Sonia Mooney Signature Solutions

When the Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust (RUH) turned to HR transformation consultancy Sonia Mooney Signature Solutions (SMSS) with a significant recruitment challenge, SMSS stepped up with a strategy the PMA judges believe has “the potential to be life changing for patients, and could lead the way for other trusts”.

The RUH provides acute treatment and care for around 500,000 people in Bath and the surrounding areas, and aspires to be one of the leading trusts in the UK, but found its recruitment process wasn’t operating effectively. As as a result, it was experiencing “a huge amount of noise and frustration”; “there was a lot of finger pointing and blame”. 

However, the organisation wasn’t sure of the root cause of the problems and, without clear operational processes, KPIs or real data it didn’t know where to start.

So SMSS started with a data and insight-driven diagnostic phase, engaging and consulting with teams across HR, IT, stakeholders, cross-functional teams, hiring managers and new employees. This revealed a disconnected, inefficient structure, silos and complex and all-manual processes built on spreadsheets, with duplication, delays and waste. There was no inclusive recruitment strategy and the candidate and hiring manager experience was poor. One quarter (24 per cent) of new hires were leaving within year one, costing £2.8m annually.

Together, RUH and SMSS shaped a holistic strategy and launched the Digital Talent Programme, sponsored by the chief people officer and chief digital officer. A new partnership between HR and IT and a cross-functional approach was launched, with RUH people helping to co-create and test the new solutions. At the core of the transformation approach were agile HR principles, enabling teams to quickly start thinking differently and operating in new ways. 

The results included new hire attrition decreasing to 2.5 per cent; the function became data driven, enabling detailed reporting, KPIs, surveys and insights; cross-functional collaboration and co-creation; and reduced payroll costs. The PMAs judges were impressed by the scale of the challenges tackled, “moving from high attrition and cultural barriers to a full discovery piece that highlighted the scale of the challenge, the impact on patient experience and the opportunity to take a data-led approach to problem solving”.

“This a great example of a rich collaboration with the organisation, and within the organisation, that has delivered results,” they said, adding it was a unanimous decision to award SMSS the prize.