshire Hospitals – Sonya Carey
- BLMK ICB – Stephen Makin
- Milton Keynes University Hospital – Karan Hotchkin
Cambridgeshire & Peterborough:
- Cambridge University Hospitals – Ed Smith (supported by Adrian Goodchild and James Freimanis)
- CPFT -Henrietta Whitlock
- C&P ICB – Louise Jinks
- Cambridgeshire Community Services – Paul Spencer
- NWAFT – Kylie Ellis
- Royal Papworth – Sarah Brisbane
Herts & West Essex
- East & North Herts – Katrina Doyle
- Herts Community Trust – Simon Rudkins
- Herts Partnership – Sam Garrett
- H&WE ICB – Sunday Adeniyi
- Princess Alexandra – Beth Potton
- West Herts Hospitals – Rodney Pindai
Mid & South Essex
- EPUT – David Goodwin
- Mid and South Essex FT – Amy Lewin
- MSE ICB – Natalie Brodie
Norfolk and Waveney
- James Paget – Sarah Willis
- Norfolk and Norwich – Thomas Woods
- NSFT – Jodi Martin
- N&W ICB – Emma Kriehn-Morris
- Norfolk Community – Kunal Ruchaya
- QEH – James Knott
- (EEAST is within SNEE)
Suffolk and North East Essex
- ESNEFT – Daryl Cockman
- SNEE ICB – Julie Kerridge
- West Suffolk Hospital – Imran Shah
- EEAST – Lauren Smith
Region
NHSE – EoE – Lorraine Bromley-Martin
View Resources below
Talent Management Training Box Ideas
Download a summary of the development suggestions for the 9 boxes in the Inclusive Talent Management Strategy.
View ideas here
Open Questions for Career Conversations
Download a set of example open questions developed by line managers at the Positive Career Conversation workshops.
Read them here
HFMA ANNUAL CONFERENCE – TALENT MANAGEMENT STRATEGY AND MODEL LEARNING LAB
Watch back on the NHS Finance Inclusive Talent Management strategy and model learning lab at the HFMA 2023 Annual Conference, delivered by Andrea McGee and Grace Lovelady.
Watch here
Development ideas for line managers
A quick reference guide for managers and staff looking for free development resources in the East of England.
Read it here
Inclusive Talent Management Resource Page
Utilise the strategy and guidance documents provided to initiate dedicated talent conversations with your team and gain insights into the associated processes and opportunities for those seeking development.
Find out more
DEVELOPMENT SELF-ASSESSMENT TOOL
A tool that may be helpful for navigating talent conversations. Designed for staff in bands 2 – 8d to evaluate themselves against the NHS Finance Competencies, enabling them to identify areas for further skills development.
View it here
Talent Management Resources – N&W System
The NHS Norfolk and Waveney (N&W) Integrated Care System (ICS) has taken bold steps to address Talent Management at a system level. The system has shared a range of practical resources used in the system, follow the link to see their explanatory webinar and access editable tools for implementation
View it here
Development Identification Tool
A simple tool which shows development suggestions for each of the dimensions in the Inclusive Talent Management model
Download the tool here