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Care in the Capital Report

The report 'Should I Stay or Should I Go?' was written for the Care in the Capital Week by Andrea Rowe, chief executive of the training body Topss England. While the report focuses on London, it argues that improved nationwide pay and recruitment policies – while essential – are not enough on their own to solve the problems of attracting and keeping staff.

While there have been improvements recruitment initiatives – such as the Department of Health’s England-wide campaign in 2002 and local authorities sponsored events to attract new people to their area – less thought has gone into how to keep staff.

Some 27 per cent of the public sector workforce is more than 50 years old and so a high proportion of “natural wastage” will take pace over the next decade. And the demand for social care is expected to grow in the same period, which suggests that the workforce needs to grow at 3 per cent a year to keep up with the demand for services. So it is essential that social care skills and experiences are retained.

In London nearly 13 per cent of all local authorities social services staff across England – about 28,000. The report estimates 36,000 staff work in residential care in London plus a further 40,000 work in the home care sector.

Home care organisers are particularly badly hit with a 36 per cent turnover; and in the year to October 2001 a half of all home care workers left their job. Other posts have a turnover in the range 11 to 18 per cent.

Social services departments are starting to take a range of measures to improve retention including improved training; introducing flexible working measures; improved pay and other benefits; improved support and supervision; and more clerical, administrative and social work assistants have been employed to support front-line staff.

However, only one-third of councils are using these sorts of retention strategies, and all the measures vary in consistency across different groups of staff that indicates a lack of a coherent and consistent policy. The report highlights the costs of failure to retain staff to the service user:

“High staff turnover can contribute to the disorientation and confusion of older people with dementia and those of all ages with mental illnesses. People with high dependency levels also benefit from having stable key workers.”

The retention of good employees matters because of the growing importance and marketability of intellectual capital, because there is a causal link between employee stability and service user satisfaction and because of the high costs of recruitment and induction.

The central message of Should I Stay or Should I Go? is that retention must be part of the wider strategy of the whole organisation rather than one of initiatives just driven by human resources.

Successful approaches championed by Should I Stay or Should I Go? include:

• Ask mature workers what they need – merely opening up the dialogue can help you understand the issues and find solutions.
• Support flexible working – many employees aged over 50 want to work part time or work from home particularly if their partner is retired or they have caring responsibilities. They may also be interested in sabbaticals and unpaid leave to chase a dream holiday or obtain a higher degree or undertake voluntary work in their community. Employers would do well to consider all these options as well as phased retirement that lets employees reduce their hours in stages rather than all at once which can cause disruption for both employee and service users.
• Give them more autonomy – provide the training they need to pick up new skills, particularly in IT.
• Tailor-make compensation systems – avoid a quick-fix mentality and build creative contracts with the most experienced staff.

With the publication of this report it may be that retention is finally getting the attention it deserves.

Go to www.communitycare.co.uk for more on Care in the Capital and the report