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December 2014
Using ESR Employee Relations Functionality
ESR Employee Relations (ER) functionality enables organisations to record all ER types
for employees and ex employees such as, grievances, disciplinaries, harassment,
capability, flexible working and further ER stages, including the ability to alert the
Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) via the DBS interface link.
All key dates, reference numbers, and further detail and outcomes can also be recorded,
and also provides reporting functionality including an analysis based on the protected
characteristics.
It can be used in conjunction with relevant case file notes that the HR teams have for each
episode.
The module is divided into 3 areas:
Employee Relations Administration which includes :
Employee Relations Details
View Enter & Maintain
View Employee Management Information
Business Intelligence which includes:
Standard Dashboards
Discoverer Reports which include:
Standard Reports
Ad Hoc Reports
Employee Relations at a local level
Case Study from Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (BHNFT) is a circa 500 bedded district general
hospital serving a population of approximately a quarter of a million people in the Barnsley
area.
Total Workforce numbers as at 31 –July 2014 are 3,280 with a Headcount of 2,575.14
wte.
Using ESR to record Employee Relations Information
st

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The organisation has been using ESR to record all Employee Relations (ER) cases since
2007 and currently record all of the following on ESR;
Capability no underlying health reasons
Capability underlying health reasons
Disciplinary
Grievance
Harassment
Further ER stages
Appeal
Refer to Professional Registered Body
Refer to DBS (currently reviewing)
Tribunal
Flexible working
Karl Hickman, Senior Human Resources Manager states:
‘Recording Employee Relations data on ESR is essential for auditing our own
performance in terms of closing cases in the required timescale, managing caseload
within the HR team and for highlighting areas within the Trust where there is rise in
particular forms of casework . We can then focus HR support to managers who may
need our help. The information contained in Employee Relations is also essential in
completing our annual performance report to Board and identifying areas where we need
to improve the way we work in HR ,and where Policy needs adjusting to ensure we deliver
timely and efficient outcomes to the organisation.’
Prior to ESR all ER information was stored in hardcopy form as case notes. This required
manual searching when compiling and answering queries, and preparing reports for
Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, examples being:
How many Employees have been disciplined for misuse of the internet?
How many Employees have been disciplined for Fraud?
How many sexual harassment cases has the Trust had?
The numbers of trust staff dismissed, disciplined (including requirements to undertake
re­training) or informally warned as to their future conduct.
On how many occasions, regarding how many members of staff, have concerns about
sick leave been escalated, and what action has been taken. Concerns may include,
but your response should not be limited to: fitness to work questions, repeated
absence, bullying or mismanagement, over­worked staff. Action may include, but your
response should not be limited to: phased return, redeployment, termination of
contract on health grounds, disciplinary procedures.
Access to the ER module is limited to approximately ten users within the HR function, and

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includes, HR Managers and Officers, with support from the HR Secretaries and an ESR
Support Advisor. Data entry is mainly undertaken by the HR Officers and HR Personal
Secretaries. The HR Officers have also been assigned to the Employee Relations Role so
that that can react to the Warning Expiry Notifications that are sent. This prompts them to
review the case correctly.
The Process
All ESR information is collected via data collection forms that we have created and which
mirror the ESR forms. These forms are completed by the HR Officers/HR Managers and
used as a data entry form for themselves or HR Personal Secretaries. The forms are
completed at each stage and signed and dated by the HR Officers/HR Managers or HR
Personal Secretaries when entered.
These forms are also useful as a quick reference to where the case is up to when stored
with the hardcopy detailed case notes which is extremely useful when handing over a
case.
All Sickness Absence reviews are recorded as ‘Capability No Underlying Health Reasons’
or ‘Capability Underlying Health Reasons’, and these figures are also reported to the
Board monthly.
The information entered is not date trackable in ESR, so is a snapshot in time, that
includes key fields of information required for many reporting scenarios. For example;
Start/end dates
Meeting dates
Stages
Represented by
Outcome
The majority of form fields contain a list of values to select from, and a number of these
are generic to enable local interpretation, such as ‘Stages/Levels’. This speeds up the
data entry process.
Each ER case is identified by a case reference number using a locally agreed standard
format consisting of fifteen characters. We have created the case number to also identify
the relevant HR Employee involved in the case, the month and year the case started.
This enables us to easily identify the caseload for each HR Employee at any time.
Reporting
We use the two standard reports; NHS Employee Relations, which contains a worksheet
for each Employee Relations Type and NHS Employee Relations Monitoring Analysis,
which contains a worksheet for each Equality and Diversity category.

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We have found these reports invaluable when requiring information for Freedom of
Information (FOI) requests and for creating the monthly Employee Relations statistics that
are sent to the Board, Executive Team and Clinical Business Units as part of a KPI report.
The report also includes exceptions statements for any disciplinaries and suspensions
that have breached 14/15 weeks.
Two members of staff have undertaken the ESR BI training and this will enable the
organisation to fully utilise the ESR BI reporting capability in the near future.
Benefits
Using ESR Employee Relations has enabled Barnsley Hospital to make savings and
manage their case load more effectively;
Using the ESR Employee Relations functionality has reduced the amount of resource
needed when answering FOI requests and internal requests. There is no need for us
to maintain a separate spreadsheet/database as information can be reported straight
from ESR and does not need to be collated from several sources.
It enables us to produce monthly Board reports on Employee Relations statistics which
can identify any issues or points of action.
The ability to report on the case reference number enables us to track caseloads
across the HR team.
The expiry notifications ensure that cases are reviewed correctly and on time.
For more information
For more information about the Employee Relations functionality in ESR click here
(https://www.electronicstaffrecord.nhs.uk/kbase/entry/403/)
Contact your ESR Account Manager (http://www.electronicstaffrecord.nhs.uk/contact­us/account­
managers/)
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