Recruitment and retention in adult social care feels harder than ever – what can we do?
The context
Adult social care faces significant difficulties in recruiting and retaining staff – particularly in direct care roles. Some of the issues are:
- Low pay (both for the nature and complexity of the work, and in comparison to other sectors)
- Limited/varying opportunities for training and career progression
- Difficult working conditions (for example, fluctuating hours and shifts, often arranged at short notice with consequences for work-life balance; zero hours contracts; issues of safety and lone working)
These are significant barriers and challenges, but evidence from research, from people’s lived experience, and from the practical knowledge of people working in adult social care suggests a number of things that might help to address them.
The recommendations
We worked with the University of Birmingham’s Knowledge and Evidence Service to explore the evidence, and have created a helpful guide full of actions. The guide explores the image of social care, how to target particular groups, incentives and training, staff wellbeing and values-based recruitment:
Other resources
As part of our search of the evidence, we came across a variety of other resources that might help you with recruitment and retention.
Feedback
Have you used or shared this guide, or one of our others? Have the actions made a difference to your practice or life? Tell us!