You won the tender. Now set it up.
Winning a new employer contract is good news that lands on the operations team as a mountain of set-up. The employer's HR team sends an employee list in their format and a structure chart. The contract has its own rate card, KPIs and DNA terms. Referral forms need building with the employer's questions. Surveillance programmes need setting up for exposed groups. HR users need access. And the previous provider may be handing over open cases and records.
Each part is done by a different person, from emails and spreadsheets, and the first sign that something was missed is the first referral that cannot be booked or the first invoice that is wrong.
Meanwhile the employer's HR team is being introduced to your service at the same time, often with training sessions, a launch message to managers and a list of questions about how referrals will work. The set-up behind the scenes has to be finished before those managers start using it.
Why mobilisation is rebuilt every time
Most occupational health services mobilise contracts often enough to feel the pain, but not so often that anyone has built a proper process. So each one starts from a blank email and the memory of the last one.
- There is no single checklist, so set-up items are missed.
- Employee and structure data arrives in a different format for every employer.
- Rate cards and KPIs are typed in from the contract, with no check.
- Referral forms and surveillance programmes are built from scratch rather than from templates.
- Transferred cases from the previous provider arrive as a folder of documents.
What a messy mobilisation costs
The first weeks of a contract are when the employer forms their view of you. Referrals that stall because a form is missing, surveillance that cannot be booked, or an invoice at the wrong rate all make a poor first impression. Internally, operations staff are pulled off existing contracts to set up the new one, and those contracts suffer.
Transferred cases are the most sensitive part. An employee who was mid-way through a long-term absence case with the old provider can easily fall between the two services if their case is sitting in an unread folder.
| Set-up area | Source | Built from |
|---|---|---|
| Employees and structure | Employer HR export | Mapped import with a change report |
| Referral forms | Contract and HR input | Your standard forms, adjusted per employer |
| Rate card and KPIs | Contract schedule | Entered once, checked by a second person |
| Surveillance programmes | Employer risk assessments | Programme templates by exposure type |
| HR users and access | Employer contacts | Portal invitations with roles |
| Transferred cases | Previous provider | Case import with a review list |
How we build repeatable mobilisation
- A mobilisation checklist per contract, with owners and dates, visible to your operations lead.
- An import tool for employee and structure data that maps the employer's format once and shows what it will load.
- Referral form and surveillance programme templates your team adjusts per employer, rather than building from nothing.
- Rate card and KPI entry screens with a second-person check before they go live.
- Portal invitations for HR users, with roles and access limits.
- A case import for transferred cases, producing a review list so each open case is looked at by a clinician.
- A go-live check that confirms every item is complete before the first referral can be accepted.
The next contract
Mobilisation becomes a known process with a checklist and templates. Nothing is forgotten because the go-live check will not pass until it is done. Transferred cases are reviewed rather than filed. And the employer's first experience of your service is referrals that work, invoices that are right and HR users who can log in.
Your operations team also gets a clearer view of what a new contract needs, which helps when pricing the next tender.
Recognise this?
- Each new contract is set up from scratch.
- Things have been missed and discovered by the employer.
- Rate cards and KPIs are typed from the contract with no check.
- Transferred cases arrive as folders nobody has time to read.
- Setting up a new contract pulls staff off existing ones.