Q& A
In our first interview, Care England speaks to Damien Wilkins, Recruitment and Retention Specialist at Cohesion, to find out how providers can work towards a sustainable workforce and what his top tips are for running a successful recruitment campaign.
IN THE HOT SEAT An interview with Damien Wilkins, Cohesion
Care England: Why is it so important to spend time getting to know new starters?
CE: Do you have evidence to highlight the turnover rate in the sector?
Damien Wilkins: Aiding retention starts from the beginning of the recruitment journey and efforts should not stop at any point, but it is even more crucial in the initial weeks and months into an employee’s new role. When asking this question, it’s important to remember that there are added factors to consider. For example, whether the colleague is new to care. If they are new to care and have a poor onboarding and new starter experience, then they are more likely to re-evaluate whether care is the right sector for them. Plus, no two care settings are the same. This may mean that, even if someone has worked in care before, it may not translate to your organisation’s structure and work pattern. As with any employee/employer relationship, it’s essential to spend time engaging with your new employees. This is the time to myth-bust preconceptions that someone might have about social care as a career. Remember that this is the ‘honeymoon’ period – so make it as memorable as possible.
DW: Skills for Care reports that the turnover rate for directly employed staff working in the adult social care sector was 28.3% in 2022/23. This equates to approximately 390,000 people leaving their posts over the year. Not all people leaving their posts leave the sector. Around 59% of filled posts were recruited from other roles within the sector. The turnover rate, for all sectors, decreased from 28.9% in 2021/22 to 28.3% in 2022/23. For independent sector establishments, the turnover rate decreased from 31.7% in 2021/22 to 30.4% in 2022/23. This decrease was influenced by an increase in international recruits. The key is to find the right people in your recruitment process, make sure you onboard them well, and give them a reason to stay. Turnover data should be tracked and analysed and, whilst many providers do track data, it’s important to consider specific metrics. Look at new-to-care starters and other factors such as workforce demographics to measure improvements. Care and support staff tend to move around within the sector. Providers need
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to focus on how to make their organisations a place employees want to stay in rather than moving to a competitor. Pay can be a contributing factor, but it is not the only one. CE: What are some of the current recruitment and retention challenges for social care providers? DW: There are several challenges for providers when it comes to improving retention and some of the main reasons include: • Lack of flexibility that can be offered to new and existing staff. • New-to-care workers discover that care is not what they thought. • Cost of living driving people to look for work in other sectors. • A feeling of working long hours and work-life balance being negatively impacted. • Poor induction training and career development opportunities within the organisation. • Lack of access to a manager for discussions and one-to-ones. • Poor hiring decisions, which are often made when operational teams are under pressure. • Candidates failing to understand the available career pathways.
Care England
CE: Are you able to share some strategies that providers can implement?
CE: How can providers work towards having a sustainable care workforce?
DW: Values-based recruitment looks at a candidate’s values and helps determine their suitability for working in the care sector. It has been proven to be more effective when it comes to both costs and results in comparison to traditional recruitment processes. Tools to aid valuesbased recruitment and retention need not be expensive and will provide a positive return on your investment when used correctly. Care Character has been designed specifically to help care organisations find the right people and support to retain them. The tool was developed by bringing together the findings from a PhD study – Recruitment and Selection in the UK Care Sector – which explored the attributes of quality care and support staff and Cohesion's experience in delivering values based recruitment solutions within care. The tool includes a short online assessment for candidates prior to the interview and provides several useful reports. The reports include a Candidate Report to help people prepare for an interview, and an Interviewer Report to allow assessment of the candidate against seven qualities of care with suggested interview questions. Other reports include a Development Report, which enables early learning and development discussions. Using psychometric assessments such as Care Character to identify the most suitable candidates for your organisation can go a long way in helping you begin to solve the retention issues we face. These tools can often be a low-cost and high-impact solution and could help generate a significant return on a small investment.
DW: Providers need to understand their current workforce. What is the age of your workforce? How much are your agency costs? How many people are in your bank workforce? What are your demographics? What are your challenges and where are your problem areas? And how well suited to working in the care sector are your existing staff? If you know this, then you can focus on the actions you need to take, whether that’s working on reducing your agency spending or converting temporary workers to bank or permanent contracts. You also need to work on providing meaningful development opportunities. 72% of leavers surveyed during thousands of exit and retention interviews highlighted hunger for better learning and development opportunities early on in a new role. By using tools such as Care Character, you will be able to better identify the learning and development that your team wants. CE: How can smaller providers still deliver an effective six-week onboarding process given possible restraints? DW: Whether you have 20 employees or 1,000, a positive onboarding experience isn’t a niceto-have, it is something you must provide. Many smaller providers report it can be easier to develop consistency in onboarding than those with different processes across different homes and services. There are lots of resources available to help with onboarding, such as the Care England workforce group and the Skills for Care checklist, or recruitment and onboarding tools such as Care Character. Employers should look to these resources to improve their current processes to increase retention and avoid high attrition in the early stages of the recruitment process.
CE: Considering the current challenges and the cost-of-living crisis, how should providers be approaching their recruitment and retention campaigns? DW: There are several considerations and preparingahead tasks that will help to retain your workforce. These include: • Take the time to understand your staff’s current situations. Make sure you conduct stay interviews; these give critical feedback you can act upon before a resignation occurs. • Be flexible. Look at shift planning differently to allow for a more flexible pool of staffing teams. • Encourage your team to join your bank pool to opt into completing extra shifts before going to recruitment agencies for temporary shift cover. • Consider the benefits you offer and make sure they are advertised, for example, free meals, vouchers, discounts, EAP support, etc. • Offer a retention bonus and/or a ‘refer a friend’ bonus. • Target your local community and ask for referrals – referred friends and family tend to stay longer. • Be clear about your career pathways. Offer specialist development opportunities as not all will want to climb the traditional career ladder. • Advertise to new audiences, such as students who are home during the holidays and/or retirees looking to earn some more money. • Ensure new starters have access to support from buddies or mentors, especially if they are new to care. • Equip managers with the tools to successfully support their teams. • Reach out to recruitment and workforce experts who understand social care and ask for advice. • Implement screening tools such as Care Character to help recruit those suited to care and reduce fallout in the early stages of onboarding.
Damien Wilkins is a Recruitment and Retention Specialist at Cohesion. Email: damien.wilkins@cohesionrecruitment.com Care England
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