Guest blog by Dr Lara Shemtob
Business psychologist Alan Bradshaw shared an impressive example of organisational change to support staff health and wellbeing within a social care setting in Scotland at a SOM event in June 2023. Here are the highlights and lessons learned from the transformation at William Simpsons adult mental health residential care.
Social care in context
Social care workers face many of the same occupational hazards and risks as healthcare workers but often with less top-down health and work infrastructure in place to control and manage these risks. Working conditions including pay can be less secure for social care carers than their NHS-employed counterparts. There are over 150,000 vacancies in social care in England. Notably, in Scotland, social care is currently government funded and mainly commissioned by local authorities, in contrast to England where there is a mixed system in place.
What is William Simpsons?
William Simpsons is a charity with around 100 staff providing short term, long term and respite residential care for adults of all ages with mental health needs. By 2019, staff turnover had reached 60%, and staff morale was low, with limited managerial support structures in place and a lack of a cohesive direction for staff health and wellbeing. Negative experiences and emotions from staff leaving the organisation began affecting recruitment and the charity was stretched financially, with high spending on agency staff to fill rota gaps. All of these factors affected staff, who kept trying to do their best to care for the residents.
What changed?
An external HR company was used to gather intelligence from staff on their experience on the ground. This was necessary because of the mistrust between staff and the organisation impeding open dialogue. The need for change in structure was obvious from the results. The organisation needed domain leadership, and groundwork had to be laid for staff to be able to approach managers in confidence. Staff care had to be prioritised alongside service user care. Autonomy thrives on trust and this was rebuilt into the organisation, which helped with confidence and teamwork between staff. Practical changes made to meet staff needs included being more flexible with hours and daily tasks. However, just as things began to improve, COVID-19 brought further significant setbacks.
Prioritising needs
A stress risk assessment was circulated amongst staff internally, to pinpoint the highest impact areas staff were struggling with. This was used to inform and prioritise changes including:
- hiring more staff to help meet demand
- involving staff champions in decision making around change and cascading training to colleagues such as through selecting and implementing new software
- improved staff rest facilities
- involving staff champions in communications - encouraging colleagues to share and promote positive experiences of the organisation to change the narrative
- higher rates of pay as financial stressors were affecting staff wellbeing
- the option to access up to half of each month’s pay earlier in the month to help staff meet urgent financial need
- culture change towards listening to colleagues, senior and peer support, identifying and addressing negative behaviour
- feeding back changes and the results of change to the staff
Outcomes
Turnover rate has reduced year on year and is now 27%, below the industry average. Sickness absence has also reduced. William Simpsons is saving around £200K per year on agency fees to cover rota gaps and recruitment costs. This is being re-invested into the workforce through improved staff facilities and pay. The quality of care has improved with service user support and leadership rated as very good by the care inspectorate in May 2022. The organisation’s reputation has transformed within the community, which has had a positive impact on recruitment and staff morale.
Takeaways
- Organisations need insight to change.
- Listening to staff, risk assessing their circumstances and meeting their needs is key.
- It can be cost effective to prioritise staff welfare even in challenging climates.
- Staff health and wellbeing is not a ‘nice to have’, it is essential to sustain productivity and high standards of care.
- Organisational reputation matters internally as well as to the outside world.
This blog was written by Dr Lara Shemtob. First published in the work and health Substack to reach a wider audience on how the incentives around work and health can align.