Skills for Care, the strategic workforce development and planning body for social care in England, is supporting social care teams to #RecruitRight with its latest campaign.
The campaign comes as Skills for Care’s latest data shows that while vacancy rates across adult social care in England have decreased compared to last year, they remain high.
The current vacancy rate is around 9.9 per cent – around 152,000 on any given day. The number of vacant posts has decreased by 11,000 since last year, when vacancies increased to the highest on record.
Running through September, the #RecruitRight campaign will provide information and resources looking at how to diversify recruitment approaches, how to use values-based recruitment, and how to ensure all recruitment is conducted safely, fairly, and ethically, including international recruitment.
The campaign will include blogs and real life insights from recruitment experts and social care organisations who have an effective approach to their recruitment and retention strategy, and will run across the organisation’s website, social media, and other communications channels.
Skills for Care deputy CEO Tristram Gardner said: “While it’s positive that our latest data shows vacancy rates have fallen, we know from our discussions with employers that recruitment and retention remains a key challenge.
“It’s vital that we’re able to find and keep the right people to work in social care. Our campaign aims to support social care employers in taking different approaches to recruitment and utilising resources that can support them.
“Our data also shows that there’s been a notable increase in the number of people recruited from abroad into direct care roles. While international recruitment can be one solution to recruitment challenges, it’s vital that this is done in an ethical way. This campaign will highlight the support available for employers when recruiting internationally to ensure this is the case.”
