Maturing into a multi-product ecosystem
Dr Nicholas Andreou,
Co-Founder
The pandemic decision
Last year, at the height of the first wave of the pandemic, we made an important decision as a team, which some would say was a gamble. While most private companies went into survival mode, furloughing staff and generally adopting inward-looking behaviour, we decided to do the opposite. Our guiding ‘force’ was the reason we started Locum’s Nest in the first place: to help the NHS cope with its staffing crisis!
So we took a really good look at the value Locum’s Nest and its core shift-matching technology could offer to the NHS! We realised that, now more than ever, Locum’s Nest had a vibrant and dedicated community of healthcare professionals and healthcare organisations all working towards the same objective - helping the nation survive the pandemic!
Sure, that community interacted with a software platform to primarily match vacant shifts to healthcare workers but it was a lot more than that. We came to realise that interaction was a valuable digital ‘touch-point’ between co-workers.
Digital Touchpoints
With lockdowns and remote working, we saw digital touchpoints as the only way healthcare workers and their managers can have a sense of normality when it comes to human interaction. With that realisation in mind, the Locum’s Nest platform, through a flurry of innovation, exploded into an ecosystem of solutions to support the wellbeing of NHS staff.
The birth of the multi-product ecosystem
Our Research and Development team developed state-of-the-art communication tools which would allow hospital executives to quickly survey their staff and get instant feedback from front-line teams on how to improve their wellbeing. We also invented a fantastic tool to automate and fast track recruitment and onboarding of new members of staff and developed what we feel is the most powerful data intelligence dashboard in the space to bring senior management teams as close as possible to the front-line teams working on the Covid-19 wards.
But that wasn’t enough. We took a deeper look into what our users actually need and we acknowledged that they absolutely despised two, seemingly contradicting, things:
An endless collection of features and products all crammed together in a busy navigation bar
A disjointed selection of standalone products that don’t communicate with each other
So the impossible ‘Catch-22’ became instantly apparent: how do you ensure that you do not have too many products whilst at the same time having multiple products?
The delicate balance exists
The reality is that most users use software in their own unique way - particularly when it comes to large organisations such as hospitals with multiple stakeholders, each having a small part to play in what is a crucial human resources management operation. For example, NHS admin staff typically use our web app whilst healthcare professionals are more inclined to go mobile.
Staying true to our user-centric philosophy, we wanted to implement a hurdle-free experience for our customers and therefore needed to ensure that a full Locum’s Nest suite would provide the NHS and its people with more choice - not a one size fits all approach.
We opted to create multiple products that seamlessly integrate with each other, helping users to do a separate set of tasks whilst working towards achieving the entire organisation's same set of objectives.
Each new product compliments Locum’s Nest Match, our flagship solution which matches vacant shifts with qualified and available healthcare workers:
Rota creates flexible and collaborative e-rosters that are perfectly optimised for compliance and NHS staff’s wellbeing
Community connects colleagues with internal communications straight from their smartphone
Intelligence harnesses real-time data with visible benchmarking tools and forecasting abilities for HR and Finance teams
PassportPlus streamlines the recruitment process with a central passport for all healthcare professionals
Link seamlessly integrates all major systems including rostering, payroll and bank services with Locum’s Nest and continues to bring in new features
Going multi-product doesn’t come without its challenges. The first step is ensuring each product addresses a real need. That they each perform much more than just one small function. This gives users the flexibility to purchase only what their organisation strategically requires and nothing more. They can curate their own bespoke bundle of products and avoid paying a high fee to only use 10% of what a platform offers.
Employing this customer-centric approach is really important to us at Locum’s Nest. Rather than being swayed by commercial interests, it allows us to stay focused on developing solutions in line with what the NHS truly wants and needs - a comprehensive workforce software that finally solves the age-old problem of ineffective staffing management.
Each of our products is therefore directly aimed at tackling the NHS’ biggest workforce challenges, many of which were highlighted further by the fight against Covid-19.
The final step is ensuring the integration between multiple products is seamless; that users don’t get lost in an endless set of navigation tabs or waste time needing complex training or support calls.
Maintaining the flow between products
When adding new products, it's crucial to maintain flow between each product with ease of use and fluidity. There are many examples of key tech providers who have demonstrated this successfully. Inbound marketing and sales platform, HubSpot, has added multiple products to their core function including CRM, communication, customer service and content management. Each ‘hub’ seamlessly flows from one to the next without interrupting the user experience. Atlassian is another, who invites teams to tailor their platform from over 4,000 apps including popular software development tool, Jira, and collaboration platform, Trello.
User experience is at the heart of our design values at Locum’s Nest. Our technology goes beyond functionality to ensure each product is not only user-friendly but engaging and enjoyable too. With uniform design language and sleek, clean integration, customers can intuitively use our multi-product suite to work collaboratively as an organisation and deliver the best patient care.
Our goal remains to increase flexible working within the NHS, improving staff retention, engagement, patient care and ultimately saving our healthcare service £1.5 billion over the next five years. By developing a suite of unique products, each individually catered to our customers specific needs, we are now able to radically transform the NHS staffing crisis.
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Find out more about each of the individual products that make up our comprehensive workforce solution, or get in touch with our team to receive any additional information.