Over the past few weeks, we’ve spoken to PhD student, John Barratt, about what makes the study so exciting, why it’s important to the sector and what it means to him personally.

This week we asked him why individuals working in the Social Care industry should be excited by the study and what it means for them.

“There are various reasons why individuals within the social care industry should be excited about this research. These reasons will differ from person to person, depending on what their respective role within the sector is.

The main reason to be excited is that this genuinely is ground-breaking research. This research will identify who the right kind of candidates are, what aspects to assess current workers on, and what aspects lead to long tenure. It will look to enhance the recruitment and selection process in care far beyond what is currently available.

This research also has the potential to be a huge cost-saving tool for providers. It will do this by addressing the following:

• Pin-pointing the key factors and traits of prospective candidates
• Highlighting the best assessment strategies
• Providing a robust way of ensuring that workers are being effective

Moreover, it will reveal which workers are not performing as desired and thus provides the opportunity to implement training and development plans to get workers back on track. With these points in mind, it’s clear that this study has the potential to enhance care quality by ensuring the workforce is operating at the right level.

For the provider this research will finally provide them with a tool to assess worker performance. This tool will be a robust and thoroughly tested tool, and the psychometric properties will be sound. Providers will be able to use this reliably to assess worker performance to ascertain if they are performing to the level that is desired.

This research will identify the most effective methods for assessing worker performance as well as what attributes, skills, competencies and traits to look for in candidates. This enhances the selection process and heightens the likelihood of selecting a candidate who will produce high quality performance outcomes.

In terms of recruiting care workers, the study will reveal exactly what attributes lead to effective performance. This may even provide a basis from which a training and development plan can be developed to help employees improve on the areas they are less adept in. Moreover it will provide them with clear performance outcome dimensions that they will be assessed on.

This is hugely beneficial because it will actually enable workers to be more effective. This lets them know what they need to do in order to be effective. There are no hidden aspects or tricks, just a clear path to produce high quality performance outcomes. Therefore, there is potential to enhance the experience and conditions of the workforce.”

For more exciting updates from John, click here.

In the meantime, why not take a look at some of our free Social Care ebooks which further explore the skills shortage, the future of the sector and values-based recruitment.

Stay tuned for more exciting updates!

Written by John Barratt, PhD student at Aston University