Having recently welcomed a new puppy to our household, it got me thinking about the similarities between caring for a new puppy and social care.
Love and Long Hours
When you bring a puppy home, you quickly realise that it needs a lot of love and dedication. The hours are long, and the demands can be overwhelming. This is similar to a career in social care – as well as recruiting successfully in our sector, where the job demands can often feel relentless.
However, in both scenarios, having a solid plan can make a world of difference. With a puppy, you need a schedule for feeding, training, and playtime. In social care recruitment, a strategic plan helps manage the intense workload. This could include setting up efficient processes for screening candidates, scheduling interviews, and onboarding. A well-thought-out plan ensures that both your puppy and your recruitment process run smoothly, despite the challenges. My pack now has a lower average age too, something that social care needs – with only 8% of the workforce now under 25 and 29% over 55. If you don’t have a specific early careers strategy in place you should consider one.
Handling the Mess
No matter how well-prepared you are, there will inevitably be a mess when raising a puppy. Accidents happen, and things go wrong. But these situations can be corrected. The same is true in social care recruitment. There will be times when things don’t go as planned—perhaps a great candidate doesn’t work out as you had hoped, or there are unexpected challenges during onboarding.
In both cases, it’s important to remember that issues can be resolved. In social care, conducting exit and retention interviews can provide valuable insights into what went wrong and how to improve. Just as you clean up after a puppy’s accident and take steps to prevent future mishaps, you can learn from recruitment challenges and make necessary adjustments to improve retention and satisfaction.
Sleepless Nights
A new puppy often means sleepless nights. They whine, they need to go out, and they require constant attention. In social care recruitment, sleepless nights can come from the stress of ensuring compliance with regulations. Ensuring that all necessary checks are completed correctly and quickly can be a daunting task.
Competence and expertise in your onboarding teams are crucial to managing this stress. Just as you would eventually sleep train a puppy to settle down through the night, having a skilled team ensures that compliance checks are thorough and efficient, allowing you to rest easier knowing everything is under control.
Falling in Love
Despite the challenges, your heart will be stolen. Puppies are undeniably adorable, and their antics bring joy and laughter to your home. Similarly, working in social care can be incredibly rewarding. Helping people and making a difference in their lives is often cited as the main reason people work within our sector.
Socialisation
Puppies need to be socialised to thrive. They need to connect with their family, other pets, and their local environment. This helps them grow into well-adjusted dogs. Social care recruitment also requires a level of socialisation. We need to be connected with communities and potential candidates. Engaging with local communities and participating in events such as Care Home Open Week can help raise awareness about the importance of social care and attract passionate individuals to the field.
While raising a puppy and working in social care may seem worlds apart, they share several commonalities. Both require love, long hours, and careful planning. And I wouldn’t want it any other way!
