Residential Care Home Project

Employee Turnover Reduced From 20% Down To 10%! Absence Rate Dropped Below 4%!

Background

Clover HR have a strong background in supporting care homes. Most recently Clover HR has supported a local care home to deliver the following results;

• Employee turnover down from 20% to 10%;
• Sickness absence dropped to 4%;
• Substantial improvements in the operation of the care home; and
• Improvement in performance standards across all employees.

A residential care home of c. 20 people, were issued a ‘requires improvement’ notice from the CQC due to the business performing below acceptable standards. Clover HR were onboarded to review and support the strategic changes required to turn the business around and improve standard rating.

Business Challenges:

• High turnover;
• High rates of absenteeism;
• Numerous management challenges due to longstanding employees and managers ability to adapt and change; and
• Care home performing below CQC standard.

The Solution

Clover HR worked with senior managers and the management team to reduce short term absence cases within the care home. This included introducing the Bradford Factor as a standard for managing absence, implementing return to work interviews and training managers on having informal and formal conversations with employees on sickness absence. Clover HR also reviewed how sickness absence was managed, and updated Company policies to introduce triggers for regular short-term absence and identifying patterns. The care home had an employee who was on long-term sickness absence, Clover HR supported via an occupational health review with the employee, to identify their medical capability to fulfil their role which included counselling support and regular reviews with their line manager to support the employees return to work.

To enable the care home to improve their CQC standard Clover HR introduced performance standards for all employees, which included regular supervision with employees to ensure they understood what was required of them and made them accountable for following standards across the care home. This included reviewing and updating policies and procedures, to ensure they were fit for business purpose, and communicating these out to employees. In addition, to further ensure compliance of standards Clover HR introduced auditing into the care home, allowing the senior management team to quickly identify and resolve performance standard issues.

Employee turnover in the business was high at 20%, Clover HR introduced a number of measures to allow the care home to recruit the right talent, listen to employees and also ensure employees were fairly rewarded. This included;

• Implementing recruitment templates, which incorporated competency based questions enabling the care home to get to know a candidates skills and experience better during the interview process.
• Giving employees a voice through employee surveys and gaining feedback through exit interviews.
• Conducting benchmarking to ensure all employees are fairly rewarded within their roles, and competitive within the market.
• Coaching and mentoring a new care home manager on the importance of employee engagement and giving employees a voice to improve turnover and productivity.

Due to the nature and of the amount of change required within the care home to improve their quality standard (CQC), Clover HR worked with the senior management team to create an organisational structure which supported the care home’s need for change and vision for the future. This included exiting employees who refused to comply with changes required and reviewing the employee structure to ensure it supported the business requirements.

Clover HR continue to provide day to day support into the care home, which includes attending regular staff meetings, which gives a HR presence and makes HR accessible to employees.

If you would like to know more about Clover HR or have any people management matters you would like to discuss please contact us on 0121 516 0299 or email us at info@cloverhr.co.uk