Recruitment & retention


entail, not just firing questions for the sake of asking questions. Make sure you have someone who knows what the role is- someone who can explain how they will overcome any challenges you discuss etc. One of the biggest reasons people leave the sector is because they did not know what the job was, or it was different than explained at the interview process. During the first stages of someone’s


employment is crucial that they feel valued, listened to and supported. If you can get them through the first three months, they will much more likely stay with you and form part of your team. Regular supervisions, check-ins, spot checks etc. will all help, as will listening and acting on any concerns they have.


The golden question One of the biggest challenge’s managers face is the ‘golden question’, which I personally dislike as it degrades supermarket staff. This question is the one about why should someone work in in social care - with all the challenges and hard work - when they could go and work in the supermarket down the road at the checkout for the same pay, if not more pay and a better work-life balance. Furthermore, why would someone


want to join social care with the negative image it has. This is something managers need to think long and hard about to answer, but it cannot be a generic one because people looking for jobs will not believe it and nor will they buy into it. The answers to the golden question


need to be unique to the service you are managing. For example, when I was managing a learning disability service, the people we were supporting were going


out three times per day doing activities such as bowling, swimming, cinema trips, zoo trips etc. - you name it they were doing it. My unique selling point was as follows:


yes, you could work in a supermarket and be sat there all day or stacking a shelf, or you could be out and about, doing activities you would probably enjoy doing yourself and getting paid for it. Or you could be sat in a cinema or at the zoo supporting someone, getting paid for it. It is not really like any other job, is it? And I could see their brains ticking and


they knew I was right. So, managers really need to think about what is unique to their services, what can lure someone in and then sell the role to that person. I often hear working parties or


managers say that we need to pay people more, or how can we attract someone when we are only paying £10 per hour - but you can. I will not disagree that, at the end of the day, social care work is a job and a higher salary helps, but I truly believe it only helps if you are paying more than the care company down the road. Let us face it, you could be paying


more than every company, even those outside of social care, but if you do not treat your staff correctly they will not stay and word of mouth will soon hinder recruitment. Several organisations still pay less than £10 an hour and do not have issues with recruitment; the reason for that is they retain their staff.


Retention, retention, retention Retention is key and the biggest thing for many social care teams right now. We go through all the hard work of getting the people we want into interviews, then inducting, training and upskilling them,


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only for them to leave further down the line so we have to restart the process. I speak to so many managers who think


they do not have a retention issue but are actually losing a similar number of staff per year as they are employing. To me, that is a huge issue in that care service. Why would you also want to waste


time as a manager continuously recruiting when we can retain the staff we have, create roles for the long term and have teams that know each other inside and out, and form long-term relationships with the people we are supporting? So, how do we retain the people who


are one of the most crucial aspects of the organisation? Work-life balance is one of the biggest factors. Gone are the days of saying we are only recruiting people on set shifts, every other weekend etc. People want jobs that complement


their home and family life, and social care needs to adapt to meet these requirements. There will always be some staff who want seven/eight-hour shifts or long days and that is great, but we need to look at split shifts, recruiting people on part-time contracts or job shares. One thing I used to do was to make


a note of the ideal shift pattern people wanted and, when I could, offer it so that I knew people were working their preferred pattern. That in turn saw a reduction in sickness and absence. We all know that if someone is on a shift they do not want to work, they are likely to pull off it and call in sick. Supervision, appraisal and rewards


are very important and need to be used more than just a tick-box exercise or asking pointless questions. Supervisions should focus on any issues the employee


www.thecarehomeenvironment.com • December 2021

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