0:00

Hello, and welcome to Sticky from the

0:13

Inside, the employee engagement podcast

0:15

that looks at how to build stickier

0:18

competition smashing consistently

0:20

successful organizations from the inside

0:22

out. I'm your host, Andy Gorham, and I'm

0:25

on a mission to help more businesses turn the lights on behind the eyes of their

0:29

employees, light the fires within them, and create tons more success for everyone.

0:39

This podcast is for all those who believe

0:42

that's something worth going after and

0:44

would like a little help and guidance in achieving that. Each episode, we dive into

0:48

the topics that can help create what I

0:50

call stickier businesses. The sort of

0:53

businesses where people thrive and love to

0:56

work and where more customers stay with

0:58

you and recommend you to others because

1:01

they love what you do and why you do it.

1:04

So if you want to take the tricky out of

1:06

being sticky, listen on. Okay. In a recent

1:13

episode, we examined how a whole industry

1:15

could become stickier, and we used the UK

1:18

hospitality sector as our test case.

1:21

Today, we are sort of continuing that

1:23

theme, but looking at an entirely

1:26

different industry, the care industry. And

1:28

we're tackling a topic that I think is not

1:31

only important, but incredibly close to

1:34

many of our hearts. How do we make working

1:37

in the care sector the very best job in

1:40

the world? The care sector is, I think,

1:43

the backbone of many of our communities,

1:46

providing invaluable support to our

1:48

elders, those with disabilities, and

1:50

individuals in need. It's a sector where

1:54

dedicated caregivers work tirelessly to

1:57

ensure our loved ones can age gracefully,

2:00

either in the comfort of their own homes

2:03

or in managed facilities. Yet, despite the

2:06

incredible work many do in this sector,

2:09

it's no secret that the professional carers working in the industry have often

2:13

faced low wages, difficult working

2:15

conditions, and as a result, employers in the sector experience high levels of

2:20

employee attrition and turnover. But

2:23

today, we're here to explore a brighter

2:26

vision. How can we transform working in

2:30

care into the best job in the world? Our

2:33

guest, Dan Archer, the CEO of Visiting

2:35

Angels, a company dedicated to making

2:38

aging in place a reality, has dedicated

2:41

himself to just that. With his help, we'll

2:45

dive into the current landscape with the care sector, understand the power of

2:49

viewing caregiving as a vocation, discover

2:52

the strategies and success stories that

2:54

can pave the way to a brighter future. So

2:58

if you're a professional carer or a leader

3:00

in the care sector, or simply someone like

3:02

me who cares about people having better

3:05

work lives, then this episode is for you.

3:08

Join us as we explore a path towards

3:11

valuing, retaining, and elevating the

3:13

incredible individuals who provide comfort

3:15

and companionship to our loved ones.

3:18

Welcome to the show, Dan. Andy, thank you

3:20

for having me on. How are you? I'm good,

3:22

my friend, I'm good. It's nice to see you this bright and breezy morning. So, I

3:26

mean, this could be quite emotive for a lot of people, I think. And we've come

3:30

through a period of time that has all been

3:34

about care, right? And looking out for people, looking after people. And in some

3:39

ways that sector has been under the

3:41

spotlight. It's been elevated in people's

3:44

minds and we've seen a lot of it. And yet

3:47

there's a lot more to it. There's not just

3:50

the government stuff we hear about in the

3:52

troubles of the care sector. We want to talk today about what it really feels like

3:55

to work in that sector and what the vision

3:58

of the future can be to look like, to get to this dream of making it somewhere that

4:04

can easily qualify as being one of the best jobs in the world. But before we get

4:07

into all of that, my friend, do me a very

4:09

quick favor. Can I just get a brief

4:12

introduction to you, your background and what you're currently focused on, please?

4:16

Absolutely, no problem at all. And I think

4:18

what I would say, Andy, is I regularly do

4:21

say about the care sector is that people don't really know about our industry

4:25

unless they work in care or they've

4:27

received care for a family member. For

4:30

most in society, we don't think about this stuff until we absolutely have to think

4:33

about it. And normally when we are

4:35

thinking about it, then it becomes quite an urgent thing to do. But that was

4:39

exactly my background in my I've worked

4:41

commercially for 25 years. For the last twelve years I've worked in the care

4:45

industry and up until 2010 I'd never

4:48

really thought about adult social care at

4:50

all. And then we needed care for my mom's,

4:53

mom for my NAN. My NAN was more than just

4:56

my grandmother. My dad was pretty absent

4:58

during our childhood. So my NAN played an active role in raising me, my brother and

5:02

my sister. And she had arthritis for 15

5:06

years. And towards the end of her life, for the last two years of her life, that

5:10

arthritis with arthritis in her spine.

5:12

What went along with that were instances

5:15

of pain which were very acute and

5:18

dizziness lightheadedness and the risk of falls. So as a family, we took a

5:22

recommendation from a social worker who said you should probably get a home care

5:26

provider come in to provide you now with some care and support. So that's what we

5:30

did. And in the first eight weeks of care and support, we had 15 different carers

5:34

visit my nan's place. Wow. A constant sort

5:36

of revolving door of new face after new

5:39

face. And I'm a Sheffield lad. My NAN was from Sheffield as well. I always said my

5:42

NAN had an northern sense of humor about it. She used to say she only knew she was

5:45

getting care when the blue tabard showed up because the people changed every day.

5:51

But she recognized the uniform and the uniform became the basis for the the one

5:57

of the big questions we asked, actually, when we started the company is, why do we

6:00

need a uniform? What's the purpose of the

6:02

uniform? And I would argue in many

6:05

instances, the uniform has become a proxy for the relationship which should exist

6:09

between the client and the carer. But that

6:12

was our first exposure. Lots and lots of different faces coming to the house. We

6:15

also had times of visits moving around the

6:17

place. So it should have been an 08:00 breakfast call, but it was getting shunted

6:21

forward or back. And I now know the reason

6:24

it was moving around the rotor was because the care provider couldn't do an 08:00

6:28

call because of staff turnover. And as a

6:30

result of that, they were moving my nan's call around the shift to be able to get it

6:34

completed at a later point in the day. But

6:37

long story short, I took a phone call from

6:39

my mom on a Tuesday morning to say that a

6:42

carer had not attended my nan's call that

6:44

morning. And my NAN had a fall. She fell

6:47

into the bedside table, quite a bad fall.

6:50

And after a brief period in hospital, unfortunately, we lost her. So I've seen

6:55

the worst of our sector firsthand, my family's seen the worst of our sector

6:59

firsthand. And when I came to working in

7:02

the sector, I worked for a large national

7:05

domiciliary care provider with a fantastic reputation and a better approach to

7:09

staffing. In actual fact, I learned my

7:11

trade with them. I, prior to starting

7:15

visiting angels, was running a live in care business. So lots of exposure to the

7:19

challenges that go around care. But when I

7:22

started visiting Angels, I looked at the

7:24

sector and thought, you know what, there's a problem here. And the problem is

7:28

recruitment and retention. I looked at

7:30

close to 50 businesses, actually, when I was researching the start of the company,

7:33

and none of them had a people focused

7:36

mission statement. When I wrote our

7:38

mission for visiting Angels, it was the first people focused mission statement in

7:41

the care sector. I'm becoming increasingly

7:44

proud to say I had a moment of clarity in

7:47

summer 2017 when with a blank sheet of

7:50

paper in front of me, I came up with the concept of being carer centric. And I

7:54

think I was the first person on the planet to use the words carer centric to put

8:00

carers first, to make carers the most

8:02

important people in the organization. So there's a ton of stuff that we do which

8:05

I'm sure we'll get into as we carry on talking about the things that we do which

8:08

make us different in that respect. But the

8:10

start point for the company when we launched it was putting carers first,

8:14

because without carers, we do not have a

8:16

company. Yeah. And I think we will

8:18

definitely get into what you see as the

8:21

future, I think. I'm interested to pick up on what you said about the fact that we

8:25

don't in the main, understand the care

8:27

sector unless we have used it. So what is

8:31

the current state of the care sector? As

8:33

somebody who is slap bang in it, what are

8:35

the issues it's facing? And what are some

8:38

of the pinch points that perhaps general

8:41

public don't see aren't aware of? I think

8:44

that the media are pretty good at reporting some of this stuff, but I'm

8:48

conscious that, as you say, because I'm in the middle of the sector, I'm

8:51

hypersensitive to the stuff that yeah, of course, many people, if it's not relevant

8:54

to them, will just dismiss it as news that's not appropriate for them. Right

8:56

then. Right, so we currently have 152,000

9:00

vacancies in adult central. When you say

9:02

vacancies, Dan, you're talking about job

9:05

vacancies, right. You have understaffing of that amount, correct? Yeah, vacant

9:09

jobs. So that's over 150,000 empty jobs

9:12

for the demand which exists today. Now

9:16

we've got an aging population, people are

9:18

living longer with increasingly complex

9:21

medical conditions and because of the

9:23

problems that exist elsewhere in the health service, those conditions are not

9:27

able to be supported by nursing teams in a

9:29

local community. So increasingly what's

9:32

happening is that's pushing down onto social care providers for them to do

9:36

increasingly complex work for a growing

9:39

number of potential clients, living longer

9:42

with more complex conditions is increasing

9:44

the demand for the sector. And we've got

9:47

over 150,000 empty jobs today. Where will

9:52

we be in 510 years time? Where we need more people, not less people. Okay. In

9:56

addition to that, the people living longer

9:58

in the complexity of the conditions they live with, we've just got more elderly

10:02

people. So population dynamics is at play.

10:04

The baby boomer generation, the people who were born in the there are more often it

10:08

was a baby boom. Right. Those people are

10:10

coming to a point where they now need some care and support. So there is excess

10:15

demand and there is a supply side shortage

10:17

in the care industry. As to why that is,

10:20

well, there are a combination of factors on that. Brexit has had a role to play on

10:23

that. The company I was running prior to visiting Angels was a European business

10:27

bringing carers in from Europe to the UK.

10:30

When the UK voted for Brexit, that was an interesting day at work, put it that.

10:35

Yeah, the reality was long before anything

10:38

changed in respect to the movement of people, european care workers were not

10:41

feeling as welcome in the UK because the UK was saying, well, we don't want to be

10:43

part of Europe. That has an impact. The

10:47

pandemic had an impact in a couple of ways

10:49

because lots of people that were already

10:51

in the country but from another country

10:53

went home during the pandemic because we got hit quite bad with coronavirus. And in

10:58

addition to that, the job itself, I mean,

11:01

look, be clear, nobody had a good pandemic, right? We all had issues and we

11:05

all suffered through the pandemic. But our

11:08

sector was required to face this thing

11:10

head on and to carry on business as usual

11:14

when we were dealing with people that were living with a disease that we didn't know

11:17

anything about. So that increased the

11:19

stress for those working in the sector. And that again led to people not wanting

11:22

to be involved in care anymore. It's become more complex, it's become more

11:26

dangerous. I want to get out of this country and go away. So there are a number

11:29

of reasons around that where there are

11:31

just not as many people prepared to work in care as they used to do. Yeah. And the

11:35

very fact that this is going to sound

11:39

ridiculous, but even the term essential

11:41

worker, maybe in the last three years,

11:45

that's become more common parlance in

11:47

terms of referring to people in that

11:49

sector as giving essential services. But

11:53

my vision of people who work in care is,

11:57

again, probably not dissimilar to yours.

12:00

It comes from the experience of seeing

12:02

them look after grandparents who, bless

12:05

them, are no longer with us anymore. And

12:09

my experience of those people has been

12:12

incredible, their dedication. And then,

12:15

luckily, I've had opportunity to work with some care clients and I'm never shocked

12:20

anymore by the amount of wonderful people

12:24

who work in these companies. Just the most

12:27

unassuming, lovely people who I don't

12:29

understand how they can carry, the amount

12:31

of emotional baggage that they must have

12:34

to deal with, as well as the physical toil

12:36

and the hours. And yet it seems to me that

12:40

it's a vastly undervalued resource, maybe

12:44

from pay working conditions, I don't know.

12:47

We pay footballers millions of pounds for

12:50

kicking a ball around and we pay pence for

12:52

people who look after our loved ones. I

12:54

mean, are we just taking advantage of these people because of their good nature?

12:58

What's your view of the situation? And if I'm being blunt, yes, society is taking

13:03

advantage of people's vocation, goodwill.

13:06

People have been punished for their vocations. The way that I would see it,

13:11

you're right. I mean, there's a huge disparity on pay between someone that

13:14

kicks an inflated ball of vinyl around a

13:17

football pitch and the essential work is

13:19

done by carers. I would say that if I

13:24

think about the tasks that we're involved

13:27

in, the essential point of essential

13:30

worker in care is that people can't get

13:32

out of bed, people cannot receive the

13:36

medication that they require, people cannot have their breakfast, they cannot

13:40

wash without the support that we provide.

13:43

But apart from those essential basics,

13:46

people don't get chance to engage with the

13:48

communities that they're in. People don't get chance their home, people don't get

13:52

chance to have company and to talk about the things that are important to them if

13:56

it's not for the essential work that's done by home care workers. Our mission is

14:03

to lead the UK care sector by 2030 as an

14:06

employer of choice and redefine the role

14:09

of carers in society. We are trying to

14:11

change society's perception on carers. And

14:13

I thought during the pandemic foolishly, I thought, do you know what? We cracked it.

14:17

Because we had those instances on a Thursday night at 08:00 where everybody

14:20

stood outside their house, was clapping and bashing their pots and pans. I

14:23

thought, yes, eventually society realizes

14:27

what we do is so important. And what's

14:29

happened subsequently is people have gone back to work and stopped clapping and put

14:32

their pots and pans away and we are still

14:34

out there 24 hours a day, seven days a

14:39

week, supporting people in the community.

14:41

I go to bed at night and I've got people

14:44

who work for my organization in someone's

14:47

home, providing them with essential care.

14:50

At 02:00 in the morning, if there's an emergency, a client may ring one of our

14:54

teams, somebody has to be available to answer that call. So we are first

14:58

responders for the elderly. That's where we are in this situation. And I think I

15:03

did an interview for BBC News 24 about 18

15:06

months two years ago and talking about the

15:08

shortage of care workers. At that point, the shortage was 145,000. It increased

15:12

subsequently to 160,000. It's now come back down to 152,000. And I was

15:17

interviewed by a guy said to me, can you understand why we've got a shortage of

15:19

people? I'm like, absolutely, yeah. The job is the problem. The job is not

15:22

satisfying, the job is job is stressful, the job is mind limited, the job is poorly

15:27

paid, right? And I sort of went home and

15:30

my wife works in PR, so I went to my wife

15:32

to look for some sort of reassurance that I'd done a decent job on the telly. And

15:37

she said, you can't say that on national

15:40

TV. Are you aware you've just said on national TV that care is not a satisfying

15:43

job? And I'm like, yes, because it can be

15:48

the most satisfying profession. The

15:51

difference that you can make, the joy that

15:53

comes from the bond that's created between

15:56

a carer and a client, is a beautiful

15:59

thing. Helping people to reengage with

16:01

things they used to do 20 years ago, helping people to reengage with the family

16:05

and society and community, helping people

16:08

to do all those things that can be hugely

16:11

satisfying. But I'm afraid for most that work in care, that is not their experience

16:15

of working in care. Their experience of

16:17

working in care is they go to a new place

16:19

every single day. So if you think of it in

16:22

terms of the stress involved in your first day in a job, many in home care who've got

16:26

a changeable rotor are having their first

16:28

day at work five times a day. They go to

16:30

someone they've not been to before because they need to just go and do that at an

16:33

emergency visit. They've never had enough time to complete their work because

16:36

they're rushing off to do something else.

16:38

They're paid minimum wage, or in some

16:41

instances less. They're on zero hour

16:43

contract, so there's no commitment from the organization they work for. To them,

16:47

they drive around during the day in a car

16:49

that they're running for themselves, but they don't get enough money to fuel and

16:52

run that car. They're not paid for their

16:55

travel time. So if you describe that job

16:58

without talking about care, is it any wonder nobody wants to do that job? Right?

17:02

Too much work to do and not enough time. Lots of stress, lots of responsibility

17:05

because of the complexity of what we're doing. I mean, it's stressful to sit in a

17:09

supermarket clearing a belt of shopping on a daily basis, right? But nobody dies in

17:14

your arms in that job. In our job, they

17:17

can do that, right? So, yeah, I would say

17:21

that what needs to change is the job. If

17:25

people had more time, if people had more

17:28

commitment from their employer, if people were paid better, if people had more

17:32

stability in their rotor, so they were seeing the same clients on a regular basis

17:35

and could form a relationship, that's a

17:38

job that can be the most satisfying job.

17:41

But unfortunately for many, that's not their experience of working in care at the

17:44

moment. So let's try and dig into the sort of brighter future. I mean, the issues

17:49

that you face around recruitment and

17:52

retention are applicable to many

17:55

industries. I said at the start of the show, we just had a conversation recently

17:59

about UK hospitality. That is an industry

18:02

that's been bashed and pushed from pillar

18:05

to post over the last few years. These are

18:08

very real issues that it is trying to face

18:10

into and having to change a lot of stuff.

18:12

I think it's even more in focus for me,

18:15

this particular industry topic, because of all the things that you've just talked

18:19

about, because of the subject matter that

18:22

we're dealing with here. I would love to

18:25

hear from you as to how do you start then

18:29

to deliver this? I'm going to use the word

18:31

wish, probably incorrectly, but this wish

18:34

of making it the best job in the world,

18:37

what does that look like? And within that,

18:40

you've mentioned the word vocation. How do we kind of elevate that word because it

18:44

can be mistaken for being a hobby. You get

18:47

paid for your hobby. This doesn't sound like a hobby that we're dealing with here.

18:51

How do we get away from people being taken

18:53

advantage of and almost punished for being

18:56

that kind of caring person? What's the

18:59

vision for the future look like, then? I

19:03

think the vision for the future has to be

19:06

that those who employ care workers have to

19:11

take responsibility for the position that

19:13

they hold as the employer. Because very

19:17

often the narrative around the sector is

19:19

about the lack of funding, the lack of funding from central government, the lack

19:22

of funding from local government, the

19:25

difficulty then that a home care agency or

19:27

an employer has in ensuring that there's a

19:30

working environment that's attractive for

19:32

the individuals working in care. But as

19:36

people that own and run care businesses, we have a choice on what rate we are

19:40

prepared to work at. We have a choice on

19:43

what rate we choose to pay our staff. We

19:45

are in control of that, okay? And

19:48

sometimes it feels like people have lost sight of the fact that they are making

19:51

that choice themselves. So I would say

19:54

that in a bid to see a brighter future

19:57

there, we have to stop working at a non

20:00

economic rate. We work at a rate which is

20:02

a fair rate and a rate which enables us to

20:05

better look after the people that work in our sector. We need to take responsibility

20:09

first and foremost for pay conditions and

20:12

benefits. As an employer, I'm in control

20:14

of that. I set my pay rate, I set the contract structure that we have in place

20:17

with our care workers. I set the points at

20:19

which we pay during the day. I design all

20:21

of that. And every single care provider is

20:24

in the same position as I am in that

20:26

respect. And they would say, it's really difficult for me to do that on a council

20:29

contract then. And I would say, if the council contract has not got enough money

20:31

in it, don't do it at that rate. Because

20:34

if there's not enough money from central government, if there's not enough money

20:37

from local government, the people

20:39

subsidizing care in that situation are the care workers themselves. And that's wrong.

20:43

Does that mean the person doesn't get the

20:45

care ultimately? Inevitably, it means

20:47

people don't quite get the time that they need. But the reality is that care workers

20:52

are stopping beyond the end of their visits sometimes and not getting paid for

20:56

it, and they're driving during the day and not getting paid for their drive time.

21:00

Now, that's a subsidy from a low paid

21:03

worker because the contract that they're working on through the agency they work

21:06

for, to a local authority predominantly is not an economic contract. So don't do that

21:11

work then. Stop doing that work, because

21:14

the consequence otherwise is we're never going to be able to change this. So you've

21:19

got to start with pay conditions, benefits and contracts, right? But the problem I've

21:23

always got with this thing, when I talk about these things within the sector,

21:25

people look at me and go, it's all right for you, Dan, you're a private duty

21:28

provider, you can afford to pay staff more. We've lost a member of staff for

21:31

five pence an hour. And I'm like, you have not lost a member of staff for five pence

21:34

an hour. You lost a member of staff because you were addicted to them. Told

21:38

you it was five pence an hour. That was the reason they gave the excuse they gave

21:41

you. Right? Culture doesn't cost anything.

21:45

Culture is about recognizing the important

21:48

people in your organization. The important

21:50

people in your organization are the carers delivering care, right? So if you look

21:54

through the world, look at the world through the eyes of a carer, you

21:58

absolutely inevitably run your business differently. So you have proper contracts,

22:01

not zero hour contracts. Why would a carer

22:04

be loyal to an organization that's not prepared to be loyal to them? A zero hour

22:09

contract gives no loyalty and therefore you should expect no loyalty, right? So a

22:12

proper contract, not a zero I contract,

22:14

being paid a decent wage for the work that

22:17

is being done. Because the industry is

22:20

still addicted to a position we had 1520

22:22

years ago where there was the plentiful

22:25

supply of people and the job itself was far less skilled back then. It's always

22:30

been a complicated job, but it's far more

22:33

complex now than it ever has been. The job

22:35

has changed, right? The approach of some within the industry hasn't changed

22:39

necessarily. So if you're going to say, well, if the job is equivalent to the job

22:43

being done by an HCA in a hospital

22:45

setting, then absolutely the pay should be

22:49

the same, not 40% less than it would be if

22:51

this job was being done in a hospital. The

22:54

pay has to improve. People need to be paid

22:57

for all of the work that they are doing. We stand on a hill over drive time, our

23:01

carers drive from point A to point B

23:03

because we tell them to do that, we pay

23:06

them for that time because that is their

23:08

job. I think it's disgraceful that some

23:11

providers will say we do not pay for travel time because that is not work, that

23:15

is people traveling to work. And your

23:17

place of work is each instance that you go to deliver care, right? That's nonsense,

23:22

right. Because those same providers are also saying to their carers, oh, by the

23:25

way, you need business insurance. If you

23:27

need business insurance, it's work, right? So pay people for the work they're doing.

23:31

When you start to make those changes, you

23:34

get away with some of the hygiene stuff needs to be cleaned up. You've got to give

23:39

people that, sure, the base level of

23:42

maslow, you've got to give people the ability to know they're getting paid

23:45

fairly for the work they're doing. But then beyond that, then you've got to

23:48

understand, well, what motivates a carer

23:51

what motivates a carer is to make a difference. They've got caring in their

23:54

hearts, they've got caring bones, right? So what you do is you then try to engineer

23:57

that they can do that as much as possible.

23:59

So you give them the consistency of seeing the same clients week in, week out. You

24:03

give the client a choice of who their

24:05

caregiver is so that there's a genuine chance that the clients and the caregiver

24:09

will form a relationship. One of our brand values is family, another one of our brand

24:12

values is relationship. That's not by accident. That's where we end up sitting

24:17

in the interactions between carers and

24:19

clients. Okay? And culture is about, as I

24:22

say, thinking of things from a caregiver's

24:25

perspective, meeting the challenges that

24:27

they face, assisting them with that. We

24:31

create a bond between a client and a carer

24:33

and inevitably, unfortunately, what happens is that client passes away. Now

24:37

what some in the industry will do is say to a carer, well dust yourself off, get on

24:40

with it because Margaret over there needs some. Now you know, we need to recognize

24:44

that if we create a relationship between the client and the carer that carer needs

24:48

help to cope with what happens when that

24:50

client know. We provide people with

24:53

therapy around grief counseling, we

24:56

provide them with training to understand how to process grief. And we do these

25:01

things because we're looking at the job of being a carer through a carer's eyes. And

25:05

I'm assuming that that is not unique to

25:07

you though dan, as an outsider I shouldn't

25:12

actually say I'm an outsider because I've kind of obviously done a fair bit of work

25:16

in the sector and I've seen some of the

25:19

things that go on inside. So are you just

25:22

saying that there's not enough of this stuff, it's not consistent enough, it's

25:25

not at the right level or that in the main

25:28

it doesn't exist? I would say in the main

25:32

it doesn't exist. And that is not to say

25:36

that there are not people who we talk

25:38

about carer centric people because our

25:40

vision is to be carer centric. There are some very care centric people working

25:44

within organizational structures which are working against them. They are not able to

25:48

be as carer centric as they want to be

25:50

because there's either not the budget devoted to it or the structure and

25:55

approach is wrong. There's an awful lot of learned behavior in our industry. People

25:59

who do what they do because of a reflex

26:01

response. Their experience has been that they've done it this way therefore they're

26:03

going to carry on doing it this way. And we are in a different world now to where

26:07

we were five years ago and definitely to where we were ten or 15 years ago. Right?

26:10

So you've got to change, you got to cut

26:12

your cloth accordingly. If we've got to

26:15

shortage of people, if the job is harder than it's ever been, you've got to start

26:18

to recognize that and do something about it. And I think there are some that still

26:21

deny that a little. Okay, but what

26:25

frustrates I think a little bit is that this stuff is really very straightforward

26:29

when you start breaking it down. There's a

26:32

stat, a guy called Neil Eastwood who wrote a book called Saving Social Care, he's a

26:36

fantastic chap and he's got a stat on the

26:41

number of care workers who quit a job on

26:43

day. 116 percent of people quitting a job

26:46

on day. One do so because they didn't feel

26:49

welcomed by the organization. Now, I don't

26:52

care what your contract structure is, I don't care what your pay rate is. That is

26:55

as simple as smiling, saying hello and

26:58

saying to a new employee, welcome to the

27:01

organization. I recognize you had a choice on where you chose to work. Thank you for

27:05

choosing visiting angels. Do you think

27:07

some of that comes from the stress on the

27:12

environment, the busyness in the environment? You've talked about gap in

27:16

people, gap in skills. So the people in

27:18

these organizations, the people often, if

27:20

you're in a home managing or leading the

27:23

home, if you're working in the sort of

27:25

like the more mobile piece, I guess you've

27:28

got people who are trying to look after

27:30

those individuals as well. Is it a case of

27:32

people being head down, bum up and

27:34

genuinely not having time for these things? Or is it just not a mental thought

27:38

that we need to onboard this person in a

27:42

manner that's appropriate? I think it's

27:45

too close to the problem to be able to

27:47

stand back and see a way around it. I had

27:51

the fortunate position before I started the company of having sort of six months

27:54

of gardening leave to have enough time to be able to plan for what we were going to

27:58

do. And I started with a blank sheet of

28:01

paper. Now, I absolutely accept, if you're

28:04

in the middle of a business that's struggling to find carers, that is losing

28:07

carers, that's committed to a contract, which might be an economic contract in the

28:10

first place, you're too busy fixing the problem of today, right? You've got 15

28:14

visits for this afternoon that need to be covered and just getting on and doing

28:17

that, right? So to have me come on here

28:19

and talk about what we've managed to achieve, sometimes people look at me and

28:22

go, just shut up, Dan, I don't want to hear it, but we have to have this

28:28

conversation. I did an event down in

28:30

London about two months ago now, and there was a conversation in the audience about

28:33

what we call care workers, care

28:36

assistants, carers care professionals,

28:38

caregivers what's the terminology? That's the right terminology. We'd like to use

28:41

the word care team members because we

28:44

think we need to make them feel like part of a team. And I genuinely said, look, do

28:48

you think when you're paying the minimum

28:50

wage or less and they're on a zero hour contract, they give a shit what name

28:53

they've got, what the name badge says does

28:57

not matter in that situation. Right? So

29:00

resolve the situation with regard to pay

29:02

structure, contracts, time, stress, and

29:07

then let's have a debate about what we call people. Yeah. This sounds to me not

29:12

unlike other clients that I work with or

29:14

other industries or other topics that

29:17

we've talked about here on the podcast, in

29:20

that the issues are pretty much the same.

29:23

The execution and the landscape can be

29:27

different, but we're facing similar issues. And we're talking here about, I

29:31

guess, two pieces, really. One, you can't

29:34

get away from the pay and working condition stuff, but that is table stakes.

29:38

Your thing about people saying that we've lost someone for five P, I genuinely don't

29:43

believe it's the five P. The five P is the

29:45

straw that's broken the camel's back, but

29:48

it's all the other pieces. So the table stake stuff gets you into the game. It's

29:52

what you do on top of that, which is the

29:54

key to retention, which is the key to

29:56

brand reputation. And I think that's where

30:00

the majority of focus needs to come. But if you don't get the table stakes sorted

30:05

out, you've got no hope. You're just not

30:07

at the game. I will also say, and it's really difficult to overlay a culture on

30:13

an existing business. Right. Again, the advantage we had is we started from

30:17

scratch. We built this thing from the ground up with Carer centric being the

30:20

vision for the organization. Right. So at

30:22

every point we ask commercial question we

30:25

ask all the time as a business, if I do

30:28

that, does it improve the life of a carer?

30:31

Yeah. And I think many, many businesses

30:33

face the same problem. Dan right. We don't

30:37

all have the luxury of starting from

30:40

scratch. Most businesses today who are

30:44

looking and trying to evolve or improve

30:47

their culture are doing it from a whole

30:51

bunch of history, a whole bunch of baggage

30:53

and trying to make it work. Which is why I think it's important that we kind of do

30:56

focus in on different industries and look at their particular challenges. But it's

31:01

no surprise that many of the challenges

31:03

that all of these businesses face come back to similar things. And I think this

31:07

second port of call, which is perhaps more

31:10

pointed for this particular industry, is

31:13

how we get to this part of making people

31:17

seen, heard and valued. And I think the

31:20

tactics and strategies that we put in place for that to happen in this sector I

31:26

think is really, really interesting. So

31:29

what specifically, and we talked about a

31:32

lot of the sort of, I guess, more technical thing, the pay, the benefits,

31:34

the working conditions, the workplace

31:37

safety measures. But when it comes to

31:40

recognition and valuing and appreciating

31:43

what people do and how we show that and

31:45

supporting them through the more emotional

31:48

times, what's that future look like, Dan?

31:50

What should be happening? Well, I mean, we

31:54

spend a lot of time on that. Think what I

31:57

would say because we started prefacing the

32:00

conversation about recruitment and retention. Right. Because it's always

32:02

recruitment, it's always R and R recruitment and retention the wrong way

32:05

around retention, then recruitment, right?

32:08

Put a plug in the bath, then start filling it up. Otherwise it doesn't matter how

32:11

fast you run the taps, you are not filling that bath up. Right. And in our industry

32:15

60% to 70% staff turnover common in

32:17

domiciliary care businesses, right? So fix

32:20

your retention problems first. Now, retention is all about engagement with the

32:24

people looking through the eyes of a

32:27

caregiver, recognizing what's important to

32:29

them. It's about a clear point of

32:32

communication where they understand the importance that they have within the

32:35

organization. So simple stuff. Even though

32:39

I'm chief exec for an organization now with 60 officers around the country we are

32:43

growing phenomenally quickly. My business

32:46

in Sheffield, the one that I started first and foremost I still meet every new

32:49

caregiver that joins us. I still take time

32:51

during their induction to go down and say hello and to make sure they've all got my

32:54

mobile phone number. And I say to them look, don ring me at 02:00 in the morning

32:58

on a Friday night when you're drunk, right? Because if you do that I'm going to

33:00

want to know why I wasn't invited to the party. Right? They need to know who I am

33:05

and they also need to know that they can, if they need to, contact me. Now that's

33:08

very uncommon. The number of people says to me I've worked in care for ten years,

33:11

I've never met the owner of the business

33:14

before. And equally workplace recognition

33:18

we have Caregiver of the Month, we have

33:21

Caregiver of the Year. We then have a national Caregiver of the Year program

33:24

where each Caregiver of the Year from each other offices locally is brought together

33:28

at our conference which is 1 December this

33:31

year in Birmingham and at last year's

33:34

conference in Manchester lady called Jane

33:37

who works for our Burton office won our

33:39

Caregiver of the Year award. She'd worked in Care for 34 years and her award with us

33:44

was the first piece of workplace

33:46

recognition she'd ever received. That

33:50

again tells you that people are not focusing on things which are really quite

33:53

straightforward to do now. So we've got an

33:55

inverted organizational chart at Visiting

33:57

Angels. So I started the business from my

34:00

dining room table and you say I had the luxury of starting from scratch. I would

34:03

argue that when it was just my dining room table it didn't feel like much of a luxury

34:06

back then. As the guy that started the

34:10

organization I'm the least important person here. I'm at the bottom of our

34:15

organizational chart as the least important person here. Our caregivers are

34:18

at the top of the organizational chart. So we have an upside down pyramid if you want

34:21

to look at it that way now because I am at

34:23

the bottom of that pyramid and the point is on my shoulders the strength of belief

34:28

I have to have in our vision has to feed

34:31

those above me. But the larger we get as

34:33

an organization the less important my belief is. It's not that I believe it less

34:38

it's just that when you've got more people in your organization their belief becomes

34:41

more important than yours. Does. Right? So they need to be carer centric as well. If

34:46

I surpass a manager, if I loop past a

34:49

manager and love a carer directly, I

34:52

invalidate that manager's position in the

34:54

organization. So my job is to support them, to help them to love their staff

34:57

more. Okay? And then they can love their

34:59

staff more. Now, when you work that way,

35:01

you end up with everybody in the organization bearing some responsibility

35:05

for being carer centric. It's possible at

35:08

Visiting Angels for a carer working

35:10

alongside another carer to be so impressed

35:13

by the work that's done by a colleague on an evening shift, a double handed evening

35:16

shift, that she can ring the office and ask the office to send that carer. A thank

35:20

you card from her arrives through the

35:23

post. We facilitate a carer thanking

35:25

another carer. Yeah. So these things are

35:28

the things which really matter. Our conference theme last year actually was

35:31

1000 Tiny, Thank Yous. Because whenever I

35:34

talk about this stuff, I end up inevitably talking about the big commercial levers

35:37

like pay, benefits and contracts. But

35:40

actually, 1000 tiny thank yous is how you

35:42

embed a culture. 1000 tiny thank yous is

35:45

how you help people to feel like they belong to an organization. That stuff's

35:49

the stuff that's important when it comes to retention and as you. Grow, Dan, the

35:54

task of inculcating the same beliefs, the

35:58

values, the attitudes, the behaviors that

36:00

you're talking mean, again, very similar

36:03

to lots of businesses, that growth phase

36:06

is a time when that can become a bit

36:09

wobbly and more difficult. So in terms of

36:12

your focus on leadership and values and

36:18

really recognizing and accentuating the

36:21

right behaviors, how do you go about doing

36:24

that? Practically. Practically, I would

36:26

say the biggest problem we've got in that respect is we recruit from an industry or

36:30

we are the outliers. And it's not

36:32

completely alien to other people, but it's

36:35

not common practice for us to operate the

36:37

way we operate, right? So if we're bringing in an experienced individual into

36:40

a new location 100 miles down the road from where I'm sat today, the danger is

36:45

that they're carer centric to our faces.

36:47

Right? They say they believe in the mantra

36:49

when they're going through the interview process, but they get into the

36:51

organization and then they start to do the things that they used to do in the other

36:54

business that they worked in. And that's not the carer centric way. Right? So for a

36:59

start, we interview hard and we interview

37:01

hard for attitude. Not aptitude for people

37:06

that understand the problem. If they can't

37:08

identify the problem, they're the wrong person. Right? So identify the problem and

37:12

also recognize the responsibility that they can take for doing something

37:15

different. How can they make a change? How

37:18

can they have some ownership for the

37:20

vision and the mission we have as an organization? Does their value base match

37:23

our value base? Right? So scenario based

37:25

questions during interviewing to find a

37:27

way of understanding how people think.

37:30

Psychometric testing for everybody, by the way, we not only psychometric test

37:33

managers and senior managers, we also every single caregiver that works for

37:36

visiting Angels has been psychometrically

37:38

tested. So we understand our people as

37:40

best as we possibly can do when they have day one in the organization. But then we

37:44

recognize day one in the organization is when the hard work really starts, right?

37:48

Because inevitably with volume and with

37:50

growth and with pressure comes sometimes a

37:53

suggestion of maybe stepping away. That's not the right way. Is it carer centric?

37:58

Which means the question on is it carer centric? Has got to be a very easy one for

38:01

people to ask. And on the walls of our

38:05

organizations around the country we have sort of graphics on the walls which are

38:09

designed to make people think about the fact they are working collectively as a

38:12

team towards a shared goal. The missions on the wall. We also ask the question what

38:16

have you done to be carer centric today?

38:19

And we have a ship's bell or a last

38:22

order's bell on where you come from, which

38:25

is on the wall. And that's designed to be rung by any of the office team when

38:28

someone does something carer centric so

38:30

there's an audible break in a busy office

38:33

environment to get everyone thinking oh, we've just done something of no. The thing

38:36

we've done of no is to help a caregiver to

38:38

benefit a caregiver. But the very basic

38:41

question is as a business we ask ourselves the question if we do that, does it

38:44

improve the life of a carer? Because if it doesn't improve the life of a carer, it

38:47

doesn't matter how much money we might make in doing it, it's not carer centric.

38:51

So we just don't do it. And I'm aware that

38:54

it makes us then sound like we're some sort of religious sect or some cult or

38:58

something like that. And people have

39:01

summed us up as a business which is too

39:03

fluffy because they just can't be bothered

39:06

understanding it. People who are in very

39:09

senior positions in organizations that also work in our sector think that it's a

39:14

shame when I go on TV and talk about

39:16

treating carers well and properly because they believe we need to stick together and

39:19

I'm like, no, we really don't. Now we need

39:22

to change things. When you interview a

39:25

caregiver who has been working 60 hours a

39:28

week in their previous week but only been

39:30

paid for 50 of those 60 hours, they're

39:32

struggling to make ends meet because of the fuel prices have gone up, because the

39:36

heating costs have gone up, because the food prices have gone up. The cost of

39:39

living is squeezing them really tight and

39:41

you sit them down and point out that actually if they'd worked for Visiting

39:44

Angels they would have been paid for all of their driving as well. People cry

39:51

that's the thing. We're trying to drive out a change basically. And I'm sure when

39:56

this podcast goes live, Andy, there'll be some people that listen to what we talk

39:59

about today and will dismiss it. Hopefully there'll be some people who take a few

40:02

nuggets away from this and things that they can potentially involve in their

40:06

organizations and make some changes there as well. But as a sector, if we don't

40:10

change, the problem is going to get worse, not better. As I always say on these sorts

40:13

of topics, Dan, we've got to talk about

40:15

them and people have to express opinion to

40:18

gain other people's opinion. You're

40:20

expressing your opinion on it. I have a

40:23

small insight in some of the work that

40:25

I've done, but I'm not living in the

40:28

industry, I'm not working in the industry, I don't experience the life of a carer.

40:33

But I do think from this conversation,

40:35

from research, from things that you read

40:38

and things that you see on the telly, I

40:42

say we, the care sector is experiencing

40:45

very similar issues with regards to

40:48

retention and recruitments to lots of people. It's not just about the care

40:52

industry. We're using the care industry today as a sort of tableau for some pretty

40:57

standard stuff. I'm really always

40:59

interested though, to hear what industry leaders are doing in their sector to try

41:03

and move the dial. Sometimes we hear new

41:06

things and they can be applied to other businesses, sometimes it's doubling down

41:09

on the stuff that's really important and to use your words, they are mainly common

41:14

sense, but unfortunately not common

41:17

practice. So on many of the things that

41:19

you've talked about today, I've seen snippets of this when I've gone into

41:23

places and work with care. Is it

41:25

consistent? I don't know. I have not seen

41:27

everywhere you're in it. You're telling me it's not consistent? What I would say is

41:32

if it was consistent, we wouldn't have the work crisis that we've got. Right. The

41:38

response to the workforce crisis in itself is interesting, right? Because there was a

41:43

report issued this last week actually, which estimates that the cost of moving

41:47

the pay rate for a home care worker to an

41:50

acceptable pay rate is 2 billion. So that

41:54

means we're 2 billion adrift of an acceptable pay rate currently is the way

41:57

to read that. Now, as a result of that,

42:00

the government are quite happy to spend 15 million quid on a TV campaign to try and

42:04

attract people to work in care because it's cheaper to do that than it is to fix

42:07

the problem. There are some in the industry who believe that we fix the

42:10

problem of sort of the shortage of care workers in the UK with overseas

42:14

recruitment. And personally my view is I

42:16

don't think we find 152,000 fill, 152,000

42:21

vacancies by finding people from around the world who don't know how difficult the

42:24

job is bringing them to the UK and then

42:26

hoping they don't find out because they

42:29

figure it out pretty quickly, right? If you've not got your house in order, if

42:32

you've not made the job a better job, then

42:35

it's not going to appeal to those people that you need to come and do. Absolutely.

42:40

I mean, for me, this conversation has been

42:43

fascinating, Dan, to have an insider view

42:45

into the issues and the potential

42:49

solutions to making it the best job in the

42:52

world. But we've come to the part in the show that I call Sticky Notes Dan, where

42:56

I'm asking you to summarize all of the

42:59

thoughts, pent up, upset, whatever it

43:02

might be, my friend, in that on three

43:05

sticky notes, leave the audience today

43:08

with how we can make the job of a carer

43:11

the best job in the world. Okay? Number

43:14

one, we've talked about it already. They are the entry level things. They have to

43:17

be on the table things. It's pay contracts

43:20

and pay for work that's done, okay? If you

43:23

are not creating a situation where people

43:25

are earning what they should earn if they

43:28

are driving between visits and not being

43:30

paid for that, if they are stopping beyond

43:32

the end of the visit and not being paid for that. If they are not getting enough

43:36

money from their organization to cover the cost of running the car that they're

43:39

having to pay for themselves to get around and do the work, then these things are

43:43

basics. You cannot equally expect loyalty

43:45

if you're not going to extend loyalty. So zero hour contracts do not have a place in

43:49

this as far as I'm concerned. Minimum wage

43:51

is not enough. We're paying up to 16

43:53

pounds an hour across the country. We pay

43:55

travel time, we have proper contracts, we find it easier to find people. Right? So

43:58

number one is that number two is

44:03

absolutely the attitude that you take as

44:05

an organization to your people. Not when

44:08

you're forced to think about it, but all

44:11

of the time, people say to me, I can tell

44:15

you that our staff turnover nationally across the UK is 13% against an industry

44:20

average of 60% to 70%. And then people say

44:22

to me, we've got pretty good staff retention in our organization. And I will

44:25

say, okay, what is it? And they can't give me a number, which means they wish it was.

44:30

If you don't measure it, you can't improve

44:32

it. Right? And we've got some key performance indicators that we regularly

44:36

work with, including staff burn rate,

44:38

staff turnover, cost of recruitment and

44:41

the capacity for taking additional cases,

44:44

how under or overworked the team that you've got currently are. Now, if you're

44:47

measuring those things, you've got a barometer for whether your workforce and

44:51

your attitude to your workforce is where you need it to be. Because I can guarantee

44:55

you that all of these things are connected. Because if you pay people

44:59

better, treat people better and have happier carers as a result of that, then

45:03

it's easier to keep people because you've got the best job in town. It's easier to

45:07

recruit people because they recommend to their friends, come and work here, and

45:10

their friends are prepared to come and work there, right? If they're not enjoying

45:14

their life, no one's saying to their friends, Come over here, it's rubbish,

45:17

right? So you create that positive environment, then you get referrals. And

45:20

about 30% of all of our new caregivers are a referral from an existing caregiver.

45:24

We're running a happy ship. So that has got to be it as well, not thinking about

45:28

it when you have to think about it,

45:30

thinking about it all the time. And I

45:34

think the final thing I would say in terms of a sticky note is it's broken. We need

45:39

to stop talking about the fact it's broken

45:42

and we need to start doing something to

45:44

fix it. And as an industry and the

45:49

politicians that work around this and the civil servants that work around this,

45:52

everybody has got caught up on what is a

45:55

generational shift. The fixes that are

45:59

needed are fixes, which are 1015 year

46:01

fixes, right? So politicians work in five

46:03

year cycles, so they struggle with it because they can't see it within the

46:06

electoral period that they're involved in, right? It's expensive. It requires people

46:11

to recognize that social care is not free

46:13

at the point of use like the NHS is, when

46:15

many people believe it is. So they get to a point of thinking, I'm going to get this

46:18

free care, and then they don't. There's a

46:20

conversation around how care is paid for,

46:23

there's a conversation with regard to how care is bought. But we've got to have that

46:29

conversation because, as I've said already, in the absence of enough money

46:32

from central government, in the absence of enough money from local government and in

46:35

a situation where some care employers are

46:38

not treating their staff the way that we would expect them to treat their staff.

46:42

The problem is that caregivers are the

46:44

ones that end up subsidizing care packages

46:47

by doing all paid work and by not getting

46:49

enough money to cover their cost of working. So, yeah, there's a problem

46:53

there. Now, politician will say it's too big a problem to fix. We've got an

46:55

industry in crisis. The hyperbole around

46:59

describing how bad the situation is has

47:01

just increased and increased and increased. We're at a point now where we

47:04

need a Spielberg esque movie to describe

47:07

the crisis of disaster that is the care

47:10

industry, right? Or we could just say,

47:13

well, we can fix this. If I improve the

47:16

working environment of one carer, that one

47:20

carer can improve the life of three, five,

47:23

7910, 15 clients over their time with the

47:25

organization, I can do that, I'm in

47:28

control of that, I can take ownership of that. So that is what I am trying to do.

47:32

And if that happens, my friend, the world

47:35

becomes a better place. Some real food for

47:37

thought in those sticky notes. Dan, thank

47:39

you so much. Thank you for coming on and

47:42

thank you for speaking so candidly about

47:45

the industry that you clearly care about

47:48

and are trying to affect some change in.

47:51

It's been really interesting listening to

47:54

you. Thank you very much for coming on. Andy. Listen, thank you for having me on.

47:58

It's interesting, right? So your podcast

48:01

is Sticky from the Inside, right? We talk

48:04

all the time in the organization about how we are sticky as an employer. I didn't

48:09

know that when I started doing that. I've not nicked it from you, I promise you, but

48:14

that in itself is a conversation for a care provider. How do they make themselves

48:18

sticky? How do they make it somewhere that

48:20

people have a relationship with more want to stay? So it's been an absolute pleasure

48:24

to speak to you. Thank you very much for letting me rant for a little bit. I will

48:28

dismount my soapbox now in return. Listen,

48:31

I'm a massive fan of soapboxes, so you're

48:34

welcome to use that any old time, my friend. You take care. Thanks for coming

48:36

on. Thanks, Andy. OK, everyone, that was

48:40

Dan Archer and if you'd like to find out a

48:42

bit more about him or any of the topics

48:45

that we've talked about today, then please

48:47

check out the show notes. So that

48:52

concludes today's episode. I hope you've

48:55

enjoyed it, found it interesting and heard

48:58

something maybe that will help you become a stickier more successful business from

49:03

the inside going forward. If you have,

49:06

please like comment and subscribe. It

49:09

really helps. I'm Andy Goreham, and you've

49:12

been listening to the Sticky from the Inside podcast. Until next time, thanks