Social care mobility

SOCIAL CARE MOBILITY

CHANGE
SOME THING BECOMING DIFFERENT THAN
WHAT IT WAS.

EPITOMIE OF CHANGE
AN EXAMPLE OF ONE CHANGE:
LARGE NUMBERS OF WOMEN INCENTIVISED TO
RETURN TO THE WORKFORCE.
RESULTED IN / CONTRIBUTED TO:
RAISING CHILDREN THROUGH CRECHE PROCESS:
DIFFICULTY IN RECRUITING AND RETAINING
FOSTER CARERS, ESP IN COUNTRIES WHERE
FOSTER CARE WORKING DOES NOT RECEIVE A
WAGE.

FAMILIAR RECRUITMENT PROCESS /
RELATIONSHIP
SERVICE PROVIDER / EMPLOYER

SOCIAL CARE PRACTITIONER


SOCIAL CARE PRACTICE
AND DEVELOPING EMPLOYMENT
STRATEGIES OF THE GLOBAL
RECESSION

AGENCY RECRUITMENT PROCESS

SERVICE PROVIDER AGENCY (EMPLOYER)

SOCIAL CARE PRACTITIONER

The latest research on private employment
agencies was published in 2011 by Eurociett
(European Confederation of Private
Employment Agencies).

Adapting to Change: How private employment
services facilitate adaptation to change, better
labour markets and decent work.

WHY DO WE NEED TO CHANGE RECRUITMENT
PROCESSES?
Economic cycles are becoming more volatile,
resulting in a constant tension between job
creation and job destruction.
In the complex reality of employment
markets, the role of labour market
intermediaries is crucial.

Private employment services enable labour
markets to adapt when economies are facing
changes.
The private employment sector provides
effective workforce solutions that enable
employers to seize opportunities and manage
fluctuations effectively.

This report highlights research
suggesting that organisations which
strategically combine internal flexibility
with the use of agency work to address
fluctuations in demand appear to be best
placed to manage increasing volatility
and react to market opportunities.

STATISTICS FROM THE REPORT
When asked about the main reason workers
decided to work through private employment
agencies, 60% of agency workers in France
answered “to find a job quickly”.
The majority of agency workers from the UK
(66%), Poland (60%), Netherlands (58%) and
Belgium (52%) agree with the statement
“agency work helps in having a balanced life”.

How will private agency employment
style of recruitment suit social care style
practice?
 Economic considerations reinforce
changes – however do these changes
support staff, clients, work
environments, practice standards in
social care?

In an attempt to get a sense of how this
process may be going and pilot a
discussion, I interviewed a
representative from each of the points
of the employment relationship:
A manager from an employment
agency.
 A manager of a service using agency.
 A practitioner working through agency.

Social Care Mobility

PRIVATE AGENCY
PERSPECTIVE

SOCIAL CARE & PRIVATE AGENCY
THE PRIVATE AGENCY
Types of work on Agency books:
Access work
Mainstream and high support Residential
Residential with Intellectual disability (ID)
Respite Services
Homelessness Services
Refugee Services

However the agency identified
that currently 90% of the work
offered is based in Residential
services in main stream and
intellectual disability (ID).

DEMOGRAPHIC OF PRACTITIONERS

 The agency identified that the biggest range
of applicants are the graduates on completion
of a level seven or eight degree in social care.
 However the agency also have all ages and
levels of experience on their books.

IDEAL AGENCY WORKER FROM AGENCY
PERSPECTIVE.
Strongly Flexible – willingness to work with in a
variety of settings
 Strongly Available – short notice availability
 Driving licence – willingness to travel
 Had developed a CV
 Practitioner as a recent graduate have done at
least one of their college placements in
residential care / ID

AGENCY PATHWAY OF WORK
 Initially work patterns can be quiet varied,
however if a practitioner demonstrates good
work in a service some block booking can
develop. Such practitioners get more regular
work.
 Out side this experience practitioners must
remain mobile and it is always the
practitioners decision to stay with the agency.

AGENCY PATHWAY PROGRAMME
 Where possible graduates are started off with
a gradual introduction to degrees of challenge
in work environments, e.g. access work, to
main stream residential, to high support
residential etc.
 However, in the demand lead market this is
not always possible.

PRACTITIONER SUPPORTS AND AGENCY
 This was a policy area in the agency that was
much less clearly defined.
 It is expected that practitioners join the working
model of support processes available in the units
they are currently working.
 There is some supervision available from the
agency – however the agency has some difficulty
getting engagement from staff… (so supervision
is not compulsory).

PRACTITIONERS SUPPORT AND AGENCY
 If the issue of practitioner injury, (while
working), occurs this is handled on a ‘case by
case’ basis. However when explored this
support provision for practitioners from the
agency was also very unclear.

SOME ADVANTAGES OF AGENCY
 It will be easier for services to remove weak
or underperforming practitioners.
 It makes it easier for services to increase and
decrease the size of it’s workforce as client
numbers fluctuate. This will allow services
have better control of their costs and have
greater flexibility.

 Practitioners coming from agencies can not be
sent to services until they have the most up to
date training done, for example – TCI, Children’s
First and lifting and handling. They therefore may
be more up to date in training than the primary
team.
 As practitioners have to pay for their own
training in these it attracts the most committed
practitioners – those who really want to work
social care.

 Graduates can get work quickly.
 All practitioners are qualified.

AGENCY STRUCTURES
 The private agency is a company and as such
have a Board, a CEO, Directors, Line Managers
& share holders.
 The agency is not a regulated process,
however, it has a recruitment licence from the
National Recruitment Federation.


PRACTITIONER
PERSPECTIVE

THE PRACTITIONER PRSPECTIVE
 The practitioner interviewed was a recent
graduate who is working in agency work for
eight / nine months.
 In that period she has worked in about 10
different client bases – all of which were
residential.

 She has enjoyed the residential sector and
attempts have been made to block time some
of her work in specific units.
 She is in constant communication with the
agency to let them know her availability and
that she is still around.
 She said she used agency to ‘get her foot in
the door of practice’, however it does not
have full reliability.

 If it gets busy she was ‘over worked’ in terms
of the number of hours that she got to do.
Conversely when it goes quiet there is a sense
of and a fear of being ‘dumped’.
 This experience has helped her manage
money better.

CHALLENGES MENTIOED BY PRACTITIONER
 The waiting for a call is difficult. Can’t plan –
even going out can be difficult in case you are
called.
 Some times the attitude of the primary team to
agency staff is negative.
 While you gain experience, because of mobility
the work remains very basic – difficult to build
relationships, do in depth work (e.g. key
working), get positions of increased professional
responsibility (staying the float).

 Clients tend to see you as less powerful and
significant as established staff (almost like a
student again). You have to be very strong not
to be dismissed or disempowered by the
clients.
 The practitioner was concerned also that
workers coming in and out of services,
especially in residential sector, was not very
client centred practice.


SERVICE PROVIDER
PERSPECTIVE

SERVICE PERSPECTIVE
 Profile of the service: Residential service
with units dedicated to the care of adult
clients with ID and related challenges.
 Has 40 permanent staff and contracts
about 10 agency workers. Uses both
social care & nursing agency staff.

 Service receives a collection of CV’s to
review, filtered by the agency when
seeking workers. This service does show
interest in the gender of candidates also.
 They do make attempts to establish
core groups, some of which get 30 hours
a week regularly.

 The roster is done weekly so the agency
workers can know hours a week in advance. It
was noted that the agency workers also
worked in other agencies.
 On selection the worker is give an induction
talk and about one weeks work trial. If the
candidate can show ability in that time frame
they will be sought again.

 If not the service informs the agency not to
send that worker back.
 Comparatively, in direct employment
between a practitioner and service - probation
periods of up to a year are given to a worker.
 The implications to graduates is that they
now have no time to ‘learn on the job’ -
Limited development process time.

SOME PRO’S FOR THE SERVICE
 The flexibility to drop and take on staff as
needed was the primary one mentioned.

SOME CON’S FOR THE SERVICE
 The agency staff can be functional and not
have an investment made in the service.

 When there is weaker investment from staff
to the service, rapport can be affected with
clients some times.
 The permanent staff are some times not as
open / are resistant to agency staff.
 Sometimes services users play permanent
and agency staff off against each other.

 The familiar relationship of taking on staff
and investing in their development and skills
has changed. So the agency and not the
service is left to monitor staff development.
 When issues such as clients getting an injury
involving agency staff were explored with the
service manager, he was no longer sure who
had what responsibility to the agency staff.


BROADER
CONSIDERATIONS

 Are the values and standards of
social care supported using this
recruitment process?
 Private Agency recruitment is a
business model; social care is a
collection of actions and beliefs
aimed at supporting the vulnerable.

SOME VALUES OF SOCIAL CARE
 Relationship building
 Consistency / good team working
 Confidentiality
 Developing environments as close as possible
to what is the normal experience of people

SUMMARY CONSIDERATIONS:
 Significant policies around support
processes for agency staff are currently
very unclear. Staff in this regard may be
left very vulnerable in certain
circumstances, especially considering
realities in social care work
environments.

SUMMARY CONSIDERATIONS
 Agency working offers a flexible work force,
however the developmental progress of
practitioners need supportive attention, in
conjunction with conforming to the various
training programmes required – such as TCI
etc. This responsibility has shifted from the
service to agency for those practitioners in
agency employment.

 With due regard to the private
agency purpose in the employment
market – there is a real danger that
agency staff may become isolated
from any consistent practice
mentoring after their initial training
is complete.

 Agency practitioners have no
probationary period of any note and
are rated on performance rather
than potential. This highlights the
difference between providing staff
and developing / growing staff.

Mixing agency and permanent
staff in staff teams may raise
challenges around consistency
and co –operative team working.
These need to be acknowledged
and supported.

THE RELATIONSHP DYNAMICS
 There seems to be disparity
in the commitment levels
required by practitioners to
agency compared with
agency to practitioners.

THE RELATIONSHIP DYNAMIC
 For example: Practitioners must pay for
their own trainings; be available at very
short notice; wait on call; be willing to
travel etc.
 The agency and service contractors can
drop the practitioner at any time and
there is a lack of clarity around
responsibility towards practitioners in
certain circumstances.

THE RELATIONSHIP DYNAMIC
 Another Example: The benefit
of flexibility for the service
provider has merit, however
flexibility from the practitioner
perspective means I can be
dropped at any time.

ADAPTATION
 All participants engaged within the
social care practice field may adapt:
Considerations for practice,
practitioners, standards of good
practice, and clients is arguably
needed.

There are implications:
 For social care educators in how we prepare
graduates for new work realities.
 For services to support team integration and
clarify new boundaries of responsibilities to the
agency members of the team.
 For private agency to generate supportive
models for practitioners and a strong mentoring
programme for continuous development.

 To support practitioners on how to develop a
career pathway while in the employment of
private agency.
 To support practitioners with the harsher
realities of agency models of employment and
demand lead market conditions – especially
when demand is very high and very low.

 WHILE AGENCY REPRESENTS A CHANGE TO
INRECRUITMENT PROCESSES DUE TO
NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC
REALITIES – WHAT ARE THE ADAPTATIONS
SOCIAL CARE / SOCIAL CARE PRACTICE MAY BE
MAKING TO ACCOMMODATE THE ‘ECONOMIC
REALITY’?
 AND WILL THEY BE POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE IN
THEIR OVER ALL OUTCOME?

Social care mobility

Empfohlen

Empfohlen

Weitere ähnliche Inhalte

Andere mochten auch

Andere mochten auch (20)

Ähnlich wie Social care mobility

Ähnlich wie Social care mobility (20)

Mehr von Social Care Ireland

Mehr von Social Care Ireland (18)

Kürzlich hochgeladen

Kürzlich hochgeladen (20)

Social care mobility