Almost a third (30%) of social care providers who took part in our Care Trends Report 2023 say that their induction / training process is not a great experience for employees, with 38% stating that they do in fact lose employees midway through their induction.
With ongoing retention struggles and a growing demand for social care, it is clear how important an effective onboarding process is for care providers, so they can ensure that new starters stay in their role and don’t leave for other opportunities part way through their training.
Therefore, it is critical to make both the time leading up to a new employee’s start date and the first few months of their employment as streamlined and proactive as possible.
So, what can care organisations do to develop a stronger onboarding process? In this article, we’ll be having a look at some top tips for improving staff onboarding.
Top Five Tips For Staff Onboarding in Social Care
1. Be prepared
Make sure you have the key elements of a new employee’s onboarding plan completed before they start, to get the ball rolling straight away. This not only ensures that you have enough time to get things prepared but it helps to keep your new employee ‘warm’ before starting with your organisation (so they don’t go somewhere else).
Send them a welcome message and contact information so they can keep in touch, organise their IT equipment (such as their PC, email, mobile phone etc), schedule mandatory training they need to complete or perhaps authorise any annual leave requests.
You could even invite new employees to visit your premises before their first day so they can meet the teams that they will be working with. This can also give them the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the workplace or to ask any questions before they start.
2. Road map the induction period
It’s helpful to have an outline of what the first 30, 60 and 90 days will look to achieve, setting some goals for the induction period. Working towards these set goals can help to keep new employees engaged as they start learning the ropes.
As we have briefly mentioned, your new starters induction will likely include mandatory training and certification that need to be completed. But there may also be some additional development opportunities that will be relevant to their role too. To make the onboarding more personal, you could ask them if there are any skills they would like to focus on during their induction and include that in their development plan.
Road mapping the induction period like this can also give your employees something to look back on after their induction is complete; seeing how much they have learnt and how far they’ve already come since starting their role.
3. Establish a network of colleagues
By establishing a network of colleagues during the onboarding process, your new team members will have the opportunity to liaise with the most appropriate person / department as soon as possible. This not only helps to promote initiative, independence and a sense of teamwork for people newly introduced into your service, but it also helps ensure continuity of your processes as they get an idea of how things work right from the get-go.
Assign a ‘buddy’ to your new starters to give them someone to turn to for advice throughout the onboarding process. Colleagues with suitable skills and experience can provide your starter with additional and supplementary support, but it also helps to upskill your current workforce.
It may even be worth developing a network of colleagues for both direct care and indirect care tasks to help provide your new starters with first-hand experience in all areas. For instance, introducing or setting up training sessions with your office staff as well as your client facing teams to give new employees a greater scope of your service and people.
4. Pay attention to wellbeing
Starting a new job can be dauting and stressful. The social care sector can be a particularly demanding environment to work in, so make sure to pay attention to your new starters’ welfare.
Try to make time for regular catch ups and breaks with your new employees, offering a safe space for them to talk about any struggles they may be facing during their onboarding.
The Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) State of Care Report 2022 / 23 mentions, ‘In adult social care, we see how services that successfully develop career progression and training for staff have higher retention rates. The same goes for providers that develop wellbeing initiatives to retain staff and avoid using agency staff. Examples include offering flexibility such as part-time working, engaging with the community, and supporting staff with childcare or supporting them through the menopause.’
If possible, you may want to consider if there are ways you can be flexible to their needs, such as revised shift patterns during the first few weeks of their employment, to make sure your new recruits are getting enough time to decompress between shifts.
5. Get feedback
Finally, it’s important that you receive feedback from current and new team members as it helps to improve and maintain not only a positive but successful onboarding processes.
You can ask new starters what they are benefitting from during their induction, as well as what areas they would prefer to be different or could be improved.
Having this open communication can also help to create a healthy working environment long-term because staff who can freely discuss their thoughts during their employment may be more likely to feel empowered and develop their career in your organisation.
How can software help you?
Care business management software can give your organisation the tools to put onboarding plans in action whilst having consistent visibility and control over how these choices are impacting the success of your service.
Take a look at our care business management solution Care Cloud to find out exactly how it can enhance your care processes.
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