Introduction and overview

01

Six Steps® is a structured workforce planning approach to help services become more efficient, and future‑ready. It provides a clear, step‑by‑step method for understanding workforce needs and planning effectively.

Why is Six Steps used? and how is it helpful for me?

  • Helps identify and address workforce and service challenges enabling the development of practical solutions e.g. business cases, development of workforce plans, service/team redesign or wider workforce transformation.
  • Helps identify gaps between current and future workforce needs.
  • Is scalable and adaptable: works for teams, services, directorates, or whole‑system planning.

 

Who

Intended users:

  • AHPs, other healthcare professionals, workforce planners, service leads, managers, Human Resources and workforce lead(s), including those new to workforce planning seeking to develop their skills.
How?

Getting started and resources: 

  • The Six Steps® resources introduce the methodology, explain each step in detail, and show how to apply to workforce and service challenges.
  • Follow the learner journey to apply the methodology step by step, supported by webinars, workbooks, toolkits, templates, and case studies (see section below)
  • By completing the Six Steps workbook or the Six Steps toolkit you will have a workforce plan framework. Information from this can be used for a workforce plan to support service re-design or transformation.
Resources
  • Cost - Six Steps® is a registered approach, NES and Skills for Health (the providers of Six Steps training) have collaborated to develop freely accessible resources available on this website.
Timeframes and capacity
  • Vary dependent on the scale and scope of the work.
  • Case studies illustrate timelines, engagement and activity required for both team‑level and service‑level change.

How to use the Six Steps resources

To start—go to Introduction to workforce planning and transformation in the What and why: introduction section of this online resource, to:

  • to understand what workforce planning and transformation is, how workforce planning and transformation can support AHP service challenges, and AHP services/teams.
  • to help you to decide which workforce planning and transformation approach(es) might best suit you/your team/service, to address the service need or challenge you are facing.
  • to help you navigate the content of the workforce planning and methodologies section of this website to help you best use the resources.

Six Steps® overview

Use this summary of the Six Steps® approach to understand the basics of Six Steps®—why, what and how. Alongside the resources above, this overview will help you decide if you want to go further on the learning journey for Six Steps.

Start Six Steps learning journey

Learn to apply the methodology step-by-step through webinars, workbooks and supporting tools, available on the following pages:

How—detailed learner journey to apply Six Steps®

Case studies

These can help you throughout your Six Steps learning journey. There are 3 case studies:

  • Case study 1 - Getting started with Six Steps for an orthotics service 
  • Case study 2 - Team level workforce planning and transformation to address a capacity and demand issue for a dietetic team
  • Case study 3 - Service re-design for a regional podiatry service

More information available in the In action: Six Steps case studies page.

 

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