More efficient workforce planning through career frameworks
Using career frameworks helps you plan a more flexible workforce to deliver the services patients actually need, now and in the future.
What is the Career Framework?
The career framework consists of nine different levels at which a function could be performed, from level 1 initial entry level jobs to more senior staff at level 9.
It aids workforce flexibility, providing a common currency to map employees’ competence portfolios, and to identify areas of transferability to other job roles. This allows progression in directions which may not have been identified through traditional routes.
The career framework tool offers a database of job descriptions across nine levels of the career framework. Each one has identified individual competences, work activities, quality standards and the knowledge and skills needed to carry out those activities.
View the key elements of the Career Framework
The career framework levels have been developed based on eight components within a job and you can view these Career Framework level descriptors here
Examples of Career frameworks that have been developed:
Benefits of using the Career Framework:
- Provides potential to improve patient experience
- Increased workforce flexibility, through transferable skills and roles
- Greater opportunities for career progression, with identifiable pathways for staff to move up or across the career framework
- Improved staff retention, through extension of current roles, emergence of new roles and transferability of competences
- Informed workforce modelling, contributing to effective clinical governance.
"The changes we made have improved consistency and quality of patient care, given staff greater confidence in their roles, and enabled us to work more efficiently. We now see more patients in less time. Already we’re reaping the benefits. It’s been a great experience and the staff involved now have an appetite for change, which we want to spread across to our other services."
Joanna Birch
Clinical Director, Clinical Therapy and Rehabilitation Service. Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust
Who is the Career Framework for and when should it be used?
The framework can be used by:
- Service managers
- Workforce planners and development managers
- Education planners and commissioners
- Clinicians and support staff
It can be used to enable change when:
- Conducting service reviews
- During workforce planning and development
- Redesigning or defining roles
- During appraisal, self-appraisal and personal development planning
- Conducting skills mix reviews
- Commissioning
- Providing training programmes or qualifications.
How to use Career Frameworks:
Using the career framework tool you can find real job descriptions that have competences mapped to them, and a career framework level assigned to it. It is indicatively linked to the Knowledge and Skills Framework and can be used in the following five ways:
- To define the competences required in individuals, teams and services in order to meet patient’s needs; and then to develop roles, teams and services that reflect those identified needs
- To identify staff development needs; and to subsequently plan and provide appropriate training that will develop the required skills and competences
- To identify potential career pathways through mapping job descriptions onto the career framework, whether in a horizontal, vertical or diagonal direction
- To profile the workforce to make the best use of skills, thus ultimately improving patient care. Users can browse the job descriptions within the tool by level or by job name; or chose to view all roles within the tool.
Use the Career Framework Tool
The impact of the Career Framework
The following are real life examples of how the Career Framework has been used to improve services:
- Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS FT [Will be a link to case study once ready]
Defined competences required to meet patient need, identified staff progression and training opportunities, and developed a level 4 role to optimise quality and productivity in cancer services
- Cheshire & Merseyside Critical Care Network
Improved patient care and staff satisfaction through being able to identify appropriate competence based education and training for staff working in the critical care environment.