Workforce Strategy for Social Care: Insights from the Social Care HR Leaders Network

On 7 March 2024, the Social Care HR Leaders Network gathered in London to discuss the new ‘Workforce strategy for adult social care’, due to launch 18 July 2024. Hosted by James Sage of RWK Goodman LLP, Amanda Marques of Cohesion Recruitment, and Neil Eastwood of Care Friends, this meeting, in collaboration with Skills for Care, it brought together a peer group of senior HR leaders from the social care sector. These leaders represented care providers from across the country, collectively employing around 50,240 people.

The event was intended to gather insight from HR leaders on the crucial issues to be addressed by the workforce strategy.

Effective recruitment in the social care workforce is essential to meet the growing demand for services. Several areas were identified:

• Improving the perception of care. Highlighting its social value, promoting clear career pathways, and combating negative stereotypes. Creating a new narrative around social care, emphasising emotional intelligence, and utilising modern messaging platforms like TikTok.
• Increasing the candidate pool. Engaging with the education sector to attract younger workers, developing a strategic plan to increase diversity in the workforce (e.g. men and the neurodiverse), and drawing talent from other sectors with transferable skills.
• Improving the recruitment process. Creating an outstanding candidate experience through effective onboarding, tech solutions, and fast-track DBS processing. Training managers in values-based recruitment and developing inclusive recruitment toolkits is also essential to attract the best possible people.
• Aligning pay with NHS rates, improving funding and providing flexibility in shift patterns and working arrangements to make roles more appealing.

Investing in workforce retention is key to ensuring high-quality care, positive workplace culture, staff wellbeing, and cost savings, as well as achieving favourable CQC ratings. Several strategies were identified:

• A comprehensive onboarding framework.
• Improving employee experience by researching the needs and aspirations of the current and future workforce.
• Leveraging technologies (and sharing information about which tech is best in class) for collecting workforce feedback and adopting a data-driven approach to employee engagement.
• Guidance and practical case studies on how to offer genuine flexibility in shift patterns and working arrangements whilst meeting regulatory staffing requirements
• Greater resources to support employee health and wellbeing, including self-help tools and funded occupational health support.
• More funding for protected development time, personalised development plans, and a coaching culture to support career progression and skill enhancement.
• Increased funding to enable higher pay rates to reduce attrition to other sectors and enable the re-instatement of meaningful pay differentials.

Leaders are pivotal in social care organisations in shaping culture, influencing care quality and developing future talent. Key requirements identified were:

• A strong emphasis on shared leadership principles across all social care services, aligned with CQC expectations.
• Significant investment in leadership training and development to equip leaders with the necessary skills for the future and foster innovation. Addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion at board level is vital, with a focus on closing the gender gap.
• Developing formal graduate schemes, mentoring programs, and career pathways for current and future leaders will provide an effective way to nurture talent within the sector.
• Prioritising leadership wellbeing through tools and resources to prevent burnout and support work-life balance.

Training opportunities and continuous development are vital for growing a capable and committed social care workforce. Requirements identified were:

• Professionalising roles in social care requires clear standards and consistent training. The debate on registering care workers revealed mixed views, with concerns about potential barriers to entry.
• A training passport was proposed to allow staff to move between roles without repeating training, to enhance efficiency. This would modernise record-keeping and could also ensure portability of references, and compliance documentation.
• Establishing clear governance for training, using technology, and ensuring staff have allocated time for training without added service delivery pressure are crucial. Assessing how apprenticeships could work more effectively.
• A clearly defined career pathway, similar to the NHS, that show progression from entry-level roles into specialised positions. Structured training plans tied to career paths, along with effective performance reviews and appraisals.

There was a consensus among HR Leaders that the sector will benefit greatly from the ‘Workforce strategy for adult social care’ and that greater collaboration and unity around workforce planning is key to achieving its aims.

RWK Goodman LLP, Cohesion Recruitment, Care Friends and Skills for Care would like to thank all the participants who took part in the Social Care HR Leader’s Network event.

You can find more information on the ‘Workforce strategy for adult social care’, which is due to launch 18 July 2024, by visiting our strategy hub: A workforce strategy for adult social care (skillsforcare.org.uk).

You can also book your place to attend our virtual launch event here: Workforce strategy launch 2024 – Virtual event (skillsforcare.org.uk).