Profiles4Care’s values based recruitment solution referenced in this very thought provoking article by Nigel Taylor, Group Training and Development Manager at CareTech.
I Care…. But do you really care? Do you want to make a difference?
Disbelief and dismay
Yes that’s how I feel about the Health and Social care sector, our inability to work collaboratively to what is/should be a common aim “improving the quality of care we provide” is dumbfounding at the least.
How will we meet the commitments is the Social Care Commitment? How will we make the sector the sector of choice to work as a professional and not just something to do whilst waiting for something else? How can we ensure we employ the right people for the right jobs getting it right first time? How can we reduce waste and still provide a quality affordable service?
I appreciate that many may suffer from initiative overload and that all of us have a day job to do however we are all fighting the same battles and chasing the same resources, that’s the staff we employ to support our customers.
Yet there are a range of solutions available, that many of my colleagues can’t see past the end of their own organisations and petty politics to even consider.
Ask anyone what the sectors biggest cost is and they should be able to tell you that it’s the £2.8m per day we spend on staff turnover…it’s the 60,000+ vacancies and how all of this affect the continuity and quality of care.
Well H&SC sector take a look at other sectors that either came together too late to work in collaboration or failed to see the opportunity to develop a supply chain.
Many of the issues we face are the same as the automotive sector some 25 years ago, that was how do you produce a product with more specification, higher quality and for a reduced price?
The answer was and is by reducing the waste in the production methods, I am not saying that H&SC is the same as engineering, what I am saying we as a sector have an enormous amount of waste; this is derived from not getting it right first time.
Recruiting the wrong person means that we spend time and money in the first instance only for the individual not to be acceptable to work in care, costing us between £1300 and £3,500 each time taking into account recruitment and training costs, yet we continue each day chasing the same people throwing more potential costs into the waste skip.
Skills for Care have recently instigated many initiatives to help us as employers to reduce this waste, Care ambassadors, recruiting the world class workforce, online values based recruitment, talent pipeline development models and many more all in support of developing a world class workforce.
They have even spent time and resources in support bids for the implementation of this work and fight our corner with government, I am not saying they are perfect and I believe they would agree, however for the King Harold’s of this world it’s not enough, “I’m too busy” “I don’t understand” “it doesn’t affect us we are doing our own thing” “ we don’t want to work with them, they are our competitors” and many more superlatives that are used to say go away I don’t want to know, incredible for what is a caring sector, built on communication, empathy, support and caring for others.
Well WAKE UP! If you haven’t noticed H&SC is changing, it’s under more scrutiny than ever before and more customers focussed, with demand for quality at an affordable price, so sit in your silos H&SC, don’t engage with each other, don’t use the resources and collaboration in your path, you will be dealing with the same issues in the next 10 years if you still exist.
Alternately you can talk to the salesman (SFC) and see what’s in it for your business sign up to:
• Working in collaboration with each other to resolve a common issues we all have
o Social care commitment
o I care ambassadors
o Support the sector approach to developing a talent pipeline (EOS)
o Reducing waste and providing a quality service
