Social care recruitment: addressing the issue has been in plain sight

A new report from ReWAGE highlights that existing data sets could hold the key to tackling recruitment and retention problems in the adult social care sector.

The pandemic and the current rising costs of inflation have applied severe pressures on the social care sector and driven staff out of their roles. According to research from The Kings Fund between 2020/21 and 2021/22, the vacancy rate within the sector rose from 7% to 10.7% and the number of empty staff roles increased from 110,000 to 165,000, displaying the severity of the situation.  

Following this, in April 2023 the government published its ‘next steps’ paper on social care reform, in a bid to improve recruitment and retention in adult social care. The plan included a pledge to invest at least £250m over the next two years to enable better career progression for those working in care and improve recognition of their skills and a potential scheme to extend the national advertising campaign Made With Care, which has encouraged people to apply for roles.

However, despite the government making progress in the direct direction, ReWAGE, a work and employment expert group, have outlined, through data analysis, some key factors that are causing staff members to leave the sector.

Within the report, ReWAGE notes that declining working conditions means more people are leaving the sector and less want to join. This fall in employment then creates an increased workload and potentially results in staff members have to work unsociable hours.

Against this backdrop, experts suggests that instead of focusing on advertising to employ new staff members, authorities should look into improving the working conditions inside of care homes. In addition, the report highlights that if conditions were to be improved, current staff wouldn’t have to split their time at work with recruiting new people and their day-to-day tasks.

Professor Chris Warhurst, Co-Chair of ReWAGE and Director of the Institute for Employment Research at the University of Warwick, said: ‘For many people social care is a vocation and, while the current high rates of inflation have increased the focus on pay, it is not normally the main motivating force to seek employment in the sector. 

‘However, declining working conditions can erode employee good will over time – especially if people feel that they are not being treated fairly – and it will deter potential employees from joining the sector at a time of labour shortages.’

The report also states that there is a wealth of existing data about the adult social care labour market that could be instilled to identify solutions. By modelling detailed workforce data and linked datasets it is possible to:

• Pinpoint what demands are placed on the system and how they can be processed
• Examine the interrelationships between wages and other aspects of ‘good work’ and what part each play in producing an imbalanced labour turnover
• Explore how these interrelationships interact with other sectors within the economy (E.g. the NHS), affecting demand for services and supply of labour

‘Available evidence suggests that addressing the problems of the sector may not be as financially worrying as government might believe,’ Chris said. ‘[They] would reap long-term benefits – a reduction in turnover would lead to less use of agency workers, lower levels of recruitment and training costs; higher staff experience, morale and productivity; increases in activity rates and the quality of care.’

The report, which can be viewed in full here, has been authored for ReWAGE by Derek Bosworth with input from Beate Baldauf, both of the Institute for Employment Research, University of Warwick.

Image: Clem Onojeghuo