We know there are many challenges with recruiting, retaining and progressing talent in the adult social care sector, but our recently published guide for care providers, produced in partnership with Totaljobs, revealed that the Covid-19 pandemic has also improved public perceptions of social care work and young people are most likely to be considering a career in care.

Yesterday, one of the authors of the guide, Work Foundation’s Head of Research, Melanie Wilkes, presented these and other key findings and recommendations from the guide, followed by a panel discussion chaired by Totaljobs’ CEO Jon Wilson, and featuring contributions from Victoria Cole from Care UK, Rhodri Williams from Care England and Jay McKenna from the Trades Union Congress.

Getting better data and sharing learning

While many of the challenges facing the social care sector, like high turnover, low pay, and the extent of unfilled vacancies, are now familiar to many in the sector, a key issue raised by the panel was that we still need more data to fully understand why they’re occurring and what works to solve them.

With such a disparate sector, collaboration and sharing learning between providers, sector bodies and local and national governments is needed to tackle the issues. Employers and care providers in the sector would benefit from gathering and sharing data on why people are leaving the sector, as well as how they successfully address challenges with recruitment and pay, ensure the quality of work and clearly reflect what doing the job is actually like.

The surveys with workers underpinning our findings took steps toward filling this gap by looking at why people are leaving the sector and moving to different roles within care. Building on our research, further data is needed, and care providers and employers could be key in providing this insight into how different contexts (like a worker’s role, location, access to benefits and access to training) can impact workers’ decisions to leave or stay.

Panellists placed dual emphasis on another equally - if not more - important question of why people stay in the sector and what draws them in. Data from the sector shows workers on average have been in the sector for 8.4 years, but less is known about what specifically motivates workers to stay for so long. The discussion focused on sharing good examples of where people are rewarded and acknowledged in ways that encourage them to stay, and how things like offering holidays, regular hours and time to rest can serve to reward people’s work even where pay remains low.

Listening to workers

Providing workers with a platform to share their views and listening to colleagues is key to supporting and retaining workers and ensuring they feel valued. One mechanism that lets employers get at the specifics of why people leave is investing in the use of exit interviews. These let employers hear directly from staff to understand why they’re leaving. Not only can they use these to inform their policies and practice to better support workers, they also enable workers to feel valued and heard. Further suggestions included conducting staying interviews with current workers to learn what’s going well and what isn’t. And the creation of a national forum that allows space for all levels of staff to share concerns with senior levels of their organisation.

Improving perceptions and awareness

Our research also discovered that job candidates’ general perceptions of social care work have improved and that young people are considering social care as a viable career. It makes sense for employers to seize this moment, and there are practical things they can do to ensure today’s youth have greater awareness of the reality and value of work in social care.

Panellists agreed care providers and employers need to link up better with schools and colleges to showcase all the ways people forge successful careers in social care. Young people should be exposed to the breadth of roles and opportunities across the sector beyond the traditional image of care that is often portrayed solely as supporting older people. This should include the many routes into more specialised work and clarification about entry requirements, as our research revealed young people had misconceptions about the qualifications needed to enter the sector.

Additional work could be done to further professionalise the image of care – moving away from the label of being ‘low skilled’. Higher level apprenticeships are proving effective route in to management for some employers and should be promoted more widely in the sector. Another recommendation was to re-centre the principles of supporting human rights into messaging about work in the social care sector, to emphasises its value in enabling independent living and supporting equality in society.

To watch the webinar or see the presentation slides, visit this link.

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