The importance of helping care workers feel valued, supported, and visible
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In honour of Carers Week 2022, Carers UK and other charities are calling upon the Government to outline additional support for carers, particularly focusing on how to make caring ‘Visible’, ‘Valued’, and ‘Supported’. Inspired by this cause, we have decided to look at how care employers can empower their staff and create a positive working environment for the mutual benefit of all.
Our recent podcast ‘Gaining the ideal work culture,’ featuring Head of People and Culture, Hannah Wilkinson, and CEO, Paul Johnson, discusses the importance of creating a positive work culture for staff wellbeing, retention, and productivity in the social and health care industry:
“We are currently living through a period called ‘the great resignation’. A lot of people are leaving their jobs without jobs to go to, so it is very much a candidate’s market now. People want to come to work and be surrounded by a positive, collaborative, and inclusive culture.”
– Hannah Wilkinson, Head of Culture and People at Radar Healthcare
So, the question is: how can organisations within a typically stressful work environment and high-pressure industry help create a positive culture?
Living through the great resignation in the care industry
The healthcare industry is facing many challenges, including staff retention. Staff retention issues are prevalent for a range of reasons, including; workforce burnout, work-related stress, a lack of staff, poor managerial structure, low pay, and little support.
By 2035 the number of care workers in the industry will need to increase by a minimum of 29%, to keep up with the ageing population. If employers do not make a rapid change to support, nurture, and value their staff, then the industry will face further challenges.
“Having a positive culture from a business perspective can be your unique selling point and give you a competitive edge when recruiting and retaining staff. In healthcare there can be a lot of challenging and demanding days, as employers, we should be doing everything we can to support workers and make their workplace a place that they want to be.”
– Hannah Wilkinson, Head of Culture and People at Radar Healthcare
Interestingly, studies have shown that negative behaviours and attitudes within the workplace not only create a toxic working environment but a costly one too. A negative work environment has been shown to cost organisations $223 billion (about $690 per person) USD in turnover over a five-year period.
Research shows a strong correlation between employees feeling happy in their place of work and their company’s culture. Workers that consider themselves happy at work are said to be 13% more productive.
Let’s look at how employers can help workers feel valued, supported, and visible.
Empower staff by actively valuing them
Many care workers are overworked and underappreciated. Taking the time to celebrate workers’ diversity, inclusivity, and achievements goes a long way. It shows employees that you do recognise and appreciate their efforts and value them as an individual.
Software, like Radar Healthcare, helps employers collate all types of events, including compliments, achievements, and positive feedback allowing management and co-workers full visibility of their workforce’s hard work – allowing healthcare organisations an opportunity to highlight the impact that individuals are having.
Providing great employee experience will encourage your workforce to naturally sing your praises to others, making you more desirable to someone seeking a job within the industry – as well as improve your quality rating for CQC (Care Quality Commission).
"We now demonstrate positive outcomes, so we can use that as evidence to the CQC. If we encourage staff posting positive events as well as incidents on Radar Healthcare, we are going to be able to present these great experiences in our homes to our investors, the CQC and other regulators."
Provide sufficient support
26% of people in the UK have declared that management style has caused them work-related stress and 60% said that workload was the main cause of unhappiness at work. Unfortunately, the nature of the industry is generally under high pressure, however, with the right support and management stress levels can be minimised.
Regular breaks, planned social events, and mental health awareness training are proven ways to reduce stress and promote a healthy work environment. 56% of people have said that offering mental health first aid training is one of the best ways to manage mental health at work in the UK.
Not only do Radar Healthcare prioritise mental health first aid training amongst our staff, but our software has been designed to reduce workload and support care workers with their duties, by providing a centralised quality and compliance system that promotes communication and collaboration for safer care.
"Now that we have the analytics and the visibility of the user access we can easily see who is not compliant with check ins, notices, and tasks. From this we can ask questions like, what do you need, or do we need an additional tutorial session? So, the user access section on analytics has been valuable to see who needs that additional support, which is important because Radar Healthcare is there to help them and encourage them to work more efficiently."
Give your employees a voice and make them feel visible
To coincide with feeling valued and supported, employees want to feel visible and involved, and a fantastic way to do that is by encouraging collaboration, listening to workers’ feedback, and utilising that to create actions to improve.
“Generally, people love it – that feedback comes from across the business. Radar Healthcare has opened the dashboards up and made this data more accessible to people elsewhere in the organisation.”
Looking to create a positive and safer working environment? Get in touch today.
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