Caremark: Case Study
It’s a family affair In 2008, single mum Farina Tayub gave up accountancy and moved to Leeds to take charge of a Caremark office. Now she’s overjoyed that daughter Thameena has followed her into the business When you ask what attracted her to the care sector, Farina Tayub’s answer comes in three parts. Her immediate response is “instant rewards”. Before joining Caremark in 2008, she’d been an accountant in Leicester and says “number-crunching” can’t compare. “You make a difference, especially when somebody rings and says: ‘I’m so pleased with these carers,’” she adds. “You see the fruits of your labour and you hear about it daily. One of our customers used to ring us just to say hello every week.” The second reason is more commercial. “I was doing accounts for a care home, and I realised that people were living longer and choosing to die in their own homes – that homecare would be the way for the elderly now.” Thirdly, she’d benefited from care herself years ago. “Watching the carers who took me to the bathroom and helped me in and out of bed, I realised that it was something I would want to do one day, because I was at the receiving end.” With this in mind, she opened a spreadsheet in 2007 and visited 15 different franchises up and down the country. She kept returning to Caremark, 12
however, because of Kevin Lewis’s passion for the company and previous experience running Carewatch. “Also, other franchises were dependent solely on the private market, whereas Caremark encouraged local authority clientele as well. The big one for me, though, was that the management fee was the lowest – and he’s never put it up in the 13 years I’ve been with him.” Taking the plunge has transformed her fortunes, she says. “I’ve been a single mum since my children were three and six. Today, they’re at 28 and 31, I’m a grandma and it’s given us a better quality of life. “There were two territories going and during the recession in 2007, Leeds seemed to be prospering, so I uprooted
“I feel very proud to be part of the brand, because it does hold such strong values”
my girls and we haven’t looked back. It changed our life, basically.” Being her own boss, she says, means she can “make very lucrative decisions to enhance my business my way”. Both her daughters have joined her at different times, “but one moved and got married in Edinburgh. The other one, Thameena, became a chartered accountant and decided three years ago that she wanted to run the business with me. So, today she’s my right hand here. It’s amazing.” Thameena insisted on starting at ground level. “So, I made her do every aspect of the work,” says Farina. “She can support anybody now. They love her. She’s a people person. “We take holidays around each other or together, and now she’s planning a baby. I’ll support her with that as well – I’ll be granny while she’s running the business.” At present, Caremark Leeds has roughly 100 staff, while home visits per week hover around the 2,100 mark. “Sometimes we interview our customers so we can put their comments on our website or in our literature, and the things they say are amazing,” says Farina. During the pandemic, head office’s advice has been invaluable, she adds. “I feel very proud to be part of the brand, because it does hold such strong values. It’s a mark of excellence and high-quality standards of care. “We do cross our T’s and dot our I’s. We do get audited, and I welcome that. When Paul, my regional support manager, says he’s coming in to do an audit, I don’t shy away from it because the results will only make me want to be better. “He’s found us to be 93-97% regularly allocated, which is fantastic for us. It means we’re doing something right.”
