There are an estimated 165,000 vacant positions in the UK’s adult social care sector but this growth in unfilled roles is not being caused by an increase in demand. Instead, organisations are reporting difficulties in recruiting and retaining the staff they need.
One reason for the difficulties in retaining skilled and experienced social care staff is the high tendency towards stress and burnout in the sector. Health and social care employees are three times more likely to report feelings of burnout and disengagement than those in other professions.
By empowering teams and encouraging a workplace culture centred around wellbeing, social care leaders can help prevent burnout among employees, underpin retention and improve overall performance.
What is burnout?
Mental Health UK defines burnout as ‘a state of physical and emotional exhaustion. It can occur when you experience long-term stress in your job, or when you have worked in a physically or emotionally draining role for a long time.’
Burnout can be caused by several factors including long hours, overloaded work schedules, financial stress, outside caring responsibilities and poor communication with colleagues and managers.
Common signs of burnout can include fatigue, self-doubt, feeling overwhelmed or defeated, procrastination and a negative outlook on work or life. For social care workers burnout can manifest as:
- Emotional exhaustion
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Depersonalisation leading to a lack of feeling towards service recipients
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Feelings of incompetence
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Feeling like they are failing to make a difference
If left unaddressed, burnout can lead to more serious problems for your organisation. Burned out workers are less productive, more likely to experience mental and physical health problems, have poor morale and are more likely to leave a role.
What are the benefits of having an empowered social care team?
By practicing leadership through empowerment, you can address the root causes of burnout for your teams, giving your employees back a feeling of purpose; that what they do matters, that their work has meaning. In doing so you can also:
- Increase retention rates
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Reduce absenteeism
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Lower hiring costs
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Provide better care for service users
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Build more productive and efficient teams
What positive changes can you implement today to help empower your employees?
There are many things that employers and social care leaders can do to help their teams feel more empowered and to address the root causes underlying high levels of burnout in social care. Here are six creative ways to empower your team and reduce stress, anxiety, and burnout:
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Maintain staffing levels
It can be hard to maintain staffing levels in social care, particularly through busy periods and periods of illness or holidays. However, by monitoring scheduling and workloads you can plan to provide support in advance and take the pressure off your workforce. Partnering with a specialist social care recruiter can also help you to plan your staffing needs and respond quickly and agilely to any unforeseen issues.
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Ensure onboarding practices are adequate
A great onboarding experience ensures new starters have the tools and knowledge they need to succeed in the role and can significantly improve engagement and employee retention. Employees who feel they have been given adequate guidance and support will feel empowered throughout their role. Onboarding can also help employees build connections with one another. Spend some time regularly reviewing your onboarding procedures to make sure they are streamlined, focussed and effective.
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Encourage communication
Empowered employees are employees with the space to speak up and who feel they will be listened to. Make sure you give your team regular opportunities to provide their opinions both in-person and anonymised and schedule regular performance reviews to give them feedback as well. This will give a sense of accountability, a place to discuss issues and innovate and a sense of ownership around their work.
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Provide workforce training
Organisations that provide workplace training and professional development opportunities have retention rates that are 30-50% higher than those that don’t, according to Deloitte. By giving your team opportunities to build new skills you empower them to take ownership of their work and career direction. Training can also be used to help employees spot signs of burnout in themselves, their co-workers and give them strategies and tools to reduce stress and anxiety.
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Wellbeing support
Building an empowered workforce means more than relying on wellness programmes to address the symptoms of burnout. Embedding wellbeing as a part of the overall workplace culture means modelling healthy behaviours, conducting a stress risk assessment, offering assistance for employees accessing counselling services or financial planning aid and acknowledging employees’ need’ for space, quiet reflection, and mental health days.
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Give employees a sense of accomplishment
Many of those who enter social care work do so to help others but if they feel their work is undervalued or not recognised it can lead to feelings of disengagement. Regular recognition and encouragement are the perfect ways for employers to help address feelings and perceptions that work is not being acknowledged or is failing to make a difference.
How Vetro Care can help empower your teams
At Vetro our dedicated consultants have years of experience working in the social care sector to draw on. Which means they are well placed to give you guidance and support when it comes to attracting and retaining talented health and social care professionals.
Learn more about Vetro Care or contact a consultant to discuss your hiring needs.
