Ekta Mehta, Author at CACI

Automating competency management: effective, efficient, accurate

Posted on: 23 May 2024

Having the ability to automate your competency management process enhances your workforce scheduling, improving output and safety

When assigning staff to tasks and schedules, understanding their core competencies is essential. As a stark and wholly unfair example, in a transport organisation you wouldn’t assign an accountant to drive a train. Nor would you ask a train driver to look over your accounts. Understanding an individual’s skills, training and experience is essential. It’s essential to the smooth running of your services and the safety of your workers and end users. Competency management is central to this.

Running schedules in a live and constantly evolving environment such as transport is difficult. There’s the basic schedule to adhere to. Then there are events, often beyond your control, which can curtail even the best laid plans. Being able to respond to these unforeseen circumstances swiftly and accurately is the difference between minimising service disruption and lengthy delays or cancelations.

This goes beyond transport, too. In construction, for example, if there is an accident on site or work isn’t carried out to the required standard, it can cause delays and impact the cost of the project.

The most reliable way of minimising such incidents is by having the right people in the right place at the right time. Your competency management framework plays a vital role in this. It achieves this not only by ensuring staff are trained, skilled and experienced, but also by being made transparent and available across your organisation. The link between training, assessment and scheduling needs to be seamless. Information must be available in real-time and events responded to accordingly.

What does real-time competency management look like?

Automation is key here. Let’s take the example of a train driver being assessed. Their ongoing competence is paramount to the smooth and safe running of services. Regular assessments need to be scheduled, conducted and reported on.

Driver A is due for their assessment. The assessor needs to be notified of the need to assess them and they will then go about conducting the assessment. Once the assessment is complete, they will then need to record the outcome of it. If Driver A has passed the assessment, this information needs to be made available to the driver, their management team and the scheduling team. In this scenario, it’s a case of confirming business as usual.

But what if Driver A fails to pass their assessment? In this scenario, further training may be required as remedial action to rectify their error. If the assessor notes Driver A as having failed, there needs to be a swift chain reaction to this. Driver A must be notified, their managers too, plus the scheduling team. Driver A may need to be removed from duty until such a time that they have undertaken the requisite training. This means, therefore, that the training team must be notified, too, with a view to booking Driver A in for training asap.

The scheduling team will then need to arrange to have another driver cover any shifts that they are booked in for. This triggers its own chain of communication, impacting another driver and their ongoing shifts. Regulations around working hours must be factored in and adhered to.

Automating this process makes it more efficient. Information, rather than being siloed by department, can be shared electronically at the point of input. This means that the driver, their managers, the scheduling team and the training department can all act quickly.

How do organisations automate their competency management?

This is a process that Transport for London (TfL) operates through CACI’s Cygnum software. Assessors are assigned to a list of tube drivers who need assessing, they can see their routes and timings and meet drivers at a station that best suits them. The results are recorded instantly and follow-up activities are automatically triggered.

Assessors access a priority list of drivers on the go through Cygnum. They can see where drivers are due or coming up for assessment. This means they can prioritise accordingly. Using the Cygnum Mobile app, assessors can record results on the go, in real time.

Obviously mobile reception can be an issue on sections of the London Underground. Where this is the case, results are stored offline on the app to be uploaded as soon as possible once reception is available again.

With results recorded in or near to real time, TfL’s training and scheduling teams have accurate and up to date information available to them. For the training team, their list of drivers is demand driven, so those drivers who need to receive training most are put to the front of the queue. This minimises frontline absences.

Ongoing training can be enhanced via automation too. Regular checks, from safety briefings to eyesight checks need to be conducted and recorded. Sending reminders and auto-booking people onto courses makes for a smoother process.

Network Rail operates its training management programme through Cygnum. This enables Network Rail to automate vast swathes of its training operation. Mandatory courses are booked in advance, attendance is accurately monitored and results are recorded and shared across the organisation.

The automation of this enables Network Rail to not only keep abreast of its training courses and who needs to attend, but also to inform schedulers of their outcomes. This is essential in keeping the right people in the right place at the right time.

Conclusion

Whilst automation of competency management can be incredibly useful across any transport organisation, it is only as reliable as the data entered into your system. Bringing data together from across your organisation is essential. Where data become siloed, its usefulness is stunted. Creating a single view requires the input of every department.

Automation can make the crucial task of keeping the right people in the right place at the right time more straightforward. It can alert you and your staff of required upcoming training. Assessments can be scheduled well in advance with results logged instantly. Training can be booked when it’s needed, including in a demand-led fashion. Again, making the outcomes of sessions available to the wider business instantly facilitates accurate and timely decision making.

Ultimately, automation of competency management underpins accurate scheduling. Assigning tasks to staff safe in the knowledge that they are the right people to perform such tasks is essential in transport. In any industry with moving parts, being able to make changes in a live environment is also essential. When schedulers and administrators have to manually trawl through records to evidence the changes they wish to make, it wastes valuable time. Being able to instantly understand someone’s suitability for a task, against their core competencies, skills, experience and working patterns, saves time and keeps services moving.

Automation is undoubtedly challenging to achieve, but the results are well worth it.

Technology and its impact on risk in the rail industry

Posted on: 16 May 2024

How technology is enhancing safety for rail workers at organisations like Network Rail and Transport for London (TfL)

Whilst the UK is in the enviable position of having one of the safest rail networks in the world, that’s not to say that things couldn’t be improved upon. Technology is playing a major role in advancing safety standards and enhancing safety for the rail network’s workforce and passengers. This case study looks at how Network Rail and Transport for London (TfL) are utilising CACI’s Cygnum software to support their efforts in managing the training and competency of their workforce.

Beyond the immediate safety of the workforce, enhancements in training and competency management serve to reduce overarching risk. Risk takes on many forms in the rail industry. Mistakes can lead to health and safety incidents; they can also result in service disruption and delayed projects. If staff aren’t appropriately trained, mistakes are more likely to occur. If staff aren’t assessed, there’s no knowledge and reporting on frontline delivery.

Capturing data and appropriately acting upon it is vital to a successful training and competency management framework. Being able to schedule training and assessments effectively and efficiently, whilst also being able to capture outcomes in real-time, helps organisations to maintain core competencies across their workforce and provide opportunities for career progression, an expansion in the available pool of skills and also the opportunity for re-training and mandatory ongoing training where necessary.

Training management

Training management takes many guises within an organisation such as Network Rail, which has a workforce of over 48,000 people. From mandatory ongoing training courses to more advanced, career progressing initiatives, Network Rail caters for its workforce with the provision of thousands of courses every year across 11 national training centres.

Running this process efficiently is paramount in achieving the desired training outcomes. Where manual processes are involved in inviting staff to mandatory sessions and checking that they have attended, mistakes inevitably creep in. This can result in staff attending the wrong courses, being sent to the wrong location or not attending.

Implementing a technology system can help to alleviate such issues, with automated checking of course prerequisites, auto-booking of staff to mandatory courses at defined intervals, auto-logging attendance on the day (plus any results that are required) and creating efficiency and consistency across the process. This leaves the more manual aspects to exceptions and more complex arrangements.

Furthermore, a robust training management programme enables organisations to diversify and enhance the range of skills available to them within their existing workforce. If places on courses are free, then they can be offered out to the wider workforce. This improves efficiency by helping to keep courses full. Making best use of available training resources by ensuring that courses are run to capacity and any vacant spaces are offered to interested employees who would benefit from the training opportunity, continuously enhances the core competencies and career opportunities available to your workforce.

Each training course costs money to run, from the trainer, the time taken by the employee and the room and facilities used. Finding a way of maximising the results of this expenditure is crucial. With improved visibility of class utilisation via Cygnum, Network Rail can offer out vacant course places to the wider rail industry, thereby supporting other organisations in their training needs and helping to support the wider safety standards of the rail industry.

Competency management

Closely linked to training is competency management. TfL utilises Cygnum to support the ongoing competency management of its 4,500+ Underground drivers. At a basic level, competency management is ensuring that staff are competent to perform their roles. For example that they are appropriately trained and qualified for the tasks they are undertaking. Beyond that, competency management helps organisations to understand the skills at their disposal across their workforce.

It also ties into training where mandatory ongoing training is required to maintain competence for a role. For train drivers, this includes basic aspects such as eyesight checks. It also establishes the triggering of mandatory training where mistakes have been made out in the field. Similarly to Network Rail, TfL can then schedule training at the point of a result being logged. This ensures that all drivers have access to relevant and necessary training to ensure ongoing competence.

To further have assurance on driver competency, TfL carries out ‘on the job’ staff assessments. These are scheduled by Cygnum automatically based on business rules and the driver’s duty rota. Both the assessor and driver are notified instantly. This reduces the manual effort in arranging assessments, making the process more efficient.

When an assessor assesses a driver, they can capture the outcomes on their mobile device via Cygnum’s mobile app, Cygnum Mobile. Results are uploaded to the Cygnum database and any follow up activities are automatically triggered as a result. Cygnum Mobile also includes offline data capture capability, to mitigate poor mobile reception when operating underground.

Improving workforce safety and reducing risk

By running robust training and competency management programmes, Network Rail and TfL are better positioned to monitor the skills of their workforce and ensure that appropriately trained and competent personnel are operating their services. This further helps them to monitor the safety of their networks by ensuring that all operators are compliant with industry safety standards.

Of course, no system can eradicate human error, but technology can help in prioritising workforce safety whilst at the same time encouraging career progression and the expansion of available skills within the workforce. Where the workforce is trained and regularly assessed, incidents can be kept to a minimum and when they do occur, understanding why is made easier. This is because the competencies, training, skills and experience of those involved can be quickly understood in reporting on incidents.

Having a complete picture of skills, experience and the results of regular assessments also supports administrative and scheduling staff and accurately and fairly assigning tasks to appropriate members of the workforce. Having a central view of core competencies set against bespoke business rules facilitates a degree of automation in scheduling, which reduces manual effort, improves accuracy and makes it easier to handle exceptions. Creating a central view of staff skills enhances workforce safety and reduces risk, since it reduces the likelihood of staff being assigned to tasks to which they’re not suitable for.

For more information on Cygnum, please visit: https://www.caci.co.uk/software/cygnum/

NHS data effectiveness planning in the real world

Posted on: 7 May 2024

Let’s talk about what really happens when an NHS Trust initiates a data transformation project, including key factors that determine success

How can NHS Trusts and ICS access the much-discussed potential of their data within the real-world environment of a complex, large-scale, over-stretched, pressurised, life-saving organisation?

Enthusiasm about the power of data is widespread and many leaders and managers have glimpsed a vision of how their organisation and function could transform its planning and service delivery with leading-edge insight. They know the possibility is real, because in their Trust, there are certain highly evolved functions, datasets and systems that form an aspirational benchmark. But in reality, rolling out this best practice consistently, to create an ultimately system-wide transformation, is daunting.

We don’t have easy answers or a silver bullet approach. Every NHS organisation is sophisticated and complicated – optimising data effectiveness demands rigorous focus and a commitment of resources. But we do have best practice examples of successful readiness projects we’ve worked on with NHS Trusts, helping them take the most efficient and cost-effective route to data transformation.

We reached a point where we knew we had to make changes in our technology for future scaling. We had to look not only at the commercials with our existing technology, but at our all-encompassing technology. (NHS Trust Informatics Leader)

One NHS Trust recently asked CACI to help them develop a comprehensive readiness package for a major data migration. The Trust’s situation was typical, with constantly evolving technology and a wide range of users with different levels of capability and understanding. There were acknowledged weaknesses in understanding fast-changing tools and technologies – the Informatics team had identified the value of engaging a trusted partner to help bridge any knowledge gaps.

Adopting a user-centred approach was key. The Informatics lead was determined to do the right thing for the organisation and knew the value of a focused piece of user engagement that would allow everyone to be heard and have confidence that their concerns were understood and included in the output.

Trust and openness are key to an effective readiness project. Whether you conduct it internally or using an expert third party partner, it’s important that everyone feels comfortable discussing how existing products and services are working in practice. External specialists can bring objectivity to the process, defusing possible defensiveness or concerns about confidentiality by using and explaining a transparent and proven methodology designed to achieve the end goal of better data insight for everyone.

It’s one thing to catalogue data queries and requirements as users express them, but to deliver an effective new solution, Trusts must understand the underlying rationale and how data is supporting critical processes and decisions. Our experts were able to explore and question effectively, so different users’ experiences were fully understood in an organisational context.

A third party like CACI has unique capability to discern what the underlying requirements might be for a successful transition and elevation in technology. Our relationship feels grounded in practicality and addressing real problems. (NHS Trust Informatics Leader)

For this project, CACI’s Healthcare Insight consultants first analysed the Trust’s existing reporting outputs and infrastructure, to gain a comprehensive view of its architecture. They engaged with internal and external data analytics stakeholders to understand their needs and preferences and to assess the board’s strategic data and reporting priorities.

The output was a detailed report of all quantitative and qualitative findings. From this, the Trust gained new understanding of their existing functions and capabilities and the changes required to succeed in the future.

The next step was to align with the Trust’s data strategy and produce a blueprint for the future, outlining new data architecture, data governance, licensing requirements and enablement. This evidence-based blueprint, compiled by trusted and experienced experts, made it possible for the Trust to create a compelling business case for change. It was a major accomplishment for the Trust’s informatics team that the capital case was approved faster than ever before, taking just ten days.

By approaching this in the way that we have, we’ve overturned a common assumption in the public sector and NHS – that it’s hard to get things done. Actually, with a clear vision and exceptionally good outputs, we’ve been able to move at a pace that’s not normally expected in an NHS setting. (NHS Trust Informatics Leader)

As external CACI healthcare consultants, we have a privileged viewpoint, because we work with a range of NHS Trusts and can identify common challenges, barriers and imperatives. By applying this insight, we help NHS leaders access a system-wide perspective that can make a big difference in achieving their data effectiveness goals.

Get the full picture with our Data Effectiveness white paper

In this blog, we’ve shared an example of our user-centred NHS data effectiveness approach in practice. If you’d like to know more about the rationale and how it’s evolved, as well as how it’s designed to tackle key issues in the complex NHS environment, we’d love you to read our white paper. Download it free now.

If you’re ready to start a conversation about how our data effectiveness experience could help your organisation please get in touch with Susan Brooks in CACI’s NHS team.

Ready, set, go! Making change happen in the NHS data ecosystem

Posted on: 29 April 2024

Discover a proven and efficient approach to preparation and planning that paves the way to meaningful data transformation for NHS Trusts

It’s widely recognised in the NHS that harnessing data effectively holds the key to understanding and improving performance. When Trusts and ICS can gather and analyse a full and accurate range of patient and service data, they can better understand and anticipate patient needs and can shape service provision and manage capacity to enhance outcomes for patients.

The will is there to make this happen, amongst managers and clinicians. But the scale and complexity of NHS organisations and their data universe makes it difficult to make meaningful progress. Somehow, NHS leaders need to find a way to understand the dauntingly dense web of data, processes, requirements and systems in their Trust and form a workable plan of action that moves the entire organisation forward.

In your NHS organisation, some functions, datasets and systems may be highly evolved. You may regard them as an aspirational benchmark for the whole organisation. But in reality, rolling out this best practice consistently, within a fully connected data ecosystem, is daunting.

Working hands-on with NHS Trusts, the CACI Health Insights team has evolved an approach that empowers leaders to crystallise their current data reality and desired future state, so that pragmatic action planning is possible. We call this approach Ready, Set, Go. Structured preparation and discovery form a foundation for realistic planning and delivery of priority data effectiveness projects, ensuring synergy between projects and constant progression towards a single, system-wide goal.

The three stages of data transformation

1. Ready…

Readiness is the foundational phase of the approach. This means understanding and documenting current reality, then focusing on stakeholder engagement. Once stakeholders are on-side, you can work with them to define their requirements. Clearly setting out the planned benefits of change and (making sure that there are no unintended side-effects for other stakeholders) brings everyone to a clear vision of the desired future state. During the readiness phase, you’ll also establish standards and processes for quality assurance and governance.

2. Set…

Now that you understand the whole context and have determined the key projects to address, you can lay the foundations for data success by initiating transformation activities. It’s important to set timeframes and allocate resources across the entire transformation programme, so your delivery projects are realistically achievable in harmony rather than competing with each other. You may need to iterate the phasing so that the entire plan of discrete, connected projects is robust. Progressing at pace is key, so stakeholders can see and experience improvements at tangible milestones, but the schedule must be realistic, taking account of available internal and external staff with the right skills, and making sure that vital NHS activities are not hindered or disrupted.

3. Go…

As data transformation projects are completed, you move into a development phase. This means optimising data effectiveness by building the structures and outputs you need to extract ever-increasing benefit and insight for improved outcomes. Targeted learning and development sessions in all functions will enable data users to build their expertise in critical business practices. For ongoing management, you’ll need to use internal or external data experts in a cost-effective way, to maintain, optimise and continually enhance your data, so you can keep pace with new demands and opportunities to improve patient outcomes.

Stepping into the future of effective NHS data

The aspiration for every Trust is a single, complete data platform and analytics solution, providing accurate and consistently formatted data. Following the Ready, Set, Go approach, you can map a path towards seamless provision of historic, real-time and projected data. This will include strong and effective governance for sharing data securely, plus well controlled and monitored access to data for different users.

In the Readiness phase, mapping user requirements reveals the priorities with the greatest potential to transform efficiency and outcomes. In our experience, one of these is provision of self-service analytics and reporting tools that are both powerful and easy to use. By planning your data transformation project to deliver this, you can empower different people, teams and functions to create and tailor queries and reports, regularly and on demand. This cuts down reporting bottlenecks and reduces the pressure on under-resourced analyst teams.

When actionable reports can easily be tailored to the recipient and audience need and level of understanding, with meaningful visualisations and comparisons, you will be able to unlock the full, democratic power and impact of your data to inform strategic and clinical decision-making that improves your most vital NHS performance measures. Adopting the Ready, Set, Go approach can put this transformative outcome within your grasp.

Get the full picture with our Data Effectiveness white paper

For more context about the challenge of unlocking data effectiveness in NHS organisations, our white paper has further detail and examples of how our user-centred approach to defining data transformation priorities can work in practice. Download it free now.

If you’re ready to start a conversation about how our data effectiveness experience could help your organisation, please get in touch with Susan Brooks in CACI’s NHS team.

Environment Agency to use CACI’s Cygnum solution to prepare for and respond to flooding and environmental incidents across England

Posted on: 23 April 2024

CACI is delighted to announce that its Cygnum software will be used by the Environment Agency as a logistics planning tool to schedule its workforce and assets in the preparation of and response to incidents across England ranging from small pollution incidents to widespread flooding. Cygnum will support the Environment Agency in scheduling the 7,000 staff members who have an incident role.

The Environment Agency has around 450 staff on duty 24/7 ready to respond to incidents. These roles cover specific or multiple geographical locations or are nationwide. In the event of larger incidents, the Environment Agency needs to scale up its response, with more people involved and requiring the movement of people and equipment across the country to support them. The Cygnum solution will be used to plan both the duty roster of the workforce as well as the rostering of specific incidents as they occur. This will include managing the sharing of staff and equipment between teams where necessary.

“We’re delighted that the Environment Agency has chosen our Cygnum solution as its logistics planning tool,” says Ollie Watson, group business development director at CACI. “We have extensive experience in delivering solutions for largescale workforce management requirements and the team is excited to be supporting the Environment Agency in achieving these important outcomes.”

For more information on Cygnum and how it supports businesses, please visit: https://www.caci.co.uk/software/cygnum/

A practical approach to solving the NHS data conundrum

Posted on: 19 April 2024

To understand why your NHS organisation is data-rich but insight-poor, you need a system-wide perspective as a basis for structured change

The potential of NHS data is exciting. It’s also accessible – there are proven examples of effective and constructive data use that provide valuable reporting and insight for clinical service development. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

NHS leaders know that NHS data within and outside their organisation is infinite, complex and continually collected. It’s very powerful when it’s analysed effectively, so the insight can be channelled to the right person in a way that they can understand and use. However, for the most part, this doesn’t happen enough.

Managers and analysts work hard every day to try and generate the insight that’s so desperately needed. They’re typically thwarted by scarce resources, time, understanding, technology and specialist skill. There’s often a lack of consistency, momentum and sponsorship across the system and organisation.

This holds back ICS, Trusts, teams and individuals from delivering the best service to patients and optimising their strategy, resources and operational plans.

NHS leaders know that they need to crack the data conundrum, but it’s a tall order without taking focus away from daily priorities

In such a complex and busy environment, it’s hard for any individual to grasp the system-wide position. There’s rarely time or opportunity to step back to survey the scene across an organisation or connected entities.

Current challenges for NHS data

There’s a massive volume of complex, constantly changing data
It’s held in many data sources and repositories
There are many users with diverse requirements
These users have widely different levels of data literacy and expertise
Trusts rely on a mix of modern and legacy systems and tools
Some departments have enjoyed greater investment than others
There are crucial governance issues, including patient privacy and data security

Identifying these top-line issues and how they are affecting service planning and delivery in your unique organisation is a key first step. There’s a clear need to approach the problem holistically. But squeezed budgets, limited resources and a lack of time stand in the way of major, system-wide projects. Everyone in the tightly stretched NHS is busy dealing with current workload already. There’s no appetite for launching an amorphous, resource-hungry transformation programme. Trusts need a structured, thorough and efficient approach to identify issues in a finite timeframe.

A practical approach to inclusive, system-wide data effectiveness

Traditionally, data transformation tends to mean adopting new products or technologies. The problem is that they only offer a tactical solution to one small part of the overarching data problem. Worse, they can sometimes aggravate issues in other parts of the system.

We observe that data architecture is at the core of system inadequacies for many NHS Trusts. Data feeds and flows are poorly constructed and insufficiently flexible to meet the diverse needs of those who work with data and need the insights generated from it.

Addressing the data challenge from a user perspective

Delivering effective data solutions and tools relies on a clear understanding of what users really need from the data. We have identified three communities with distinct requirements:

Executives and leaders who demand trusted insight and high-level views of data. They work with KPI scorecards and look for drill-down access to data from individual divisions, programmes and patients, so they can explore strengths, opportunities, weaknesses and anomalies in performance by understanding the data behind them. They need current, historic and comparative data views.

Clinical leaders who need real-time and trend insight to help them predict demand for services. They need detailed waiting list information and data tracking that can drill down to programmes, wards and treatment functions so they can understand and assess demand and response. They use this to optimise day-to-day activities as well as in planning future service developments.

Analysts responsible for tailored and specific report generation across different periods. They want the capability to select data for specific organisations and to deliver data in different formats and channels to meet the different requirements of their users. Their productivity and output depend on detailed, centralised data that’s accurate and easy to work with.

To unlock the potential of your data you need to engage with all senior stakeholders, including clinicians, to understand their priorities and how they are currently using data in practice. Finding the resources and capability needed to take an objective look can be challenging. Some Trusts have engaged us to deliver a short, consultative engagement to provide a clear overview, without committing to excessive spend or investment in products.

Get the full picture with our Data Effectiveness white paper

We’ve pulled together the key points of our approach in this blog, but if you have time for a longer read, our white paper has more detail and examples of how the user-centred approach to defining data transformation priorities can work in practice. Download it free now.

If you’re ready to start a conversation about how our data effectiveness experience could help your organisation please get in touch with Susan Brooks in CACI’s NHS team.

Scheduling – getting the most from workforce management in the transport industry

Posted on: 6 March 2024

Having the right people in the right place at the right time sounds easy. In largescale transport organisation, effective scheduling is crucial

At the heart of workforce management sits the simple sounding task of scheduling. Your organisation has shifts to fulfil and a pool of workers to fulfil them. Add staff to the rota and away you go. Such shift patterns can be sacrosanct across organisations of any size, providing clarity to workers, management and administrators alike. In largescale transport organisations, however, there are several moving parts to consider and shift patterns can be thrown off course by anything from weather to equipment failure and cancellations in the supply chain.

This blog aims to take a closer look at scheduling in transport organisations. It’s a topic we’ve covered in greater detail in our recent white paper, Tackling workforce management complexities in transport. If you would like to explore the topic in greater detail, you can download a free copy here.

There are myriad tasks that need completing across the transport industry. The complication introduced to the scheduling process often requires a lot of manual work by administrators and schedulers. People fall ill, take holidays and external events can throw a schedule completely off kilter.

Automation in workforce management

Automation of scheduling can greatly reduce the administrative burden. At its most prosaic, automation can simply assign workers to shifts in advance. This can be set out indefinitely, with new workers swapped in for departing/unavailable members of staff easily. Such a process can consider your bespoke business rules and any other factors such as the working time directive and fatigue management.

Where automation can lend a vital hand is in times of strain. We’ve seen examples, notably during the Covid pandemic, of vast swathes of a workforce being absent at once. Where a manual process exists, this resulted in inevitable cancellations of services. With carefully configured automation, it is possible to be more agile in the face of disruption.

Where a worker is absent, having a central system and a central view of your entire workforce enables swift consideration of replacements. This works for smaller examples, too. For example, if a train is delayed and members of crew onboard it are required to meet another service which they will now miss, how can this be handled?

An automated process enables identification of other members of staff who are nearby and can be reassigned, whilst at the same time handling all communications with staff members. The staff who have been delayed can then be reassigned to other tasks, ensuring that their shift isn’t wasted.

Variable demand and moving parts

Another factor to consider in the transport industry is variable demand and moving parts. A high level example of this is the change in train timetables during the Christmas period. Fewer customers means less demand for services, therefore, services can be reduced to ensure more efficient use of the network and staff time.

A more short-term example of this is in shipping. Where a port is expecting a shipment, staff need to be prepared to meet it to initiate the unloading and loading of it. Variation is frequent in such a scenario, since ships can be diverted at a moment’s notice to other ports due to factors such as storms. Another example would be the blockage of the Suez Canal. This can leave a port with a full roster of staff without a function to fulfil. This is a waste of time, money and staffing resources.

Mapping out the changes caused by variable demand in a central system can help to understand its implications. Factors such as cost can be calculated and your response to it can be better informed. Understanding where the risks of variable demand are most likely to occur can help mitigate its impact.

Another example is with revenue protection officers on trains. Understanding the demand for services helps to better utilise them. There’s little point, for example, scheduling ticket inspectors during rush hour to major stations, since moving through the train is all but impossible. Similarly, there are more likely to be barriers at major stations, so working out the best deployment of such staff is more likely to realise the ultimate aim of their work.

Overlaying tasks onto shifts

Establishing a schedule is one thing. Rosters can be worked out well in advance and communicated to staff. But what happens when they show up on the day? Often the set number of employees turn up and discover the specifics of their tasks at that point.

Utilising a workforce management system such as Cygnum helps organisations to understand the specifics of the tasks that need be fulfilled during a shift. This helps organisations to better prepare aspects such as equipment required, time needed to complete the task and where exactly they need to be.

This helps to drive better understanding and efficiency through shifts and tasks. Matching specific skills and experiences to not only shifts, but also tasks, better ensures that the right people are performing the right tasks.

Conclusion

Scheduling can be a complicated and nuanced process, especially across largescale organisations. With several moving parts, variable demand, unpredictable disruptions and the usual ebb and flow of workforce absences, managing the process can be extremely complicated. This can result in inefficiency and poor service delivery.

Introducing automation, clear communication and overlaying tasks onto shifts helps to better understand your workforce the tasks required of them and more accurately assign staff to tasks based on their skills, experience, training, availability and geographic location.

This is a topic that we’ve explored in greater detail in our recent white paper, which you can download freely here. Alternatively, if you would like more information on how Cygnum can help you with your workforce management requirements, please visit our website.

Appeals and school admissions: how to handle them efficiently

Posted on: 28 February 2024

Appeals are an inevitable part of the school admissions process. How can they be effectively and efficiently handled to make the process easy and fair?

Effective and efficient handling of the school admissions process is essential to achieving the goal of a fair and transparent process for all. In this blog, we will look at the appeals process. Appeals are an inevitability. Every admissions authority will have to deal with them every year. In our last blog we looked at oversubscription criteria. They go hand-in-hand with appeals, since they are only required when more applications are received than there are school places available. Evidencing them, and how they’ve been adhered to, is essential to a fair and transparent appeals process.

The central tenets of the appeals process are twofold. Firstly, every parent has the right to appeal a place on behalf of their children. Secondly, the process must be fair and transparent. As we discussed previously, oversubscription criteria must be publicly available and their bespoke ordering by authority laid out.

The appeals process becomes a possibility when the authority rejects a child’s application. In rejecting it, the authority must:

Make clear the reasons why the application was rejected
Inform the parent of their right to appeal
State the deadline for submitting any appeal
Provide the necessary details to make any appeal
Inform the parent that they must set out their grounds for appeal

The report for the 2022/23 school year shows that there were 53,086 appeals; 38,186 for secondary school applications and 14,900 for primary schools. This that means that 3.5% of applications are appealed by parents. So, how can the process be handled fairly and transparently?

Efficient processing of appeals in the school admissions process

The School Admissions Code lays out that authorities must establish a panel to hear appeals. Where appeals are heard by a panel, the decision is binding; the school must either admit the child or the application is confirmed as rejected.

In the 2022/23 school year, 19.8% of appeals were successful. This shows that authorities are getting the majority of rejections right. Yet, mistakes do happen.

Technology can play a fundamental role in fair provision and oversight of the admissions process. Where a place has been rejected, for example, because a family resides outside of the catchment area, being able to show the working on this is essential. In a manual process, this means revisiting how the decision was reached. Linking to a geo-mapping application provides robust evidence in an instant.

Other criteria, such as faith, can quickly be evidenced, too. Where a parent hasn’t submitted relevant supporting documentation to evidence their child is of the same faith of the school, the authority can quickly demonstrate that other applications were accepted as a result of this.

Making the process easy for parents is paramount, too. With a parent portal, applications and appeals can be made easily and recorded against the child’s record simultaneously. This further helps with timelines, since any appeals process can be withdrawn after the established date for their submission has passed.

If a panel is convened to hear an appeal, they too can have easy access in one place to the process, the rejection and the grounds for appeal. This helps them to make better informed, fairer decisions.

Conclusion

Nothing can prevent appeals from happening. As the statistics show, they are a prevalent part of the school admission process. Rather, authorities need to be in the best possible position to respond to them.

Where the end-to-end process is handled in a central system, it makes evidence gathering, communications and reaching fair and transparent decisions much more straightforward. Messages and outcomes can be submitted and received via a central portal. This means that parents receive information instantly and can appeal via the same method.

Appeals are to be expected, so being in position to administer them is crucial. They are a central part of the overarching school admissions process. Having a system in place, linked to admissions and oversubscription criteria, helps to make the task of implanting a fair and transparent process much easier for everyone. If the system is simpler for schools and authorities, it will be for parents, too.

The technology exists now to make the admissions process easier to administer, as well as fairer and more transparent for children and their families.

This is a topic that we’ve covered in greater detail, examining the entire admissions process, in our recent white paper, A fair school admissions process for all. You can download a free copy here.

Managing oversubscription criteria in the school admissions process

Posted on:

When an admissions authority receives more applications for a school than it has spaces available, it must order the provision of places according to its oversubscription criteria. These rules can be bespoke to each admissions authority. The criteria must be transparent and easy to understand, with a public outlining of the criteria available. So, how can this process be handled fairly and transparently?

Admissions arrangements must be in line with the School Admissions Code. “The purpose of this code is to ensure that all school places for maintained schools and academies are allocated and offered in an open and fair way.” The code has the force of law.

Exceptions to oversubscription criteria

There are exceptions to whom oversubscription criteria do not apply. Children with identified special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) who have an education health and care plan (EHCP) which specifically names a school, must be offered a place.

Once they have been offered a place, the highest priority must then be given to looked after children and previously looked after children.

Having a record of any EHCP or child looked after status in the authority’s system already makes it easy for admissions teams to validate the status of such an application. A joined-up approach is essential for handling applications fairly and transparently. A robust evidence base also makes handling appeals much easier.

Once EHCPs and children looked after have been allocated places, the rest of the applicants must be sorted through. In the easiest case scenario, there will be fewer applications than there are available place and, simply, they must all be offered a place.

Setting out your oversubscription criteria

Every admissions authority must set out its arrangements against which school places are allocated in the event of oversubscription. Each authority can define and order the criteria in their own way. There is no prescribed ordering of criteria, or even which criteria must be included.

The following is an inexhaustive and unindicative list of oversubscription criteria:

Siblings: It may sound obvious, but the authority must outline its interpretation of the term ‘sibling’. This is to cover step-siblings and adoptions. Linking family records in a central system makes defining and implementing the interpretation straightforward.
Catchment area: These must be designed by the authority to be reasonable and clearly defined. Linking this to digital mapping solutions can further help define a catchment in a system by considering factors such walking time to a school.
Feeder schools: These must be nominated by the authority and clearly defined. Linking records in a central system helps determine this, since obtaining current school attended information is easy.
Social and medical records: Authorities must clearly set out how social and medical records will be used in this context. Enabling parents to submit any records as part of their initial application makes the process easier for everyone.
Ability or aptitude: Any such requirements must be publicly available. Only grammar schools can base their entire intake based upon this.
Faith schools: Enabling parents to submit supporting documentation at the point of application makes determining this much easier for everyone. Where faith schools are undersubscribed, places must be offered to all applicants regardless of faith.
Children of staff: The School Admissions Code states that this applies to children of staff who have been working at the school for two or more years, or where the staff member has been recruited to fill a vacant post for which there is a demonstrable skills shortage. Linking records again helps to make determining this easier.

Conclusion

Oversubscription criteria are essential to a fair and transparent admissions process. Where places are appealed, a robust set of protocols also helps to argue the admission authority’s decisions.

It is also a process that can be automated. Where complete information on a child is held in an authority’s education management information system, all relevant information can be submitted by parents, schools and professionals, recorded against the child and considered when oversubscriptions criteria are called upon in the school admissions process.

This makes collecting evidence for appeals much more straightforward. No more manually trawling through records, aspects such as catchment areas can simply be called upon and put forward to an appeals panel.

It also makes determining admissions based on the bespoke criteria of the admissions authority much easier. To use catchment area as an example again, linking to mapping tools makes determining distance from a school incredibly straightforward. The decision can then be logged in the central system, with no need to resort to spreadsheets and physical copies of children’s records and the outcomes of their admissions.

The technology exists now to make the admissions process easier to administer, as well as fairer and more transparent for children and their families.

Reducing risk in the transport industry through workforce management

Posted on: 21 February 2024

Reducing risk entails several factors. Most pertinently, worker safety. Rules and regulations exist to protect workers, from health and safety directives to working time directives, covering working conditions to fatigue. Then there’s risk to projects and tasks. If they are done improperly, then tasks need to be redone. This impacts overarching projects, both in terms of time and cost. Of course, accidents and mistakes happen. Building in mitigation for such events is prudent. But what if you can identify patterns and head off errors before they happen? Competency management, as part of a robust workforce management process, can help.

Workforce management – training

Training management is essential across largescale workforces. From mandatory ongoing courses, refresher courses and training staff in new skills to upskill your workforce and offer career progression, having a robust training programme in place forms the backbone of this.

By linking training to other areas of your workforce management, such as assessments and scheduling, it makes it possible to identify skills gaps across your workforce. To reduce the risk of these gaps impacting upon project and service delivery, you can appropriately train existing members of staff to fill these gaps.

It also makes it possible to utilise your training programme to focus on specific areas and tasks where mistakes are occurring. By pooling data from accidents and assessments, you can identify repeat errors. In doing so, you can then tailor your approach to training to better prepare staff for areas in which, statistically, they are most likely to pose a risk to themselves and overarching projects.

Workforce management – assessments

Knowing that staff have the appropriate qualifications, skills, training and experience is one thing. But how are they actually fulfilling the tasks to which they have been assigned? Regular, ongoing assessments of your workforce are crucial. This is both from a safety and a service delivery perspective.

From a safety perspective, many roles within the transport industry pose a safety risk. From infrastructure workers to drivers, the risk of getting things wrong can be catastrophic. It’s prudent to check in to ensure that tasks are being conducted properly.

From a service delivery perspective, mistakes can result in shoddy work. This means that it needs to be redone, which costs time and money, impacting upon project timelines and budgets.

This extends to maintenance, too. We regularly see on the rail network, for example, things such as signal failures which result in delays and cancellations. Regular assessments of infrastructure are vital to repairing the roof whilst the sun is shining.

Overarching planning to manage risk

Proper, robust planning builds in sufficient time to complete tasks, with enough room for reasonable error. People make mistakes, external factors such as the weather can waylay you and where there are several moving parts. Things don’t always come together as you’d hope. Mitigating for this by building it into your planning is sensible.

When it comes to specific tasks, however, granular detail is important. When scheduling your workforce, workers can be assigned to shifts on a rolling basis ad infinitum. But how can the specifics and the complexity of each shift and its tasks be considered? How can these then be communicated with staff?

Using a central system with the ability to overlay such complexity onto shifts can drive efficiency and greater control of the overarching project and its processes. It can be established according to your bespoke business rules and configured to factor in elements such as regulations and directives.

Understanding what will happen during a shift is important. If maintenance needs to be performed, being able to communicate exactly what equipment is required, the nature of the task and the location helps to prepare people. As the process continues, being able to intelligently alter task timelines based upon previous completion times and rates enables a more accurate scheduling of tasks. If, for example, you have set aside three hours for the completion of a task but staff are regularly completing it in two hours, then future timelines can be adjusted accordingly.

This helps to drive a more complete understanding of your projects and how your staff are performing against timelines and tasks. This in turn helps to mitigate the risk of work running over time, since you can rely on a robust database of previous work to inform future projects.

Conclusion

Finally, the regulatory aspect is crucial. Things such as the working time directive exist to combat elements such as fatigue. A central database that can further call upon the geographic location of staff can help to more efficiently assign them to tasks. If someone is 20mins away from the location of a task, it makes more sense to assign them to it than someone 1hr away. Since travelling time is considered as a factor in fatigue management, it’s an extremely inefficient use of time to swallow it up on travelling times.

Managing risk extends across the entirety of the transport industry, from workforce safety to service delivery. With so many moving parts – risks – being able to navigate them and efficiently and reliably match those moving parts to your targets is essential to achieving the ultimate goals of your organisation. A well trained, regularly assessed and robustly scheduled workforce forms the backbone of this.

The technology exists to help largescale transport organisations to gain greater control of their workforce management. From training and assessments to scheduling, having a single view of your workforce facilitates automation, insight and, ultimately, efficiency. It’s a topic we’ve explored in more detail in our recent white paper, Tackling workforce management complexities in transport. You can download your free copy here.