The secret to recruiting and retaining care staff? Rewarding them
Our work on the development of a National Centre for Rural Health and Care has identified that providing inducements to health workers in rural areas doesn’t always work. I therefore found this article, with its applicability to that debate really interesting. It tells us:
Social workers who have worked for West Berkshire for more than three years will receive a £15,000 windfall in their pay packets this autumn, as a thank you for staying with the authority.
They are the first to benefit from the “golden handcuff” on offer to staff in the council’s first-response teams – those working at the frontline – which was brought in three years ago to tackle its recruitment and retention crisis.
The move, which was criticised by some for being unaffordable, has paid off. Not only has the authority seen its vacancy rate drop from 50% to just 10%, but it has also shaken off its “inadequate” Ofsted ranking. Inspectors this summer ranked the authority as “good”, acknowledging that a more stable workforce has contributed to the turnaround.
“It was a very calculated offer to encourage people to consider working with us, despite our inadequate ranking – because that label can be quite repellent,” says Rachael Wardell, the council’s corporate director for communities. “Part of the test will be if we start to lose people after the payments are made. But it has paid for itself so far – our agency costs were 58% more per social worker and it saves on recruitment costs.”