By Pavit Chandhok - 21st Sept 2020
Read time - 10 minutes

We have just completed our regular user survey to understand what our clinical users think of our Staff Engagement App, recent upgrades and the new services which we are now offering.

The results are in and are very encouraging with 98% of clinicians saying they are satisfied with our App. ”Ease of use” and “user-friendly” were the most frequently used comments. Our Staff Engagement App is often primary interfaces between our clinical users and their organisation so it's vital we get this right.

We have recently deployed a major upgrade to several of our core services (), so we wanted to assess the impact of the upgrades and how they had improved the overall user experience (UX) for our clinical users. We worked really hard to design, develop and deploy improvements to a range of our services so its important to assess how well we did.

We are also now offering a range of new services - which are instantly accessible through the Staff Engagement App - and provide pioneering workforce management services designed to support clinicians during Covid-19 (such as Instant Pay and Wellness Monitoring). So we took this chance to ask the staff who don't have these services, if they would like them.

The results are in and what did our clinical users think:

• 98% users think the app is OK or great
• 86% users think its easy or very easy to use our improved timesheet feature
• 83% users think its easy or very easy to view and apply for shifts
• 82% users think its easy or very easy to navigate our app
• 75% users think its easy or very easy to sign up
• 75% users think our notifications are good or very good

We analysed the responses in detail and this is what we found.

Staff Engagement App

Clinicians use the Staff Engagement App for various administrative and operational tasks which are crucial for their work. So if it's booking leave, applying for a shift or completing a timesheet, we work hard to ensure that these processes are as simple and convenient for the staff as possible. We aim to minimise the time staff spend on their management so they can get back to providing care.

The results of our survey were very encouraging on our Staff Engagement App. “ease of use” and “user-friendly” were the most frequently used comments which is exactly what we’ve designed the app to be. This high level of satisfaction ranged across each service but overwhelmingly it was very positive.

There were a minority of less good comments which mainly focused on delays and waiting times for things like compliance checking, shift booking or payment processing. We are aware of these issues which are often caused by managers/administrator not updating the system over the weekend or delays with professional background checks. We are working closely with our clients to devise clever solutions around these manual processes so that these blockers can be reduced and minimised.

We will continue to work on improving each of the features of the Staff Engagement App based on the feedback we get and trends we notice.

Recent Upgrades

We recently deployed major upgrades to our Shift Management, Timesheets, Onboarding, and Compliance systems. These upgrades were based on extensive collaboration with our NHS and private clients in both health and social care and were designed using the latest agile product development technologies so that they are suitable for our wide range of users and business functions.

Overall our users loved the upgrade and we found that overall satisfaction with our App was up 10% to 98%. For example, on our Staff Bank system, staff are now given far more visibility on their shift applications so they can see not only if they were booked in but also if are on the waiting list. We enhanced our Timesheets feature so that staff can see both the live status of their timesheets, when they will be paid and how much they will be paid. We enhanced our Onbaording feature so that even more can be done in the self-service workforce, reducing waiting time. This also feeds into a more automated and transparent Compliance feature, which again was very well received by our clinical users.

The less positive feedback was around administrative functionality which we don't currently support. We found that now our clinical users are familiar with completing tasks via the App they want to be able to do more because it’s simpler, faster and can be done at their own convenience. This theme has increased with Covid-19 where clinicians want more administrative control and functionality to be done digitally.

We’re aware of this and hence why we keep working on and improving our services. We work constantly with our partners to support the digitalisation and optimisation of all their workforce processes.

New Apps

We also used this opportunity to see how our existing users felt about some of the new services we have to offer: Instant Pay and Wellness Monitoring. These are features which their organisation don't currently use and if this would affect their engagement levels. The results were very interesting:

• 61% of medical staff said they would like to track their Health and Wellbeing via our Wellness Monitoring System
• 55% of nurses and HCA said they would pick up more shifts if they were able to be paid daily or more regularly via our Instant Pay service

We’re now really excited to be able to show this to our NHS and private sector clients and offer these services - your staff want them!

Wellness Monitoring was designed in direct response to Covid-19 where concerns around staff health and wellbeing rose due to the unprecedented levels of stress and intensity they were subject to. The feature normalises wellness, optimises communication, and provides real-time reporting on issues that affect healthcare staff.

Further Improvements

Everyday we strive to improve our product and service to improve the operations of our clients and this survey has given us some great feedback. With our lowest score in this survey, notifications need further attention and I’ve touched on the next stages in the notification engines development above.

There was a second strong theme from our less satisfied users around the validity, accuracy and responsiveness of the information on the platform. This is when not all shifts are put up and so staff miss out on work or their compliance takes a week longer than it needs to because the approver is on holiday.

Issues like this rise in all systems, both digital and non-digital, but we can definitely design solutions to improve it. We know we need to work more closely with our partners to better understand all groups of users and to deliver clever technology solutions which will reduce inefficiencies and blockers.

One way is opening access to the platform to those users who might not be primarily engaged. These are users who cover management during nights and weekends, ward managers and clinical staff who are able to make these decisions but don’t have the right tools. Training and awareness is a big part of this and our on-site events and support sessions are really helping in this area.

Lastly, I want to thank the 230 users who completed the survey (we have contacted the winner of the £100 Amazon voucher today)

Pavit Chandhok

Operations Manager - Circular Wave

For all enquiries or to request a demo contact [email protected]