June 2, 2023
Last Updated on June 8, 2023
As the sector struggles with record numbers of vacancies, specialist care provider, Cornerstone Healthcare’s Chief Executive, Johann Van Zyl, says companies need to give staff the confidence to care and be confident to wave them goodbye.
There is no doubt that the care sector has experienced its toughest period to date, with the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and Brexit impacting on providers’ ability to both recruit and retain staff.
It’s no surprise that there was an exodus post-pandemic because of the physical and emotional burnout many staff experienced, and others walked away because of the threat of compulsory vaccination that was subsequently withdrawn.
However, staff turnover is constant and an ongoing issue that never leaves the board meeting agenda. Indeed, recent figures from the ONS highlighted demand for healthcare staff has continually increased since 2017, with more than one in 10 online adverts currently being for healthcare roles.
So how can the industry address this?
At Cornerstone Healthcare, we’ve created a culture that sees staff as individuals and is underpinned by our tailored training programme.
Staff at our three homes care for people with challenging behaviours associated with complex neurodegenerative and mental health needs. Our residents are some of the most underserved in the sector and the majority come to us because of placement breakdowns elsewhere; many providers don’t have the skills to give them the dignity and quality of life they deserve.
Caring with confidence
Comprehensive training is key in not only giving our staff the skills they need to support and care for our residents, but also the confidence. We have developed in-house training tailored to the needs of our residents.
Every staff member, no matter what role they are coming into, has to complete a 17-day induction period. This is a mix of online training, classroom-based study and shadowing on the floor. It’s as much about confidence as it is about learning; staff have a mentor, so they feel supported, and they are able to put themselves in residents’ shoes through our own dementia training that allows them to experience limited vision, hearing or touch.
It’s important that every staff member completes it because we are all involved in creating quality care for those who live with us, whether it be me, senior nurses or our housekeeping staff.
Creating the right environment
It’s also about creating an environment where our staff feel safe. One of the key reasons good team members leave is if they feel vulnerable because of a lack of knowledge or support in their environment.
We’ve also brought in our own non-aggressive psychological prevention intervention (NAPPI) trainer. As we prepare to open two new homes this autumnand build on our workforce of more than
300, it is a worthwhile investment in our efforts to create a staff team ready to deal with the complexity of our residents’ needs and provide the very highest standards of care.
Training to aid retention
Training was key to having a stable workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic. We, like every other care provider, needed to use agency staff during this time. As well as block-booking those staff, to ensure we both had continuity, we provided them with comprehensive training so, again, they felt confident but also valued by us. It also meant our existing staff felt ‘safe’ with people alongside them who were properly equipped to do their role.
That approach saw a number of those agency staff come to work for us permanently and it’s one of the reasons why we’ve been able to cut recruitment agency spend by almost 50% in the last six months. Our annualised staff churn is just 20.8% compared to a national average of 29% and that figure is falling by 1.5% per month.
We’ve also brought in an onboarding co-ordinator to fill the gap between recruitment and HR. The person in this role worked with us as a carer and then as a senior carer, therefore she can empathise with staff and understands the issues they face.
Strengthening relationships
Each of our services has a dedicated member of its HR team who is responsible for staff wellbeing. Rather than having a centralised wellbeing manager, this makes for a more ‘in touch’ and responsive service. Our ‘Tea for 12’ sessions give members of our team chance, in rotation, to meet informally with me and members of the board to address their thoughts directly to us.
It’s seeing people as individuals and considering what is it that encourages them to come to work for us, and keeps them here, that has resulted in fewer than ten vacancies in our workforce of 330.
For example, our home in Curdridge, Kitnocks House, isn’t on a bus route. A lack of transport was a barrier to potential care staff, so we used resources we already had, namely one of our maintenance staff and our minibus, to bring people to work.
The majority of our operation as a business has been during the COVID-19 era and we understood that its challenges would mean a number of people would want to leave us and possibly the care industry altogether. We made sure they knew that the door would be open if, and when, they were ready to come back. Just in the last four months, we’ve been privileged to welcome back eight former members of staff.
Although retail and hospitality offered rates of pay that were probably very attractive, those sectors can’t match the emotional return that working in care offers. We never wanted our staff to feel that if they once more felt the pull of this rewarding work, they wouldn’t be welcome to return.
Care is a challenging job, our specialist area more so because of residents’ complex behaviours and needs and we will always have staff who need time away or who want to look elsewhere. But for good quality staff, our door is always open.
Of course, pay can’t be ignored, especially in the face of rising costs and bills. We’ve been determined to offer the best rates of pay among care providers in our region.
Together with maximising our occupancy and the efficiency of the business, our staff retention rates have been a vital part of enabling us to do that. Since we established Cornerstone Healthcare in 2018, we have been able to increase our rates of pay for nurses and healthcare assistants by 40%.
Care is a growth industry because of our ageing population and there is significant need in our area of expertise, with a demand that exceeds provision by an estimated 300%.
Effective recruitment and retention are therefore key to the industry and those for whom it cares.