Starting a career in the care industry could be one of the most rewarding decisions you ever make. At Create Business Properties, we have several wonderful caregiving tenant organisations, and we love hearing stories about how their work makes a huge difference in people’s lives on a daily basis.
Of course, working in the care sector has its challenges, but the biggest challenge that our tenants tell us about is finding the right people to fill the vacancies in their organisations.
According to the 2022 Social Care Benchmarking Report, this issue of care staffing is widespread in Scotland. According to the report, staff turnover is a problem for care and support providers in Scotland, with an average of 52% of those changing jobs last year leaving the social care sector entirely. Nearly three-quarters of the organisations polled in the report reported a significant increase in staff turnover in 2021-22.
We spoke with four of our caregiving clients to learn more about their recruitment drives, why they believe people should consider a career in care and the importance of the service they provide.
Bluebird Care Edinburgh has been providing excellent in-home care to the people of Edinburgh since 2008, always leading with kindness and compassion. A multi-award-winning service, they are consistently rated ‘excellent’ by The Care Inspectorate.
The dedicated team at Bluebird Care aims to support their customers in maintaining their independence and lifestyle by providing the highest quality of home care. A small team in the office and almost 70 excellent carers who work in the community run the service. These individuals are the visible face of Bluebird Care, and they not only provide personal care; they deliver person-centred care, enabling everyone to remain independent in their own homes.
When we spoke to Jane Perry from Bluebird Care Edinburgh about the reasons behind the staffing problems for care companies, she blamed the pandemic. “People re-evaluated their lives and priorities during the pandemic, and seeing how hard the care workers worked in this period, perhaps they decided the role wasn’t for them.”
We asked Jane why people should consider a career with them; she said: “The most rewarding aspect is the feeling of giving something back and enabling people to live their best lives, whatever their health condition. It’s a worthwhile job that can be done full or part-time to fit around personal circumstances.”
She also mentioned the great opportunities for career progression that Bluebird Care offers. If you genuinely care about helping people, Jane would love to hear from you to see if you’d make a good fit for their team.
Get in touch with Bluebird Care.
Home Instead Edinburgh East is owned and run by local couple Andrew and Joanna Senew, who provide personalised first-class care at home for older people in the Edinburgh area.
Their personalised homecare services include companionship, which includes stimulating mental awareness, accompanying clients to appointments, and assistance with reading; home help, which includes all aspects of day-to-day housework, shopping, and meal preparation; and personal care, which includes assistance with bathing and dressing, convalescence care, and medication reminders.
We spoke to Allana Anderson from Home Instead about the current problem with recruitment. She thinks that a big part of this is, 0-hour contracts, to combat this problem, Home Instead are offering Guaranteed Hour contracts to their care professionals. When we asked her about working with Home Instead, she replied:
“The most rewarding aspect is making a difference in clients’ lives. To have the honour of meeting the most basic needs of someone and allowing them to live their lives at home can’t get more rewarding.
Although caregivers are classed as lone workers, Home instead works hard on building relationships with care staff and getting them together to let them know they aren’t alone. We strive to offer continued learning and development in the job role and themselves.”
If you have good communication skills and are trustworthy, reliable, and kind with a good sense of humour, you could be just the kind of person they are looking for. Get in touch with Home Instead for a chat.
Monteith Personal Care is another business that provides quality care at home. Monteith has been based at Castlebrae Business Centre since December 2016 and employs approximately 90 dynamic and enthusiastic employees who are always very busy providing the best possible care to their clients in their own homes.
Monteith’s friendly, well-qualified management team all began their care careers in the field, working their way up the ranks, and career advancement is extremely important to Monteith.
We spoke to Karen Lacey about Monteith’s recruitment drive and asked her why she thinks it’s harder to get care staff at the moment, She said: “I feel that there is a lot more choice of jobs available, such as supermarkets, etc. The Council does not pay us a high enough rate to compete with such companies. I also feel that we inadvertently lost a lot of potential recruits due to Brexit.”
When we asked her what was great about working with Monteith she said: “Being a carer in the community is a very rewarding job due to the nature of the duties carried out on a day-to-day basis. Being able to assist vulnerable adults to stay in their own homes for as long as possible is genuinely rewarding and satisfying. It gives one a sense of achievement and overall pleasure.”
The management team at Monteith is friendly and provides excellent support for their diverse team. The members of the management team have all worked as carers in the community, so they understand each aspect of the job
Karen says they are looking for people with a caring nature who possess integrity, a good work ethic, good communication skills, and flexibility. If this sounds like you, get in touch with them here.
1st Focus Homecare is a family-run business that provides high-quality home care to people in Edinburgh who need it. They have about 70 dedicated care staff who provide first-rate care to a variety of people in their own homes across Edinburgh, with the majority of this work being subcontracted by Edinburgh City Council.
The team at 1st Homecare is one-of-a-kind and extremely proud of the unrivalled levels of compassion, patience, and commitment that they demonstrate in providing care services, a level that they strive to maintain in an extremely underfunded industry.
While they say that the combined effects of Brexit and the pandemic have meant that recruitment is a challenge for them, the business is a great place to work. When we asked Grant from 1st Focus about the best part of the job, he said it’s making a difference in someone’s life. They offer excellent opportunities for career progression and personal development as part of a very supportive team with a great reputation for care.
If you feel you are reliable and supportive, with a person-centred focus and a genuine desire to make a difference in someone’s life, you can find out more about a career with 1st Focus here.
Supporting our amazing care workers
The team at Create Business Properties is dedicated to supporting our tenant businesses however we can, so we are launching this campaign across social media to raise awareness of their recruitment needs and the multiple benefits of choosing a career in the care industry. If you think you’ve got what it takes to join any of their amazing teams, get in touch using the links below.
Please help us spread the word by looking out for further posts and sharing this link with your networks and together we can help these amazing organisations provide even more much-needed quality care services to people in need in our community!
