Coalition buzz words of “transformation”, “efficiency” and “in it together” mean the CSR will have a significant impact on the social care sector. Whilst yet to the find out the finer details we do know cuts to local government funding and welfare benefits mean significant change is in the pipleine for both employers and the wider social care workforce.
HR has a central role in responding to these challenges as a provider’s workforce is the most critical source of competitive advantage through the delivery of high quality services; yet represents the largest potential for further efficiency savings. How will HR support their organisations to manage this tension? Based on discussions with social care providers initial HR responses to the CSR challenges include:
Focus on Maintaining Employee Engagement
With all the media coverage people will naturally be anxious about their future and look to their employer for leadership throughout this uncertain period. Engage in a dialogue now to inform about the challenges, start to develop responses. Provide a vision and start to plan for it, always be honest and avoid been pressurised into providing false reassurance.
Review Workforce Development
Providers will need a workforce with a dynamic skill set to meet the shifting needs of purchasers and service users. Social services departments are making the transition to personalisation by developing skills that focus on supporting the delivery of care rather than the direct delivery of care. Consider apprenticeship schemes as the CSR pledged to provide 750,000 over next four years.
Workforce Flexibility
With a target to have 30% of service users on personal budgets by April 2011 evaluate if employment contracts provide the flexibility to align working hours to reflect changes to service users’ life styles.
Incentive Strategies
People work in social care for a variety of reasons, some want to make a difference to peoples’ lives, some to work flexibly, others for professional and/or career development. People place a high value on certain non-financial incentives, ask your staff what these are and review your Reward and Development strategies.
Cost Effective Services
Once funders have crunched the numbers providers may need to make some difficult choices to further reduce their rate per hour. Engage now in consultation and/or negotiation with your workforce representatives about the range of potential responses. During the first recessionary dip the private sector used alternatives to redundancy resulting in significantly lower job losses, the government is urging a similar approach for the public sector.
The next six months presents a window of opportunity for providers to secure competitive advantage by reviewing and redefining their strategic approach to human resources. HR has challenging yet critical contribution to make through supporting and enabling their organisation to find further cost savings, effectively manage and embed change, all whilst maintaining an engaged workforce.
