Crown Home Care

Starting any new business, even one created by a team with over 30 years of experience in the industry, is a daunting task. But a ‘people’ centred service brings with it its own specific challenges, especially when its objective is to provide only the highest quality of care to its clients. Crown Home Care is one such company that has worked with Profiles4Care to help make its goals a reality.

Launched in 2013 by Director Lesley Packham, Hampshire based Crown Home Care provides a range of care solutions from one hour visits for personal care and companionship, to more complex assistance including nutritional support, skin management and palliative help right through to 24 hour a day live in care.

Recruiting the right Carers who had the founding team’s passion, commitment and focus to their work to enhance the well-being of their clients was paramount to the organisation’s success, and in meeting its commercial objectives.

“Right from the start there is the balance of recruiting the right people and having the work secured for them to do, plus ensuring the quality of care provided is as maintained as we want it to be,” explained Lesley Packham of Crown Home Care.

“We’re deliberately not a volume focused agency, our aim is to grow organically on a foundation of providing only the best quality of care. That along with the fact that our work can involve helping elderly, vulnerable and young clients, and providing live in care, means we have to get the right Carers and staff who we can trust to completely support our values and to grow with us as a business.”

Crown Home Care has an extensive recruitment process that all applicants have to undertake and was one of the first businesses to enrol in the Profiles4Care personality profiling solution pilot.

“In care work there has to be a huge element of trust as the Carers are often working on their own. I know from many year of recruiting that while experience goes along way, you have to be able to step back and take an objective view and any tools and assessment techniques that can help us to do that are extremely helpful,” said Lesley.

“Everyone applying to work with us undertakes the Profiles4Care psychometric assessment as part of our recruitment processes and so far have all been very keen to do so. I don’t think many people in our line of work have had the opportunity to undergo a personality assessment and see the results for themselves.

“And the results are impressive, I would say ‘scarily’ accurate. The experience of doing it has been motivational for the Carers, giving them a new level of insight. While for us it has provided important additional information and helps resolve any potential uncertainties we may have following an interview, which at the level we are recruiting at we must do before hiring anyone.

“In addition, another benefit came during our first Care Quality Commission inspection. The inspector was very impressed that we were using values-based systems in our recruitment and commented positively on the topics and information provided in the reports,” concluded Lesley.

Meeting its own exacting standards successfully, Crown Home Care achieved the top ‘Excellent’ rating from the Care Quality Commission and with over 30 people already employed it has a bright and busy future ahead.