As you will be aware, the central contract for the e-KSF comes to an end on the 31^st March 2011 and NHS Employers, which is the contracting body for the e-KSF, have stated that: Employers who currently use the e-KSF must consider whether to retain the e-KSF system at their own cost, switch to ESR, or move to alternative data storage systems.

Over the past three months we’ve talked to over 120 NHS organisations about their plans, and the reasons behind their decisions, so we thought this would be a good opportunity to share some themes which frequently arise during our discussions.

Common Performance Appraisal Themes

1. Think about appraisal systems in the context of learning systems. We’re hearing a strong drive to have a seamless approach between performance management/appraisal systems (to replace what the e-KSF did part of) and learning management/e-learning systems. ‘Seamless’ here means that organisations want at least a single sign-on for self-service users, and ideally a common interface and ‘look and feel’. There is an increasing recognition that managers and staff need to engage with just one system, and that asking people to use multiple systems, which don’t talk to each other perfectly, is a challenge too far.
2. Do what’s right for you locally, rather than only what fits national agendas. HR Directors are telling us that they are increasingly focused on creating
   competitive organisations – competing for high quality staff (because even in a recession there are limits to the numbers of people with key skills), as well as creating differentiating capabilities to help their organisation stand out from other NHS Trusts and private health organisations regionally and nationally. Differentiation can come from unique recruitment, performance management and development strategies, which in turn imply careful selection of systems to support these strategies. For example, we’re hearing the phrase ‘learning organisation’ more frequently again now, which suggests more of a learner-centric, self-directed approach to learning and a portfolio-approach to development and evidence.
3. Your choice of system depends a lot on your approach to the KSF. The e-KSF was developed specifically to handle the detailed requirements of the Knowledge and Skills Framework (KSF) and is brilliant at doing this, so if your organisation has chosen to implement a fine-detail approach to the KSF (for example, customised areas of application and selecting indicators for the foundation subset) you will probably find that the e-KSF, or a local bespoke solution, works best for you. However, we’re finding that many organisations in England are now looking at a simplified approach to the KSF. We see merit in this, but believe that some ways of doing this are better than others – click here to read more about our views on ‘breadth vs width’ approaches to simplifying the KSF). Where organisations have simplified the KSF to a more generic competency framework, there is a wider choice of systems to meet their requirements.
4. Accept that there is a lead-time required between decision and implementation – so act early. Many organisations have been thinking about and making decisions regarding their choice of appraisal system for some time – we tend to find that these are the better performing organisations more generally. You now have lots of choices about the right system for your organisation. Our experience shows that a planned transition from one system to another will often take 6 months, and even a rapid transition might take 3 months. As well as the consideration of the end of the national funding for the e-KSF, March/April is often a key time of year for appraisal and development recording, so in order to ensure a successful transition between processes and systems, decisions really need to be made before the end of 2011.

In summary, we’ve come away from our first round of discussions with organisations with one overarching message: form follows function. Or: systems need to follow strategies. So first, be clear what you want your appraisal and development strategies to do for your organisation. We’ve written a lot about performance appraisal recently, and two key articles that we feel will be of interest to you are: ‘Performance Appraisal and Development Review‘ and ‘HR and Management Control in the NHS‘.

A structure for your options appraisal

A practical next step for organisations would be to create a list of specific requirements for your local systems. Of course, because every organisation has different strategies, local culture, IT infrastructure and history, there is no ‘one size fits all’ list! However from our discussions the top four general requirements for your performance appraisal and learning systems seem to be:

1. Simple to use. We often hear that the ambition is to not have to train staff in how to use a system – focusing effort instead on training around great appraisal skills.
2. Flexible to use for all staff groups, in all locations and working patterns. Yes, medics may well need to store different information to non-clinical staff, but they should be able to use the same underlying IT platform.
3. Cost effective. Ideally building on currently available and licence-free technology.
4. Integrated. A realisation that learners, managers and HR teams need to interact with a single tool, or at least a suite of tightly integrated tools that form a holistic solution.

How would you evaluate your current and potential systems against these requirements? If you would like help with the detail of your systems options appraisal, please contact us for further information.

There are lots of potential approaches to the effective management of performance appraisal. We will be exploring each of the emerging options over the forthcoming weeks in a series of short articles covering:

• The minimalist approach – simple local solutions, using in-house expertise and/or low-cost bespoke tools. For some organisations spreadsheets and email forms provide a solution that is ‘good enough’ and ‘ticks the boxes’!
• ESR and Oracle – One of the great benefits of ESR is that it’s supported strongly by the Department of Health and is part of an integrated suite of HR tools. Successful implementations of ESR take account of real-world situations and consider ESR as the core tool which can then be enhanced by local processes and bolt-on tools.
• Totara Open Source system - Totara is a low cost, Open Source distribution of the Moodle learning platform which adds ‘corporate’ functionality, including department structures, positions/work structures, competency management, objective setting, 360 feedback and powerful reporting. We’re seeing increasing interest amongst NHS organisations in this low cost, highly functional, yet flexible, Open Source system.
• Microsoft SharePoint  - you can use SharePoint to host your own bespoke databases, lists, forms and processes and then give your staff instant access to record, update, approve and report on information. SharePoint is still licence free for the NHS.

Click here to download our summarised view of all the main options available to NHS organisations as we see it.

We are really keen to collect and share best practice and latest thinking. So we’d love to hear from you. Which performance appraisal system options is your organisation considering? Please take 30 seconds to tell us in our anonymous online poll.

For the remainder of our contract for the e-KSF, we have been asked to help organisations consider their options for performance appraisal systems, so if one of our regional Account Managers hasn’t yet been in touch with you, please do not hesitate to contact them directly, or email info@think-associates.co.uk. Alternatively, please click
here to find out how we can help you further with your performance appraisal processes.

Tim Newham
Managing Director

About Tim Newham

Tim is the founder and Managing Director at Think Associates Ltd. He takes an active role in helping clients and has specialist interests in organisation development, process improvement and knowledge management. Tim has over 10 years’ experience of managing large-scale performance and learning processes in the public sector, and focuses on building the bridges between HR policy/process, line management requirements, and IT systems to make life easier for staff. Tim has a First Degree in Engineering Systems and a Masters Degree in Management.

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