Benefits of robust HR files to your business
Whilst it is clear that as dental professionals, practice owners and managers there are legal and regulatory requirements for ensuring you have comprehensive HR records, there are also many direct benefits to your business in doing so.
Having robust HR files will:
1. Demonstrate your commitment to team and employee welfare
2. Help to promote a culture of employer engagement and team satisfaction
3. Support the development needs of both individuals and the practice team
4. Help you manage employee disputes
5. Provide evidence in the event of an employment tribunal
6. Provide a uniform approach to HR needs
7. Help ensure that new team members are who and what they say they are.
Your aim should be to create a practice in which all team members are well-informed and well-trained and feel supported in the workplace. They should feel safe and they should feel able to raise concerns without fear of recrimination.
The benefits of this should be that you have a highly skilled, engaged and motivated workforce. And a happy, engaged team means happy patients!
Regulations
To understand the importance of maintaining comprehensive Human Resources files we should look at the standards set by the General Dental Council (GDC) and the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
GDC Standards
The GDC’s publication ‘Standards for the Dental Team’ comprises 9 principles that set out their expectations of professional behaviour in terms of patient care and service delivery.
GDC Standards 1 and 6 focus on the importance of putting patients’ best interest first and professional teamwork.
CQC Requirements
When inspecting your dental practice, CQC inspectors seek to establish whether you provide care that is:
- Safe
- Effective
- Caring
- Responsive and whether your practice
- Well-Led.
Regulation 19 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014: Fit and Proper Persons states:
“To meet this regulation, providers must operate robust recruitment procedures, including undertaking any relevant checks. They must have a procedure for ongoing monitoring of staff to make sure they remain able to meet the requirements, and they must have appropriate arrangements in place to deal with staff who are no longer fit to carry out the duties required of them. Employing unfit people, or continuing to allow unfit people to stay in a role, may lead CQC to question the fitness of a provider. If CQC considers that a breach of this regulation is also a breach of another regulation(s) that carries offence clauses, then we can move directly to prosecution without serving a Warning Notice”.
Our online, verifiable CPD course
Introducing The Robust Team HR File: our online, verifiable CPD course for dental care professionals.
The objectives of this online course are that the participant will understand the following:
- Give you regulatory advice from the GDC and CQC
- Show you the benefits of having robust HR files
- Help you understand GDPR and secure records
- Advise you on retention records
- Show you how to create and maintain HR files
- Help you create robust HR checks.
