Bank event follow up

Cohesion and Avante Care and Support: Building a successful Bank

Thank you to everyone who attended our Bank event. We hope you found it useful. If you would like to view a recording of the webinar you can do so below.

You can download a copy of the event slides here: Building an effective Bank (148 downloads)

Q&A section

We have included a summary of the questions asked at the Bank event.

Do all care providers have to ensure that the Bank Workforce have to complete ALL statutory training before they start? We have 12 modules that require completing before they start, and this is causing a bottleneck for new starters and people dropping out due to the lengthy on-boarding.

All of the bank staff at Avante have to complete the training. This was easier when they had face to face provision as we did a 5 day intensive course and whereas now this has to be done remotely and can take longer. Cohesion recommend starting the e-learning for staff as soon as an offer is made, so whilst checks are going through successful candidates can be completing training. This streamlines the process and also increases candidate engagement and reduces drop off.

How do you pay for training that starts at the offer stage? What happens if they don’t start in the role?

Cohesion have recommended that their clients make this as non-mandatory training and have found engaged candidates are happy to undertake this training ahead of their role. They can be paid for hours in their first pay slip or can be rewarded through other employee schemes.

Which platform have Avante Care found the most effective when advertising their vacancies?

Avante have found Facebook jobs very successful in recruiting Bank staff workers. They also have a staff referral scheme in place. Making sure that staff are reminded the referral scheme is in place is key.

Are there difficulties with moving Bank staff between settings with current Covid restrictions?

Currently there are no restrictions so staff are able to move between homes with regular LFT testing. However Avante know these restrictions are coming back in and when they do will have a 10 day break between each home. In order to manage this and ensure good coverage for the homes and acceptable hours for the workers Avante assign a group of bank workers to each home.

Do you find a lot of your permanent staff want to transfer over to the Bank workforce making it difficult to cover shifts?

No actually we have found more bank staff transfer over to permanent in the 10 years that we have been running a bank workforce.

We have faced challenges recruiting u18s for care can you suggest some tips for this?

There are some care providers who have long standing early talent schemes and it can work very successfully. There is work to be done to support younger carers with their onboarding processes but if managed in the correct way they can absolutely be an important part of the workforce. Engaging with local colleges and utilising their help in positioning care as a viable career opportunity is essential.

Avante Care and Support

Avante Care & Support is a not for profit organisation that cares for and supports over 1000 older people through registered nursing and dementia care homes

Visit the Avante Care website