Give applicants a great experience and improve recruitment results
If our workforce really are our most important asset in social care, it’s time for a rethink. You can’t have failed to hear about the crisis in social care and the large number of vacancies that are exacerbating pressures in the already overstretched sector. In my new blog mini-series, a collaboration with Andrew Burridge, NWADASS, I’m going to be examining why there’s a problem in the first place and providing some practical advice and solutions for changes we can make right now, as well as in the longer term, to recruit and retain more of the right people to work in social care.
In my last blog, I explored how to attract the right people to work for you and gave you some practical tips and techniques to increase your chances of success (How to attract the "right people" into social care — Kath Smythe Collective). Attracting the right people is only the first part of securing quality employees. How you respond to their interest is crucial. It’s always crucial and in current times when competition for great applicants is rife it’s even more crucial. How quickly you respond, how you make people feel, what you expect from them, how you assess their suitability and how you support them through the recruitment process will all have an impact on whether ultimately they choose to work for you.
First up, how are you going to respond when an application lands in your inbox. Probably the most important thing of all in the current climate is that you respond quickly. It’s not unusual for a person to apply for a job, hear back on the same or next day and be in for an assessment/interview within a few more days. If you want to be able to compete, make sure you have a named responsible person who will contact the applicant, create a connection and schedule the assessment/interview. “But I don’t have the capacity” I hear you cry. Research shows that a dedicated person really improves your success rate. This can feel hard especially if you're an SME organisation. Think about whether you’ve got anyone on the team for whom this would be a great development opportunity or consider reaching out to other SMEs in your area to see if you can collaborate on your recruitment efforts.
Timing is everything
To improve your recruitment success rate, respond quickly to applications
If someone is applying to work for you, it’s likely they are applying to work for others too so call them and talk about what you will offer them, for example, the opportunity to make a difference to people’s lives, the chance to be part of a great team, the chance to take responsibility and the support to progress. You’re aiming to paint them a picture here so they get a real sense of what they’d be part of – so be specific about what makes your organisation so great.
Help people to show you their best selves by letting them know what to expect as they progress through assessment/interview. Advise them on what they should wear, who they should ask for on arrival, what to expect from the assessment/interview process and some of the things to be thinking about to help them prepare.
If you’ve done all this, it’s likely that you’ve already created a connection with the people who’ve applied. They’re feeling valued by you and excited about the opportunity to work for such a great organisation, so you’re next challenge is to assess them for the role in a way that means you can test their potential while at the same time enabling them to feel at ease. You’re aiming to enable them to give the best of themselves and to continue to build on the connection you’ve already started. Interviews don’t have to be formal and stuffy. Aim for informal and relaxed and most importantly of all, assess for values and potential, not skills and experience. If you secure someone with the right values, you can usually train people to do the rest. Fail to get someone with the right values and it just isn’t going to work out. Accept that you may not get someone who can “hit the ground running” but with care, you’ll get a great new recruit who, with support, will grow to become a fantastic asset for your company.
Recruit for Values
Ask what matters, not what experience you have. Skills can be taught. It’s much harder to change values.
So how do you keep it informal and what does assessing for values mean? Here’s some practical tips that will help you get it right:
Start with an informal chat. You’re aiming to get a sense of who the person is. Ask them what’s important to them, what they are looking for in their next role and what strengths they think they will bring.
Give applicants the chance to meet members of the team. Being part of a team is a big motivator for most of us. It also gives them the chance to hear from a peer what it’s really like to work in social care
Think about whether there is an opportunity to get people you are supporting involved – even if it’s just for a brew and a chat. It’ll give you the chance to observe how the applicant interacts with people
Ask what would you do, not what have you done. Think about some realistic scenarios the young person is likely to encounter in their first weeks and months of the job and ask what they would do in that situation.
You’ve followed the guidance, you’ve found some fabulous people who you want to employ and then the frustration kicks in because there has to be a delay while pre-employment checks are carried out. This can be a real risk time when you can lose great candidates because they get an offer from elsewhere with an earlier start date. The most important thing you can do that will give you the greatest chance of keeping hold of your newest recruit is to keep in touch. Let them know why pre-employment checks are important and how long it’s likely to take. Check in with them on a regular basis so they know you haven’t forgotten about them and still very much want them in your organisation. Consider asking a future team mate to get in touch and to start to act as an informal buddy - perhaps they can carry this through and support with induction when they start in post. Offer your new recruit the opportunity to shadow another member of staff while they are waiting to start for a shift or two and consider whether there is any training they could get started with.
As I’ve said before, there is no silver bullet to the workforce challenges being experienced in the social care sector, but there are things you can do that definitely increase your chances of successfully recruiting. The bottom line is the better the candidate's experience is, the more likely it is that people will want to come and work for you.
NW ADASS has been working with our local authorities and providers to explore how we can best recruit into the sector. As Kath describes, one of the challenges we face is how to provide the best “customer” or applicant experience. We know other sectors are able to quickly conduct interviews and make appointments, but adult social care roles may require DBS checks and qualifications to be in place.
Andrew says:
“Kath’s advice reflects the feedback we’ve received from providers and previous presentations we’ve organised focused on values based recruitment. Within our current #stepintosocialcare recruitment campaign we’ve piloted pre-employment support for applicants in one local authority area. Anyone who volunteers their interest is offered up to three online taster sessions which can be used as evidence towards the Care Certificate. While the application process proceeds we’re hopeful that this pilot keeps their engagement and most important gives the applicant a sense that their time and future career are valued.
In our future work the NW ADASS is keen to explore how different organisations supporting recruitment and retention can make these approaches as easy as possible for providers to adopt. There may be opportunities to collaborate between providers. In some areas, councils may be able to lead the development of careers academies that act as a hub for employment resources and advice.”
Next time we’re going to get under the skin of retention. You don’t want to be on a continual hamster wheel of replacing staff due to high turnover. There are some key things that have a big impact on retention levels and we’re going to explore them both in terms of practical day to day things that you can do and also some longer term changes you can make that other organisations are seeing big results with.
