FEATURE A First-Choice Career
Steve Sawyer, Managing Director at The Access Group’s Health and Social Care division, explains what employers in the care sector can do to bring in new talent and recruit the experienced staff needed during a testing time for the industry.
Recruitment in care has been a long-standing challenge, but recent figures combined with the current climate marks a crucial tipping point for the sector. Healthcare companies have warned about staff shortages as rising numbers of workers call in sick with Covid-19 as the Omicron coronavirus variant continues to escalate.
Skills For Care reported that up to 6.8% of adult social care roles were unfilled on any day in 2020-21. Now, against the backdrop of a wider job crisis across the UK, the controversial call for mandatory frontline staff vaccinations is now in full effect, causing care staff numbers to tumble further — filling these positions could prove harder than ever if changes aren’t quickly put in place to reverse the situation.
However, it’s not all worrying news. The Government’s recent pledge to invest £5.4bn into social care between 2022-23 and 2024-25 as part of its Made With Care campaign will surely help individual efforts. Around £500m of this is going towards a dedicated workforce fund, with a £162m fund in place until March 2021 to boost recruitment. Additional plans to reform health and social care funding include other steps such as the new Health and Social Care Levy, which aims to pour funding back into a sector which needs it so much.
But funding alone is just part of the solution. To make long lasting change, employers must understand some of the key reasons for talent leaving the sector or failing to enter it at all. With some simple actions, it’s possible to facilitate an industry-leading workplace that’s full of opportunities, making it attractive to existing and new carers in the sector, with staying power for current employees.
TACKLE TURNOVER WITH TRAINING
One key area of concern is staff turnover. Skills for Care’s annual report found rates to be as high as 34.4%. Some of the reasons for this are beyond senior leaders’ control, as many search for higher salaries and lower stress. However, investing in flexible training and development programmes for staff could address some of these core reasons, giving staff the tools to cope with complex tasks and paving the way for clear career progression.
Conventional training methods may in fact add more pressure on a busy care worker’s schedule, oſten requiring an external day trip to a dedicated training facility. Modern, virtual training solutions offer an alternative, providing access to resources on smartphones, laptops and tablets, at any time. They’re also much more efficient for senior staff — the digital modules make it easy to spot any duplication, instead creating a much more effective training plan to suit the individual and their goals.
INCREASED FLEXIBILITY To attract more staff into the vocation, care home leaders need
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to facilitate some of the main requirements that employees working anywhere would find attractive. Flexibility is key - particularly post-pandemic. While care staff can’t work from home, efficient, digital care planning soſtware could give workers better control over their shiſt patterns, making it easy to swap or take on extra hours to work better alongside their personal life.
They also want to be able to work effectively without grappling with old IT systems, to feel valued and to be rewarded for their work. Again, searching for more flexibility across areas such as their payments could help — specialist soſtware has been developed which allows staff to choose when they get paid, oſten boosting mental health and wellbeing by offering a financial safety net.
Data from our EarlyPay app shows how effective this can be, with 49% of users reporting they were more likely to stay with their current employer over moving to a new organisation without on-demand pay access, showing the clear effect it can have on turnover too.
https://www.theaccessgroup.com/en-gb/health-socia -care/care-management-soſtware steady the ship.
While the recruitment gaps in care are a result of the sector’s own, unique circumstances, creating policies that take into account the needs of the broader workforce could help to open the doors for more in search of a new career. Making flexibility, reward and opportunities for progression a focus could make all the difference, while funding injections work to
www.theaccessgroup.com
www.tomorrowscare.co.uk
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