Professionalism Goal

Themes and Directions:

NCBI works in a competitive environment where staffing levels are set by our funders with reference to historical budgets. It is in the present climate of hard-won resources that NCBI must find and commit financial resources to the professional development and continued learning of NCBI staff. Professional development and training are essential to our ability to offer effective, high quality and contemporary services. We must increase our ability to recruit, train and retain dedicated staff, particularly as vision rehabilitation is a specialised area and there is not a ready trained pool of people from which we can recruit.

Due to the increase in the number of people accessing our services over the past number of years, frontline staff have been faced with ever larger caseloads. Over each year of the plan, as resources allow, we aim to progressively increase the staff to service user ratio for frontline staff. The effect of this will be to improve the quality of service afforded to each person with whom we work.

Key Activity 1:

We will provide a professional service of the highest level, which meets the needs of people who are blind or vision impaired.

Supporting actions:

• Identify a focussed approach that will ensure service delivery is guided by service user and staff inputs with quality output measurements.

• Benchmark the efficiency and effectiveness of services and processes against comparable international organisations and communicate the results.

• Further develop NCBI’s accredited training in the different aspects of vision loss and rehabilitation and ensure its availability to those who require this knowledge.

• Link staff recruitment and training to service delivery standards.

• Establish continuous professional development programmes for all staff to ensure that they remain conversant with trends and developments in the areas within which NCBI works.
  
  

Key Activity 2:

We will ensure that as an organisation we provide the necessary supports to employees to ensure their maximum contribution to the achievement of our vision.

Supporting actions:

• Provide a vision rehabilitation library resource to encourage ongoing professional development supported by regular in-service training.

• Ensure that an employee care ethos pervades NCBI and that staff have available adequate supports and supervision to retain NCBI in the high rankings of a preferred employer of choice.

• Conduct periodic surveys with staff to obtain their insights for improvements in NCBI’s behaviour as a concerned and progressive employer and service provider.

• Where feasible, extend the scope and supports for home working throughout the agency so as to maximise the efficiencies from the use of properties and to ensure that employees benefit from a more balanced work lifestyle.

• Use positive discrimination in the employment of people with appropriate qualifications and expertise who are blind or vision impaired.

Key Activity 3:

We will consult on and implement the structural changes necessary to give full effect to this strategic plan.

Supporting actions:

• Evaluate the adequacy and efficiency of NCBI structure against this strategic plan.

• Seek additional resources to allow for an increase in staffing levels to ensure a high quality of service delivery.

• Adopt a personal outcomes measures approach to quality check service delivery from the perspective of the service user.

• Develop a technology blueprint to address the development and ,where appropriate, the integration of information systems such as fundraising development, finance, human resources, library systems, service user relations management, technical aids, employment, NCBI facilities’ management, document management, and the constituent databases.

• Extend membership of NCBI (company) to people who are blind or vision impaired who use our services.