Living Wage Week shines a light on why decent pay is vital to build a skilled, quality workforce
Living Wage Week shines a light on why decent pay is vital to build a skilled, quality workforce
This week is Living Wage Week. I’m delighted that it has been marked by a rise in the real living wage in Scotland to £9.50.
This is a move I wholeheartedly support. HRM Homecare is a Scottish Living Wage employer, and we have also signed the Scottish Business Pledge. Excellent care provision is built on the foundation of a skilled, quality workforce. To achieve this, workers need to be invested in.
But with more than two decades in care at home provision behind me, I realise that as well as pay it’s about having a caring environment for your staff. My experience has taught me that a successful workforce is one that’s treated like family.
That is why, like in family life, our working environment at HRM Homecare is based on core values of respect, collaboration, participation and dignity, empowerment, trust, accountability and compassion.
Key among this, in my experience, is looking to hiring the next generation of carers. It’s vital we provide a real financial incentive for young people to choose a career in care. Currently, the Scottish Living Wage applies to workers over the age of 25. At HRM Homecare, I’ve made sure that those who train to become carers with us get the full Scottish Living Wage regardless of age.
I think this sends out a really important message – if you have the skills and the talent to be a really good carer, your age doesn’t matter.
I’ve learned that care workers are at the coalface of modern day care provision – especially during COVID-19. They deal on a daily basis with difficult, challenging and complex needs, and now more than ever require the soft skills to help support people so they can live well and independently in their own homes.
I have also learned that to help them deliver this, they need the right training. So I set up a dedicated training centre, HSC Futures Training Academy. Through the academy, I encourage my staff to undertake national-recognised SVQ qualifications through HSC Futures. Here people can learn qualifications tailored to meet the social care at home sector’s changing needs. This is so important – life doesn’t stand still, and neither does care.
I want my staff to access a range of benefits such as flexible work patterns for a suitable work/life balance and to meet caring responsibilities at home, hold regular social events, pay for overtime, change job roles following injury or illness, change hours to observe religious customs.
Over the years I have brought in regular ways of listening to staff – through surveys, meetings or just a good simple face-to-face chat. A result of one survey was a request was to bring in flexible pay. So we embraced this by launching a partnership with earnings on demand app Hastee. This platform now allows workers to receive a portion of their earned pay as and when they require it.
My long career in care at home provision has also given me an insight into just how big an employer the social care sector is across Scotland – and people might not realise that the social care sector employs 7.7% of the Scottish labour force.
We have a real shot at developing something fantastic, by investing in our staff to build a future workforce that transforms adult care at home services as we know it.
So I hope that this Living Wage Week helps us take stock of who we are, where we have come from, and where we want to go. And key to this is a national network of valued carers.
Lynn Laughland