Case Study: Talent Management Process at Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland ICB

Based on a discussion held with Gill Kilberry, Assistant Director of System Finance, Training and Development at LLR ICB.

Hi Gill, tell us a little bit about your role and where you work?

“I’m Gill Kilbery, Assistant Director of System Finance, Training and Development at Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland (LLR) ICB and I work within the Finance Contracting and Corporate Governance directorate. This does mean that we have individuals within the directorate who are outside of the finance function, but we have successfully applied the Talent Management strategy to the whole directorate.”

How did your Talent Management Strategy implementation journey begin?

“When One NHS Finance (ONF) launched the Talent Management (TM) Strategy we reflected that although the organisation’s appraisal documentation encourages a discussion around future career aspirations and related development, we didn’t have a specific TM process for our staff to engage with. We also saw this as a good opportunity to support staff morale following recent low scores around this from the NHS staff survey. We therefore started by looking at what is already out there, the ONF Talent Management Strategy, Midlands Talent Management Futures website and Scope for Growth and spent September and October 2023 agreeing an approach and methodology that would work for us. We launched this methodology with the whole of the directorate in November.”

Tell us about that launch session?

“We launched our proposed implementation methodology at a directorate meeting along with a “How To” handbook that was based on the ONF documentation but adapted for use outside of finance. This did take a significant amount of time but has provided us with guidance documentation that makes no specific mention of finance staff and therefore can be used by all staff within the directorate.

‘HOW TO’ HANDBOOK DOWNLOAD

The Grow, Stretch, Accelerate model from the ONF model was shared with the team, along with a template for completion post conversation which would then be used as a summary to share with the TM Lead.

We anticipated that this would land differently with each member of the team and therefore we offered everyone the opportunity to discuss the process and documentation with the TM Lead and then further to this we offered the opportunity for individuals to have the conversation with either their Line Manager or one of the qualified coaches within the directorate.

As a directorate, we made the commitment to hold talent conversations with all of our finance staff within November 2023 and March 2024, and that this would be separate to the appraisal conversation. I am pleased to say that we achieved that ambition and were able to repot to our region by the annual reporting deadline in May 2024 that all finance staff within the organisation had received a talent conversation.”

That is amazing Gill, and a real step forward in ensuring talent management that leaves no one behind. What happened after the conversation has been held?

“There is a template for summarising the conversation which is sent to the TM Lead and these summaries were then entered into a spreadsheet that allows for interrogation by person and by post. The spreadsheet is colour coded to highlight areas for further discussion, examples may be posts where we know that the individual or individuals are looking to move on, and then as importantly, whether there is an option for filling that future vacancy or whether there is a risk, as there is no solution within our current pipeline.

These would be the posts that we would then be looking to discuss at system level, to see if there are any individuals within the system, or whether any creative solutions can be found to the potential challenge ahead.

As we can also filter by person, for every person we can see what their aspirations are and what posts they could support in a caretaking capacity and what posts they would be interested in applying for on a substantive basis. Once this information has been collated, it is checked by the Line Managers to ensure that it has been interpreted correctly.

MATRIX AND CHART TEMPLATE DOWNLOAD

The information that we have collected has already been used to inform the Finance training and development budget for 24/25 as well as highlight potential applicants for Finance Academy and SDN development programmes.”

What would you say have been the challenges?

“There is a lot of information out there, which is both good and bad, as it took a long time to read through all of the documentation and that can initially be off putting. A second issue for us was that the guidance is very much aimed at finance staff, so we had to tweak a lot of the material to make it relevant to all of the staff within our directorate.

Initially, there were some negative comments themed around why are we doing this when we have just been through the appraisal process, or are due to undertake an appraisal soon, along with whether a specific meeting is needed as I know my staff? Being open to discussions really helped with this, but ultimately reminding our Line Managers that they should be prepared to dedicate time to the wellbeing and aspirations of their staff, which could change over time, helped us to get over any initial negativity.

Once the process was underway, and individuals could see the benefits of the process, it really gained traction and we have received some very positive comments after the TM conversations were held. Having been through the process once, we will be taking feedback, and will be looking to make improvements before repeating the process again in 12 months.

In the summaries, there is clear correlation between the depth of the conversation and the experience of the Line Manager, and the level of effort put into the pre conversation preparation. This is something that we will look to support our Line Managers with before embarking on the process again.

The conversations also took longer than we had originally anticipated, as the timing coincided with workload pressure around the planning process. This is something that we have taken on board, and next year we will be looking to have the conversations completed before the end of Q3.

The summaries to the TM Leader also varied in respect of level of detail provided. This was possibly due to the fact that we weren’t clear what the outcome would be, but now that we have the spreadsheet in place, that should help with the guidance for Line Managers as to the level of information that is required.

The final matrix took a lot of time to construct, and therefore it is anticipated that it will only be updated for each individual once every 12 months. This could become problematic and burdensome for larger finance teams and may need some consideration as to how it can be completed by each sub set within the larger finance team structures (e.g. Financial Management, Financial Services etc) without missing out on potential opportunities that cross the sub sets of the team.”

How does it feel different for your teams?

“Finance team members all now have at least one development objective linked to either their aspirations or their engagement. Work can now progress to aid delivery of these, utilising the resources that we have available.

The matrix shows us the roles that have multiple people interested in stepping into over the next 3 years, and then those where there is no internal interest. Just as importantly it shows the roles where we have people interested in moving into the role, but the current postholder is not looking to move on and where there is the expectation of a vacancy soon, but there is no one ready to step up.

This has allowed us to identify staff that we may lose to external organisations as they look to progress, the roles where we will have to recruit externally and then the roles that we struggle to recruit to. This allows us to have conversations re the next steps that we can take which may include; liaising with other organisations within the system re their pipelines, working together on promotion and raising awareness of the harder to recruit to roles and sharing opportunities that will keep talent within the NHS family, if we can’t offer an opportunity internally.

We have found that it’s crucial to be clear about how we intend to use the information from each team member’s conversation and ensure they fully understand our expectations. It’s important to encourage them to provide more specific timeframes rather than general statements like ‘within 3 years’ to help us understand their true intentions and plan more effectively. It’s also important to ensure they consider roles beyond their immediate focus.”

What is next for the LLR ICB Talent Management journey?

We know that staff will disengage with the process unless they feel a difference, and therefore our immediate next steps will focus on:

• Confirm pipeline outputs with Team leaders, Deputies and CFO.
• Discuss pipeline implications with LLR ICS Towards Excellence Accreditation group made up of development leads from ICB, UHL & LPT, (potential for secondments across system, closer working, sharing training, LLR managers development programme etc).
• Include TM in LLR ICS Finance development day.
• Develop internal training and development to support objectives and quality of future conversations.
• Target relevant staff regarding national and regional programmes.
• Report progress and potential opportunities to ICS CFOs.

After the Summer, we want to check-in with our staff as to how this is progressing and to gain their feedback to make this process the best that it can be. This will include:

• Survey of staff regarding the progress made on objectives and proposal for 24/25 process.
• Review summary feedback template prior to 24/25 conversations.
• Present process, reflections, and outputs at LLR ICB People forum with potential for organisation wide engagement.

We know that the personal and organisational impact of TM will not be fully seen unless objectives are followed through, development is made available, and career pathways strengthened, therefore the next steps outlined will be essential to demonstrate its value.

Learn more about The Talent Management Strategy and process here