COVID-19
The Recruitment Resurgence
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Good Oaks Home Care has seen an influx in applications for home care roles. Director Ben Ashton shares his thoughts on the opportunities and challenges that this has brought.
see. We have a comprehensive training programme, and a shadowing and mentoring system, that means that training people with no experience in care is not an issue for us. But making sure that applicants have an understanding of what the role involves is crucial.
Good Oaks employs kind, friendly, compassionate carers who are committed to a career in care and this is crucial to providing the service that our clients rely on us for. Our staff are everything.
I’m sure most providers will agree that recruitment has been one of the biggest challenges facing the home care industry in recent months and years. It has been a challenge that has limited the growth of many companies, which have been unable to take on new clients because they just don’t have the staff. That in turn has an impact on the support we can offer the community.
In our experience, the outbreak of COVID-19 changed this. We have actually seen some big changes in the home care industry since the start of the outbreak – many of which are for the better. We have loved seeing members of the public clapping and banging saucepans for the country’s key workers.
Our carers are now getting some of the recognition that they deserve, as they continue to visit our clients in the community and take every step to minimise the risk of infection. There is a new-found respect for home carers, a new pride in the profession and this is fantastic.
The care industry quickly became one of the few sectors that continued to recruit during the outbreak. Many people in lots of professions faced job insecurity. As a result, we have seen more applications for our job vacancies than ever before.
When we launched a Fast Track for Retail and Hospitality staff at the very start of the lockdown, we saw 900% more applications than we had received on average in the preceding 12 weeks. More than double the number of people started in April than in the previous three months combined. We had never turned applicants away before, but we had to in the end. We couldn’t believe it.
We’ve been privileged to have met some brilliant new people who have backgrounds that we don’t typically
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Situational telephone interview questions check that applicants’ behaviour, decision-making and outlook is aligned to our values. Maintaining a focus on our values – professionalism, respect, integrity, dedication and empathy – is essential to protecting the ethos that is central to how we operate as a home care provider.
The pandemic has tested all of us; as businesses, as care providers, and as individuals. It is our hope that as a society, we come out of this crisis with a renewed respect and appreciation for our carers and the invaluable service that they provide for elderly people.
www.goodoakshomecare.co.uk/ www.tomorrowscare.co.uk
It was therefore vital to determine which applicants would thrive in the role and would demonstrate our company values. Our recruitment and interview process has always been rigorous, but we have made some changes to both during the pandemic.
This included an online questionnaire for applicants that ascertains how suited they are to being a home carer. We made sure to highlight practical elements of the job in this questionnaire: including typical timings of calls and the need to work weekends. This ensured that there were no surprises during the interview.
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