Good engagement and onboarding in social care. What does this really look like? If you are involved in recruitment in the social care sector, it is likely that the question at the forefront of your mind is, ‘How do we recruit people who share our vision and values?’. This question was recently driven home with shocking revelations from a recent programme in the BBC’s Panorama series, showing the abuse of elderly and vulnerable residents.
Recruit the best social care staff
There are no easy answers to this question. One way, we can help to ensure this stops happening is by recruiting the right people; staff who are motivated, enthusiastic and, above all, caring. Undoubtedly, there are great carers and support workers out there who treat their service users with the dignity and respect they deserve. The difficulty comes in consistently finding, engaging and retaining the right people.
This, is only half the battle. Making the transition from ‘offered candidate’ to ‘happy employee’ is just as important to get right. We know from experience that what happens in the first few months of a new starter’s journey, from application to induction is crucial. If the experience and engagement is great for a candidate, their engagement as a new starter will be high and their perception of your organisation will be reflected positively. Just imagine the potential of job referrals and recommendations from a group of highly engaged new employees!
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Why on-boarding is important
On the other hand, if the on-boarding experience is poor, the consequences can be dire. If there is little to no engagement right at the start of the recruitment process, they could end up rejecting your offer and accepting the offer of a competitor. The perception of your organisation could become negative with the reputation of your organisation suffering with it.
Over the years, we at Cohesion have been, and continue to, fine tune our methods and practices around sourcing the right talent for our clients. More importantly, we know one size does not fit all. We partner with each client closely to make sure we attract the best talent who match our client’s values, vision and culture.
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Positively engaging your carers
We also know positive engagement with candidates/new starters is the key to retaining the best staff. From sourcing to on-boarding, we maintain constant communication with candidates, informing them every step of the way. We found this reduces the candidate drop out at any stage. And, that’s not the best part. The best part is we do all this as the recruitment partner of our clients, under their brand identity and image. So when, candidates join, they join with a positive impression of the organisations they are joining!
How does all this tie in with good care? Recruitment cannot possibly provide all the answers as to why or how such abuse can take place, but it can certainly be a part of the solution. Getting the best talent, the right talent, is the least we can do. Indeed, it is the least we do. There are most definitely super care and support workers who really do care. Our job is to ensure you recruit them!
