National University Health System

Delivering better healthcare in the community through service excellence

Background

The pandemic has dramatically sped up transformations and demands within the healthcare industry worldwide. Simultaneously, patient expectations and demographics are evolving and influencing the desire to seek more detailed information about their health.

In local shores, Singaporeans today want their healthcare experiences to be more affordable, efficient and to lead to better health outcomes. To meet their needs, the integration of digital technologies across the healthcare ecosystem and into people´s health routines, as well as the provision of excellent service to patients have become more critical.

At a Glance

As an Academic Health System, National University Healthcare System (NUHS) seeks to advance health by synergising care, education, and research, in partnership with patients and the community to deliver better care and health.

To achieve the above, it was paramount to first develop its employees to be competent in providing tech-enabled services to customers and patients. On this front, NUHS embarked on a workplace learning project with the IAL’s Centre for Workplace Learning and Performance. As part of the project and a member of the Learning Enterprise Alliance (LEA), NUHS explored ways to enhance its internal workplace training systems for its customer service associates at the Group Contact Centre.

Why the emphasis on providing service excellence?

Today’s consumers value convenience and efficiency

Singaporeans are more likely than their peers around the world to be willing to see their medical provider virtually to save time.

Emotional support is now as crucial as medical support

When it comes to the care experience, Singaporeans want to receive emotional support as much as medical support, as Singaporeans rank clear explanations (61%) and empathy (39%) as the top 2 factors they look for.

Trusted source for help and information

Consumers view healthcare service providers as a trusted source for help and information, hence emphasising the need for these providers to be skilled communicators when handling queries.

Source: Article by Accenture, titled “Improving healthcare experience with technologies

Transforming the workforce through workplace learning

Given that NUHS’ Group Contact Centre is no longer just an “answer and transfer” site, in which patients would call and be redirected to another hospital service line, the centre now performs a multifaceted communications function.

Moreover, as a function at the forefront of operations at NUHS, it was vital to develop a capable workforce by skilling and retaining talent to be skilled communicators capable of providing quality service to customers and patients. The workplace learning project with NACE@IAL seeks to achieve the following aims:

• To strengthen the training and competencies of customer service associates at the Group Contact Centre, supported by a sustainable workplace learning plan and career roadmap
  

• To enhance internal workplace training systems and processes
  

• To elevate manpower capabilities and boost productivity of supervisors, managers and in-house trainers by equipping them with essential skillsets

Read on to find out more about NUHS’ transformation journey in detail below.

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NUHS leveraged on the LEA project consultancy to review and redesign the job roles and functions of our customer service associates for business continuity, and to create opportunities for long-term employability for our staff.

Through the development of a progressive and structured career roadmap, it supports the job mobility and developmental aspirations of our staff in their career journey with NUHS.

Mr. Tan Ban ThongDeputy Director, Learning CoE

The LEA project provides a better structure and workplace learning plan for the Group Contact Centre service staff. The templates and blueprint serve as a guide for foundation training for new hires and existing employees, thus providing a more structured development process.

We had learned a lot during this journey, and we plan to adopt the workplace learning blueprint for standardisation of training processes in NUHS.

Ms. Valerie LowSenior Manager, Learning CoE

We faced challenges in the building of a unified training framework, but things quickly took a turn for the better when we got involved with the LEA project.

The insights gained and the templates that were co-developed with IAL’s workplace learning consultant, serve as a foundation for us to move forward with our idea to develop a NUHS Contact Centre OneTraining Programme.

Mr. Shaun LohAssistant Manager

Identifying existing performance gaps

To strengthen the training and competencies of its customer service associates, the project team at NUHS first had to identify the learning needs and gaps of its customer service associates. This involved the following activities:

Integration of workplace learning interventions

After the identification of gaps, the project team at NUHS, together with IAL’s workplace learning consultant, worked together to co-develop a workplace learning plan, which would be rolled out to train and assess the associates. Assessment questions were developed using tech tools such as Kahoot.

The following learning resources were co-created:

• Structured workplace learning blueprints, consisting of 2 modules, for training and coaching
  

• A template for structured workplace learning, training, reflection and assessment
  

• Assessment and observation checklists
  

• A new schedule template for workplace learning and assessment
  

• Service manuals, consisting of SOPs for service performance
  

• A new career roadmap for customer service associates
  

• New job description (JD), job tasks and competencies for associates based on the Skills Framework (SFw)
  

Scaling up on the workplace learning imperative

At the end of the Learning Enterprise Alliance (LEA) project with NACE@IAL, NUHS was able to achieve the following outcomes:

100% adoption rate of workplace learning across all new hires within the Group Contact Centre (GCC) domain.

 

In-house trainer is able to pilot and implement a structured workplace learning plan for assessment and evaluation without a hitch.

 

New staff are fully competent and consistent in delivering service standards and procedures from the 2 modules.

The implementation of workplace learning interventions did not come easy, as the project team faced several challenges along the way.

There was a slight delay in the commencement of the project due to the relocation of the GCC office. As the transformation journey for GCC involved centralising all of its micro-site contact centres’ manpower under one roof, there were staffing issues and operational challenges.

Despite the challenges, the team set aside time to meet up with IAL’s consultant at least once a week to co-create the WPL blueprints. Updates and communication were also made regularly via Zoom, WhatsApp and emails.

To ensure that all its customer service associates were able to undergo training without disruption to their work, training were conducted on days when there was sufficient manpower to cover the operations at GCC. The management also played a supportive role to enable these training sessions.

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