Adult social care workforce recruitment and retention strategy and implementation plan

Care services are changing. Demography, personalisation and funding issues have all come together to transform the social care workforce. Within this transformation there is a need to understand the underlying reasons for change and to respond to them in positive, creative and dynamic ways.

The future will be challenging, but there will be many opportunities to establish a new perspective on care work, to move it from a Cinderella profession encumbered with negativity into a career of positive choice that will give people skills, competences and job satisfaction.

This strategy, which is released in conjunction with Skills for Care's Capable, Confident, Skilled - A workforce development strategy for people working, supporting and caring in adult social care, will present a route map to the future, identifying how we navigate from where we are to a workforce that will enable the new vision for social care to become a reality.

We want this strategy to be practical and to be a tool that will enable people to understand the issues and to develop their response.

The framework we are setting out will identify the issues, propose the responses and show examples of good practice. In this way, we will move this document from being purely strategic to being a framework for delivery and outcomes.

• Adult social care workforce - recruitment and retention strategy (pdf 774kb)
• Recruitment and retention strategy implementation plan - September 2011

Why are some employers more successful than others in retaining their workforce?

Aware that some employers in the adult social care sector are experiencing high staff turnover rates, Skills for Care commissioned ekosgen to help uncover examples of good practice in relation to attracting and maintaining a stable workforce.

The research confirmed anecdotal evidence that we already had: combining good communication, training and staff autonomy creates motivating and rewarding environments (or 'cultures') which in turn leads to higher levels of staff satisfaction and loyalty. Evidence suggests that by addressing these issues employers should see an increase in staff retention levels.

Full details about the research has been produced in a report. We have also produced a series of case studies which we hope demonstrate how organisations working in different environments can utilise the findings of this research to enhance their staff retention levels. To access the report and case studies please click here.