A study by the Communities and Local Government (CLG) Committee found that nearly half of care workers (48%) leave within a year of starting, while the annual turnover rate for nurses working in social care stands at 36%.
There are many reasons behind people quitting their job, changes in circumstances, better offers or changing careers but for employers there are at least two major ones they can mitigate against; hiring the wrong person in the first place and treating them in a way that doesn’t drive them out the door.
It is a truism that people are generally hired on aptitude and fired on attitude, yet most of the focus on recruitment remains on aptitude and qualifications. As these are the easiest to check and tick off against requirement lists, it is understandable that they are the first port of call. Plus, once having invested the time and effort into getting them to the interview stage there’s a common mistake that if their attitude and values aren’t up to scratch, maybe that can be fixed on the job. Sorry, that’s never going to happen.
Unless you hire for values and attitude first, and experience or qualifications second no amount of training is going to ‘stick’ or make the employee a successful addition to the workforce, and, more importantly, one that will stay and maintain their levels of performance.
The Skills for Care’s study – ‘Measuring the impact of a values-based approach to recruitment and retention 2016’ – reported that by employing values based recruitment staff turnover dropped by 6.4% for employers who recruited for values. 72% of employers reported that staff employed and supported using ’values-based’ approach perform better.
It’s also important for employers to realise that recruiting for values to improve retention is not a one-way street. In order to keep their valuable staff, which they’ve spent time, money and effort recruiting, the employer must treat them in a way that they will respond to positively. For people who prefer to work in a stable, organised fashion, endless interruptions and frequent uncertainty will do little other than drive them out of the door at the first opportunity. This may require changes to work practises, rotas, responsibilities, etc, but unless employers meet the work-related needs of their team all the effort, investment and training will simply walk away leaving the employer with the cost and hassle of replacing them again.
