Recruitment and retention

Guidance for recruiting to Knowledge and Library Services (KLS) job roles and retaining your staff.

Recruiting staff

Job descriptions and person specifications

All NHS jobs need to be matched to nationally evaluated profiles, based on information from job descriptions, person specifications and additional information.

Job profiles

The national job profiles are produced by the Job Evaluation Group (JEG), a subgroup of the NHS Staff Council with representatives of NHS trade unions and NHS organisations. The job profiles for information services give an indication of the level of NHS Agenda for Change generic skills required for each role.

Resources for role redesign

As job profiles are fixed and do not reflect the full range of knowledge and skills required for Knowledge and Library Services (KLS) work, you should also use the following resoources to inform your job descriptions and person specifications.

• Knowledge for Healthcare resources for role redesign
• Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) Professional Knowledge and Skills Base

Writing a job description

The national job profiles are not job descriptions. An effective, engaging and inclusive job description should outline your organisational values, Trust mission and provide an accurate, interesting account of the skills and competencies required.

A good job description should provide clarity for the individual and the manager so it’s important to get it right. Ensuring your job descriptions are available in an accessible format is the easiest way to prevent putting off potential candidates.

You should use clear and simple language when describing the tasks of the job and consult the NHS Employers guide to writing successful job descriptions.

The Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) report Change makers: are you one too?, includes evidence-based tools and templates to help you do things differently. You are encouraged to "inspire libraries to think differently about recruitment”.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) Guide to inclusive recruitment for employers provides recommendations for improving inclusivity in the 4 main stages of recruitment.

1. Role design and job advert.
2. Attracting diverse candidates.
3. The application process.
4. The selection process.

Examples of Knowledge and Library Services job descriptions

There is a collection of NHS knowledge and library service job descriptions and person specifications, which have been advertised on NHS jobs, saved on the FutureNHS Knowledge for Healthcare workspace – job descriptions.

Promoting vacancies

You need to plan how, where and when to advertise your vacancy.

You should consider extending closing dates over the summer and the festive season to give candidates time to discover your vacancy and submit applications.

It is best practice to include a proposed interview date to help confident candidates make arrangements to be able to attend if shortlisted for interview.    

Similarly, anecdotal evidence suggests that candidates are more attracted to jobs where developmental opportunities are stressed in the initial overview.

Places to advertise your vacancies

Selection

Interviews

Your Trust may well have guidance and template documents to support you with interviews, including panel composition, values or competency based recruitment, compulsory questions for candidates (for example, relating to Trust values and equality, diversity and inclusion) and scoring systems. Questions should be targeted to areas of the person specification.

Guidance from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) covers selection methods, including interviews, psychometric tests and assessment centres.

A longer report by CIPD 'A head for hiring: behavioural science of recruitment and selection' includes guidance on:

• attracting the people you need
• designing selection processes and preparing assessors
• improving the candidate experience

Fair Library Jobs manifesto covers:

• interview travel expenses
• reasonable adjustments
• sharing interview questions in advance
• assessment tasks

Although tailored for people applying for roles nationally, Health Education England's guide on successful interviews includes practical tips for how to prepare for an interview, including some practical pointers for virtual or online interviews which would also be useful for an interviewer.

Assessments

Anecdotal evidence suggests that KLS Managers have found assessments to be a useful part of the selection process. Assessments should focus on aspects of the person specification that may be difficult to assess via interview questions.

Examples include:

• include shelving or ordering books on a trolley
• spotting errors in text
• carrying out a mock reference interview
• writing an abstract or search strategy planning

Administering assessments is also a way to make the wider KLS team part of the selection process.

Presentations may not be the most appropriate assessment if delivering training or presentations are not key parts of the role.

Guidance from Behavioural Insights describes how to use skill based assessment tasks, including how to improve gender equality.

Appointment

Pre-appointment checks will be managed by your Trust Human Resources team. CIPD’s 'Pre-employment checks guidance for organisations' includes the usual checks on right to work, but also includes references and social media checks.

Retaining staff

You should familiarise yourself with NHS Employers improving staff retention guide. Your Trust may have guidance on using “staying conversations” to communicate the local offers around flexible working and flexible retirement.

CIPD also has advice on retention.

Ways to retain your staff

Case study

In the case study, Richard Parker, Emily Johnson, Semanti Chakraborty, Beth Boddice and Lotty Summers from University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust share their experiences of developing the next generation of librarians. The case study was presented as a poster as part of the celebration for the Health Libraries Group’s 75th anniversary.

Acknowledgements

This guide was produced by the Recruitment and Retention Task and Finish Group co-chaired by Natasha Howard, North East London NHS Foundation Trust (NELFT) and Lindsay Wallace, Northern Care Alliance (NCA) and convened by Health Education England (HEE) National Knowledge and Library Services Team.

It provides indicative links to best practice on recruitment and retention for NHS Knowledge and Library Service (KLS) Managers. Much of the recruitment process will be governed by Trust policies.

This guide may provide ideas to help advocate for change locally. The TandF Group also received contributions and feedback on initiatives which may be undertaken nationally or regionally but which lie outside the scope of this project. 

These have been summarised in a list of recommendations and passed to the national KLS Team for further discussion and consideration.

The information above is available as a word document. If you would like a copy, please email the Knowledge for Healthcare team on [email protected].