How writing great job adverts can be your first step to solving staff retention in the care sector

Spending time honing your job advertisements can ensure you recruit staff with stronger values who perform better

Care worker supporting an older person to eat
Photo: iStock

Writing the job advertisement or listing for your latest care role may seem like the kind of task you want to get done and off your to-do list as quickly as possible. However, spending time thinking about how you can embed and communicate your organisation’s values in the job advert can be a route to much improved recruitment and retention.

Adopting a values-based approach to recruitment has clear benefits for the employee and the organisation. Research by Skills for Care shows that over 70% of
employers who followed this path recruited staff with stronger care values than those recruited traditionally. They also found their staff consistently performed better.

Incorporating your values into your job advertisement doesn’t need to be a long-winded process. You can start by simply asking members of staff what they like about the organisation, what aspects make them stay and what attracted them in the first place.

Once you have those collated you can begin to write your job ad copy make sure you include the relevant phrases, features and benefits, making sure you include any technical aspects of the role like required qualifications, driving licence, working hours etc.

Skills for Care have some example job advertisements you can use as inspiration, and for much more on the topic of recruiting care workers you can access our guide here.

More from Community Care

Comments are closed.