Phil Orton, Head of People at CLS Care Services

CLS Care Services, is one of the largest providers of care homes in the North West of England, and it is also recognised as a market leader in dementia care. Its success has been in part due to its innovation in the field and the adherence throughout the organisation to a clear set of values which drives its standards of care.

Among CLS Care Services’ operations has been the development of the ‘Belong’ villages, which provide a vibrant hub at the heart of the community, putting into practice everything that CLS Care Services has learned over 20 years of invaluable experience.

With the establishment of a new Belong village in Warrington, the company is currently recruiting 140 staff who must be able to live up to the company’s values-led approach and provide the exemplary standards of care required.

“We are a charitable organisation and our not-for-profit status means we reinvest any surplus back into the service and facilities we provide to our residents,” explained Phil Orton, Head of People at CLS Care Services. “We also operate with strong organisational values which we adhere to, such as empathy, communication, developing relationships and continuity of care which all employees must meet.

“Typically we hire people within only a 2-3 miles radius of a village and while we don’t have an issue with attracting candidates, we’ve had over 300 people expressing interest through our web site already, ensuring the quality of staff and care in all our villages is crucial.”

Belong was an early enrolee in the Profiles4Care personality profiling solution pilot, part of the National Skills Academy for Social Care’s Values-Based Recruitment Toolkit.  Belong has used it extensively in its recruitment and for staff development in its existing villages with very positive results.

As the company won’t be transferring existing staff to the new village, the Profiles4Care solution will also be important in the recruiting and retaining the new team at the village, as Phil Orton explained;

“As we recruit for values as well as skills the Profiles4Care solution has been extremely helpful in providing us with the essential insight we require and which, we envisage, will also help with staff retention. I genuinely believe we have better information now than we did previously, with better recruitment decisions made as a result.

“In fact we’ve also been using the system as part of our existing staff’s development as it helps with people’s own levels of self-awareness. The most common response to the reports has been ‘scarily accurate’, so we know it works well,” concluded Phil Orton.