Recruiting people from all kinds of backgrounds (Learn from others)
16 Oct 2018
Jeanine Willoughby, Project Manager for Recruitment and Retention, tells us why it's important to recruit people from all kinds of backgrounds.
Some people face barriers to moving into work, and not everyone has recent experience or qualifications to support them. However, people from all kinds of backgrounds can have the right values to work in our sector as well as bring a wealth of diverse perspectives and ideas to your workforce. And the greater the mix of people you employ, the greater the mix of skills and experiences your organisation can benefit from.
Organisations can’t continue to grow if everyone within them thinks the same, acts the same and has the same interests. Taking an open approach to your recruitment can help you recruit from a wider talent pool, attract a more diverse range of candidates for your roles and ensure your workforce becomes more inclusive and better able to reflect the communities it serves.
You can find out more about recruiting people from a range of backgrounds here, and about values-based recruitment here.
Find out how other organisations have embraced diversity in their recruitment below.
‘Using the talent of disabled people in our teams’
Surrey Choices is a local authority trading company employing around 350 staff. It includes many services for disabled people who live in and around Surrey including 24 day activity centres for autistic people and people with physical, sensory and learning disabilities. Also a Shared Lives team, respite service and an employment team, EmployAbility, whose team work with around 850 people each year to help them find or maintain work.
Surrey is an area of high employment, so it can be hard to recruit good staff for some roles, particularly entry level jobs in the care sector. Surrey Choices has an ethos of ensuring we are a great employer and embrace diversity.
Surrey Choices, EmployAbility
Read the full case study
‘Healthy futures project'
Unique Personnel (UK) Ltd offer a comprehensive range of home care services including domiciliary, respite, companionship and live-in care to the elderly and to young people with a disability. Starting in January 2018, the Capital City College Group involved Unique Personnel in the ‘Healthy Futures Project’.
The project engages with unemployed individuals in the Central and South London areas and supports them into sustained employment within the health and social care sector.
We were keen to employ more people from the local community which is dominated by the Somalian population and who were under-represented in our current workforce but a significant part of the local community. We made contact with the local Mosque and built an excellent relationship and rapport with the leaders and members.
Unique Personnel (UK) Ltd
Read the full case study
‘Supporting unemployed people into work through a sector based work academy’
Medway Council supported local unemployed people to start working in the sector by setting up a sector based work academy and supporting them through a pre-employment training programme, which included work experience.
We used a values-based approach to recruitment to ensure that successful candidates displayed the desired behaviours and values to work in social care. This has resulted in excellent retention and success rates.
Medway Council
Read the full case study
During October we’re embracing diversity in adult social care. Click here to keep up to date with the campaign and join the conversation on social media using #EmbraceDiversity
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