Recruitment & Retention During The COVID-19 Pandemic (updated March 2022)

The Care Market Development Team have brought together a comprehensive recruitment and retention page for Staffordshire Care Providers regarding Covid-19, including updates and information on recruitment campaigns from key local and national partners, including the support CMDT are directly offering to jobseekers looking for work in Adult Social Care. These include the Department of Health and Social Care, West Midlands #Time to Care, Skills for Care, CQC and ACAS.

Update - March 2022

Skills for Care - Digital basics and using social media to boost recruitment - slide deck available in the downloads section 

Video: Interview re Social Media


Update - February 2022

Midlands Nominated Individual Network Meeting - 28.02.2022

Cassie Gregory - Principal Health Protection Practitioner UKHSA West Midlands delivered a presentation to the group on "Living Safely with Covid" - slides are located in the document section.  Within the slides is information on living with covid, what's new, legislation, testing, guidance and PPE.

Recruitment Resources 

Staffordshire County Council has a range of recruitment resources available - please see downloads section 

  • An overview of Recruitment
  • Recruiting Skills
  • Recruiting Skills - Skillbook
  • How to write a Job Description
  • Online Recruitment
  • Top Ten Tips for recruiting on a budget
  • Top Tips for Effective Job Adverts
  • Candidates Shortlisting Templates- Template 1 and 2
  • Am I an Effective Interviewer - Self Assessment
  • Am I an Effective Interviewer - Printable version 
  • When and how to hold video interviews

Social Care: Recruiting an overseas Care Worker - 04 February 2022

On 24th December, 2021 the Government announced social care workers, care assistants and home care workers will become eligible for the Health and Care Visa. This is in addition to senior care workers and registered managers who are already included in the list of eligible roles for the Health and Care visa.  

Skills for Care ran an event on 04.02.2022 - please see downloads section for the slides from this event.

Department of Health & Social Care - Recruitment Campaign 

Please see in the dowloads section a poster on how the ASC Recruitment Campaign can help you with your recruitment

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Update - January 2022

The Covid-19 pandemic has put unprecedented pressures on the UK social care system. In response to the pandemic, the Government introduced measures to maximise the available workforce, which included increasing the number of staff from overseas. Many employers value workers from overseas due to the knowledge and skills they can contribute to the organisation.

Recruitment is one of the biggest challenges facing the sector at the moment and employers need to make sure they are looking at all options to maximise recruitment opportunities, this includes considering workers from outside of the UK.

In response to this challenge and social care providers request for more information, Skills for Care organised a briefing on international recruitment on 12.01.2022.  The slides for this session are now available in the downloads section. 

Speakers included JMW Solicitors, Black Country ICS & Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust and Morton Grange Care Home & Rushclife Care.

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Update - November 2021


The National Recruitment Campaign is underway. Made with Care

The DHSC have launched the next phase of their recruitment campaign for adult social care, called Made with Care.  Please see the following links to:

An upcoming TV advert: Made with Care - 30 second film (Landscape) on Vimeo

Resources and materials, some of which you can customise for your own use: Recruiting social care staff (adultsocialcare.co.uk)

The login page to start advertising jobs via the Find-a-Job website, which is where the campaign will steer applicants: Employer | Sign in (dwp.gov.uk)

How you can amplify your recruitment messages

Increase the number of people who see your social media and you will benefit by identifying, potential, new recruits into your business.
Do this by adding @yourstaffordshire to your Facebook messages (especially about recruitment) and @StaffordshireCC  to your Twitter messages.

Also do follow Staffordshire’s social media accounts with your social media, it is simple using the four main SCC corporate social media accounts which are:

To summarise:

Whenever you are posting about jobs or local opportunities available with you, using your social media: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn, alert SCC in that post.

Staffordshire CC  will see your post, and can then amplify it, by sharing it, commenting on it, liking it. In this way it will be amplified. There are no charges for this, SCC shares your recruitment messages and the same is true for you too.

If you alert Staffordshire using the instructions above, Staffordshire can amplify your own social media content.

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Update - October 2021

Communications have developed a clickable signature graphic for Staffordshire Care Providers to share: this supports job seekers who want to find out more about Careers in Adult Social Care. By clicking through the signature graphic,  access is provided to register for job alerts, and to receive invites to free online discovery sessions. These sessions are being hosted by the Care Market Development Team with support from local colleges, local Care Providers and Adult Community Learning partners.

As a Care Provider in Staffordshire, who is minded to share career choices for working in the sector, you are invited to email cmdt@staffordshire.gov.uk and they will coordinate you joining in these regular discovery sessions. Prospective new recruits will learn about values for becoming a carer and the team will explain how to navigate jobs boards used, all the time, by Care Providers across Staffordshire.

Clickable Digital Signature Graphic (see download area to obtain media)

Skills for Care - The 5A Series of values based approaches to recruitment & retention - online workshops 

Skills for Care has developed a suite of online workshops to help you implement and embed a values-based approach to your recruitment and retention processes. The workshops follow a five-stage model and will provide valuable knowledge and practical tips to address values at each step of your recruitment and retention. 

The series is designed to be attended sequentially as each session will build upon the learning from the previous stage but we recognise that everyone will be at different places in their values-based recruitment journey so you are free to book onto whichever sessions will be most beneficial to your organisation and your current values-based recruitment practices.

The series is aimed at senior managers, human resources professionals, registered managers, and individual employers in adult social care. Each workshop will take place over Zoom and will be 90 minutes in duration

(See download area for further information or visit the CMDT Training & Events page)

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Update - September 2021

Local Authority to share Care Providers jobs vacancies:

Acutely aware how difficult recruiting staff is right now, we have asked Staffordshire County Council to engage with us to support your recruitment activities. We have an offer from the Council: they will share Care Providers job vacancies and ‘like’ Care Providers Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn posts if you as the Care Provider ‘tags’ them using the following:

  1. twitter.com/StaffordshireCC
  2. facebook.com/yourstaffordshire/
  3. instagram.com/staffordshirecountycouncil/
  4. linkedin.com/company/staffordshire-county-council

The Council has asked us to request that when you are posting about your job vacancies or local opportunities available using your email, social media channels, you can use the @mention (one of the above) or otherwise tag us (i.e. alert us) to that post.

The Council will see your post, and can amplify it, by sharing it, commenting on it, liking it on Council social media accounts mentioned above.  

One further thing for your recruiters to check:
Look on the link below,  this will be seen by job seekers in Staffordshire and they will be signposted to it. Do ensure your  vacancies are showing: Careers in adult social care - Staffordshire County Council. The best way is to scroll down to town names, select those closest to you and if your vacancies are not  visible follow this procedure: find-a-job-instructions (everydayisdifferent.com).

National Recruitment Campaign – Care for others. Make a difference.

Download the latest campaign materials to support your recruitment activity. These include updated images, email signatures and videos, along with a communications toolkit for guidance on how to support and leverage the campaign in your area. 

The DHSC has produced a presentation slide deck that you can use to promote  Recruitment (see attached)

 "Care for Others. Make a Difference" will  provide you with a portal to advertise career opportunities and the local authority will promote these jobs.

The impact of the new COVID-19 variant is being felt across the country and additional staff are urgently needed now to support the adult social care workforce where absence rates have more than doubled in recent months due to self-isolation.

Jobseekers, volunteers and people on furlough can now register their interest for short-term opportunities including personal care – helping people to wash and dress – providing wellbeing support, simply collecting and delivering supplies, or helping out with the cooking and cleaning. Exact roles will be based on experience, local need and local authority and care provider discretion.

People can register their interest online here. Please share with families and friends.

The "Care for Others. Make a Difference" campaign uses television, digital and radio advertising to drive awareness of long-term career opportunities, highlighting the rewarding, varied and flexible roles available. Almost 1.5 million people work in adult social care.

People can find out more about a longer-term career in social care and search for jobs in their area by visiting the Every Day is Different website and will be directed to the website to register their interest in short-term opportunities.

Download the campaign images

Download the campaign adverts (30-second TV and 15-second YouTube)

Register your interest in providing support in the short-term

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National Recruitment Campaign – relaunch April 2020

The DHSC ‘Care for others. Make a difference’ national recruitment campaign is aimed at boosting the social care workforce in England during and following the current pandemic. Linked to this:

Prospective employees can Take the Quiz to find out if social care is the right career for them. You can add this to your website and encourage applicants to take the quiz.

West Midlands Employers – Time to Care Campaign

CMDT are supporting the West Midlands Employers “Time to Care” campaign, which aims to attract job seekers into a variety of paid roles across the sector (admin, care staff, cooks, domestics) on a temporary basis, to help care providers manage their staffing needs during the Covid-19 pandemic. Following an initial application by job seekers, CMDT will:

  • Offer to speak with each job seeker to explore their skills, experience, behaviours and values that support their application.
  • Help job seekers find relevant job opportunities and give advice about completing application forms, CVs and preparing for interview.

Supporting good practice in recruitment

You can find statistics related to current staffing situations and recruitment requirements in this Practical Steps for Recruiting During COVID-19 link following a COVID-19 staffing survey run jointly by Neil Eastwood and Care Management Matters. 

A live webinar was held on 24th April, to discuss the survey findings and you can Watch the Webinar and share best practice and listen to questions about care worker recruitment during the pandemic.

Skills for Care Recruitment and Retention support

Skills for Care has created a dedicated space on its website entitled “Covid-19 Support and advice for the adult social care sector” This provides the latest Covid-19 information including;

  • Essential training
  • Support for Registered Managers
  • Support for regulated professionals and support for individual employers
  • Information on different Careers in social care
  • COVID-19 support Webinars on a range of topics
  • Guidance on dignity as part of the induction process

Relevant Department for Health & Social Care (DHSC)

The DHSC has:

Care Quality Commission (CQC)

The CQC has produced interim CQC DBS Guidance covering DBS and other recruitment checks, for providers recruiting staff and volunteers to health and social care services in response to coronavirus (COVID-19).

ACAS Updates

Registered Managers received an update from ACAS during a virtual meeting on 29th April 2020. COVID-19 questions covered topics such as responding to requests for Lleave and notice periods, maternity leave and furlough applications, requesting employees take time off, responding to employees with symptoms, unpaid leave. ACAS presentations and others provided to Staffordshire Registered Managers Meetings are provided on a dedicated news page on the CMDT website.

Stoke-on-Trent & Staffordshire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP)

The Stoke & Staffs LEP aims to provide the support that businesses need whether they wish to start up, grow or relocate.

West Midlands Care Association

The West Midlands Care Association provides support to care providers within community, nursing, special needs and residential home settings. Members can publish their jobs on a vacancy board within the website.

Local Government Association (LGA)

LGA Covid-19: Information for Councils guidance and resources from includes guidance on employment law and visa extension for frontline health and care workers

Department for Work & Pensions (DWP)

CMDT have been working closely with DWP colleagues across Staffordshire in recent months, to explore how we can further support the adult social care sector to recruit and retain high quality staff. 

Please click on the DWP Employment Advisors Staffordshire link for a list of your local DWP contacts and for further discussions about supporting your organisation when recruiting staff.

CMDT’s social media channels

Follow our CMDT social media pages to keep up to date with the latest information, advice and guidance and recruitment and training opportunities:    CMDT Twitter            CMDT Facebook

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