November 29th, 2022 | Sterling

How care homes can recruit quickly and compliantly

Steve Smith, president of international at background screening and identity services firm, Sterling, stops by to share his thoughts on the ever-worsening staffing crisis in care.

It has been well-publicised that the UK is facing a staffing crisis, but for those sectors that were already struggling to attract staff pre-covid, these shortages have been amplified by the aftermath of the pandemic.

Care homes in particular have been critically understaffed, with data from Skills for Care revealing that staff shortages rose by 52% in the last year. As a consequence, there is a concern that some vulnerable people may be suffering from inadequate care with daily duties unable to be carried out.

The problem with hasty hires

It’s clear that many care homes are in desperate need of staff and are looking to recruit quickly. However, in a bid to get employees through the door, there have been reports that some care homes are failing to recruit compliantly, by either not taking references properly, failing to carry out adequate criminal records checks, or training staff inadequately.

While there is an undeniable need to hire fast, failing to do so compliantly will not only risk the safety of residents, but can also be detrimental to an employer’s brand and reputation.

With the aim of developing a deeper understanding of what’s driving today’s hiring, background screening trends, and where opportunities may exist to improve upon current operations, we conducted a study: ‘Hiring Reimagined.’

The report provides a realistic outlook on the state of hiring, background screening, and candidate experience — as expressed by more than 1,200 HR professionals and over 3,700 recent job seekers globally.

The value of compliant onboarding

What’s particularly interesting is that our candidate respondents are not only conscious of relevant screening processes, but also value them, with the majority (54%) of job seekers agreeing that their background screening experience made them feel more confident about working with the organisation or pursuing the job.

Clearly, professionals place a significant value on feeling safe at work and knowing that a future employer has a robust screening process certainly appears to have a positive impact on the candidate experience.

This will be particularly true for those roles where screening is especially important, such as care providers. However, that doesn’t mean that changing current processes isn’t necessary.

In the past, some background screening methods may have been considered complex or time consuming, but today there are more efficient processes available that many employers are using to transform their screening programs.

Although being thorough is certainly an important aspect of screening for care homes, with competition for talent rife, it’s crucial that this does not overcomplicate the process or come at the expense of efficiency.

Not only will this impact day-to-day care operations but could also lead to candidates dropping out of the recruitment process, with our study finding that the main reasons for exiting the recruitment stage early either relate to the complexity of the hiring process (33%), there being a time-consuming experience for the end-user (35%), or there was an issue with the background screening process (22%).

Using digital identity to improve hiring and engage candidates

As we have seen, onboarding and screening will make a big difference to the staff attraction and retention rates of care homes.

However, compliantly increasing time to hire is understandably a significant need. Making the switch to digital identity will be a critical component towards not only speeding up the hiring process and making it simpler for all parties but also providing candidates with full confidence in their safety.

Opting for a digitalised right to work process will mean that, once the employer sends the request to the applicant, that’s the end of their responsibilities.

The revised ‘one touchpoint’ process removes the need for the documentation to also be verified by the employer, saving valuable time for all parties and safely streamlining a process that can often consist of duplicate requirements or lengthy form filling.

There’s no doubt that quickly and compliantly recruiting carers in today’s candidate-led hiring landscape is quite the challenge and will only become more complex as uncertainty remains on the horizon.

However, there are opportunities to improve more traditional processes and ultimately create a better, more efficient, hiring strategy. Care homes that embrace this change will be the ones to not only make a full recovery, but also provide residents with the support and care they deserve.

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