Health and Safety
HR Professional
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By Lisa Kopochinski

 

The Hospital for Sick Children’s aSK HR Hr help-desk

In an effort to improve the HR function at The Hospital for Sick Children and provide employees with more timely responses to information requests, the solution came in the form of aSK HR, a hotline/help-desk function that has been so successful it had answered more than 15,000 inquiries within its first 10 months.

 

Located in downtown Toronto’s Hospital Row, SickKids is an international leader in advancing children’s health through its work in patient care, research and education. SickKids is one of the most research-intensive hospitals in Canada and is affiliated with the University of Toronto.

 

“Multiple sources of feedback suggested that HR wasn’t providing the type or level of service that employees were seeking,” said Susan O’Dowd, SickKids’ vice president of human resources. “With over 7,500 employees, we wanted to develop and implement a solution that was sustainable and would meet the unique needs of skilled and dedicated employees that are extremely diverse across different pillars of our organization – patient care, research and learning.”

 

Developed and implemented with SickKids-wide input, O’Dowd gathered the entire HR leadership team to brainstorm on how to make significant improvements.

 

“Employees wanted timely, accurate and consistent responses, regardless of the complexity,” said O’Dowd. “Ultimately, we do our best to support anyone who reaches out to us.”

 

At present, four members comprise the aSK HR team – a team lead, two business analysts and an HR associate. All four respond to inquiries from both employees as well as nonemployees, such as external applicants.

“Clients can connect in the way that’s easiest for them,” said Elizabeth Clayton, aSK HR’s team lead. “In person, phone, email or instant message.”

 

To meet the needs of the hospital’s diverse employee population – some of whom work overnight shifts – aSK HR is open Monday through Friday from 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. A software application is used to ticket client inquiries.

“At any given time, we may receive inquiries from nurses, housekeepers, lab technologists, physicians, administrative assistants, scientists, social workers and professionals performing numerous other roles for SickKids,” said Clayton.

 

Consultative planning approach


Launched in December 2013, aSKHR took approximately six months of dedicated time to develop and implement. A highly consultative approach with employees – from clinical staff to the executive level – was utilized. The aSK HR team was resourced internally – coming together from different areas of HR and offering a breadth of expertise and experience.

 

“We sought employee input at different stages of development and invested a lot of time and energy ensuring that all employees were engaged in the development process and communicated with prior to the launch, both when aSK HR first opened and post-implementation,” said Clayton. “Our communications efforts were very broad and tailored to connect with and promote the benefits of aSK HR to different areas and portfolios within the broader SickKids community.”

"Connect directly with employees to find out what type of service or support they need to be succesful."

The team also engaged employees through an in-house innovation tool called Wikidea that promotes SickKids-wide collaboration through an online (Intranet) discussion platform. Additionally, group forums, posters and emails were also used to connect with future clients.

 

The benefits


Over the past 12 months, both the HR department and SickKids (as an organization) has benefited in numerous ways from introducing aSK HR. For instance:

 

  • The ability for the HR team to improve the effectiveness of their responses means that SickKids employees spend less time seeking HR support. Employees can dedicate more time and energy towards fulfilling their core responsibilities and helping the hospital achieve its mission – improving children’s health through integration of patient care, research and education.
  • aSK HR has greatly enhanced the HR department by allowing the different HR functional specialist areas to focus on the operational and strategic aspects of their roles more efficiently, while aSK HR handles the high daily volume of general employee inquiries.
  • Central service metrics enable the aSK HR team to see trends and identify opportunities to further improve HR service capability.
  • aSK HR has encouraged the HR team to work more collaboratively through the sharing of knowledge. In the past, department members worked more independently.


O’Dowd says for companies considering a central service like this, HR professionals need to keep in mind the unique and complex needs of their organization.

 

“Connect directly with employees to find out what type of service or support they need to be successful,” she said.

For instance, more than 50 per cent of inquiries fall into three primary categories – recruitment, benefits and payroll – and are categorized as basic and intermediate level. More complex questions – making up fewer than five per cent of intake – are triaged to an appropriate HR specialist.

 

“Even when non-HR inquiries are asked, our team does its best to redirect employees to the appropriate area – another central function or department – within SickKids,” said O’Dowd.

 

Responses to inquiries (ideally with a solution) generally take 48 hours, although in the majority of cases, clients are acknowledged the same day.

 

With aSK HR a resounding success so far – further validated by a survey the team conducted with clients – Clayton says the team is determined to keep it this way.

 

“Over 300 employees who used our service during its first quarter responded to an April 2014 aSK HR Client Survey,” she said. “The results were overwhelmingly positive and confirmed what we’d already heard from individual client interactions: that aSK HR is easy to contact and provides quality responses with quick turnaround.”

Robert Cesario, director of HR transformation for SickKids and responsible for HR systems and support functions including aSK HR, is very pleased with the results so far.

 

“In the future, we believe that analysis of aSK HR data will help us to drive further HR process improvements,” he said.

 

Quarterly “aSK HR update” sessions are also conducted to get advance notice from the HR subject matter experts on any new developments or initiatives.

 

“We continue to grow an electronic knowledge repository of commonly asked questions and responses so all members of aSK HR have quick and easy access to information,” said Clayton.

 

What’s next?


Over the next one to three years, O’Dowd says the team will continue to promote aSK HR as the primary and central source for general HR inquiries.

 

“With the implementation of more sophisticated ticketing software, we will enhance our metrics capabilities and explore the feasibility of launching an HR self-service application that will offer our clients yet another convenient way to access HR information,” she said.

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