How do I recruit more carers? Advice for busy agencies
The UK’s care staffing crisis is very real and is having a severe impact not only on those in need of care, but also their families and the wider system as the NHS picks up the slack (and foots the bill) where social care services are falling short. Many agencies are inundated with care enquiries both from local authority contracts and private clients, but simply don’t have sufficient staff on the books to fill their rosters.
According to UK recruitment site JobTrain, the average time-to-hire in the care sector was 76 days in February 2023. This is simply too long for most care companies, who need quick and easy access to experienced, skilled care professionals for long-term and short-term support.
Despite some efforts to relieve the backlog, the situation is getting more challenging month by month – partly due to increasing demand for care within the public and private sectors. The King’s Fund forecasts that 1.22 million care workers will be provided between 2016 and 2036 – a number which is likely to rise as the crisis intensifies.
What can care companies do to recruit more carers?
One thing a lot of care providers fail to do when recruiting is to strike the crucial balance between maintaining a human touch whilst ensuring the efficiency required to fill vacancies and continue to deliver care to everyone who needs it. Many are also stuck in a cycle of taking staff on who aren’t a right fit or become dissatisfied and subsequently leave, wasting valuable time, money and resources and opening vacancies that have been filled back up only weeks or months later.
The pressure to maintain a positive and high quality level of service and avoid working with ‘just anyone’ is a real concern for many care providers, who are stuck between satisfying enquiries and contracts and ensuring staff meet a consistent standard when it comes to experience, skills and performance.
Although filling rosters with the right people can take time, there are a lot of things care companies can start to do right now to relieve this pressure and ensure more sustainable and successful recruitment processes.
Establish connections with reputable recruitment agencies you can trust
Most care companies adopt a scattergun approach to recruitment – scour the available sites, ring around various companies and opt for whoever has available staff to send your way. Maybe you have one or two go-tos – but once they’ve been exhausted, you’re stuck again. It may also be time to review whether or not those you have an existing relationship with are continuing to offer an efficient service or good value for you moving forward.
Concentrate on building partnerships with experienced, reputable care recruitment agencies who can be on hand whenever you need them. Addressing the issues below should reduce your need for ad-hoc cover, but having trusted backup will significantly reduce your time-to-hire and the resources you spend sourcing staff.
Better forecasting
Many care companies find themselves reactively recruiting rather than proactively recruiting because they fail to properly forecast how many staff they’ll need or don’t anticipate increased demand. Stay ahead of your forecasting and invest time and money where appropriate in this process to ensure that your staff spend less time on frantic searches for care professionals at the last minute.
Streamlining the onboarding process
A significant portion of the time it takes to onboard new care workers is spent on the onboarding process. Interviewing, vetting, training and orientating new staff takes time – but this process can be streamlined. Assess your current protocols and review any areas where delays or backlogs most commonly occur.
Make positions more attractive to recruit more easily and increase staff retention
There is a major issue with staff retention within the care sector – largely due to zero-hour contracts, poor working conditions and erratic hours, bad pay and a lack of appreciation. Acknowledging and addressing these harsh truths and considering how you can give your care professionals a better deal and benefits with more care and attention will pay dividends in the long run. Not only will it improve the standard of care you can provide, it will also ensure that your staff stay with you long-term, saving thousands in recruitment fees and training costs as well as lost contracts due to understaffing.
Take the pressure off care recruitment with ComfortPlus. Speak to us today about care recruitment requirements or view our Recruitment page here.
