I often say that if you make a poor recruitment selection decision there are two likely outcomes. One is that the employee will leave – with all the costs involved, including those of recruiting again. The other is that the employee will stay and you will still be regretting it years later!
When we ask care providers about their employment issues, ‘selection’ is invariably the top challenge of recruitment, so this new toolkit from the National Skills Academy, for recruiting based on values, will be extremely beneficial.
The development of the toolkit has been at the behest of the Department of Health as one of the outcomes of the events at Winterbourne View. It has also been the subject of a detailed evaluation over a period of 12 months by Jacqui Goode, Chartered MCIPD. While her final report on that evaluation is couched in cautious language, there can be little doubt that the piloting of the toolkit has been a success.
Good, even best, practice
This kit is going to provide the opportunity for small care providers to effect good, even best, practice in the selection of employees to our sector. If you are a small provider you should find the guidance on the wording of advertisements, appropriate interview questions and terminology itself especially helpful.
There is a risk, in my view, that the material might seem overwhelming but, taken bit by bit with one specific recruitment task in mind at a time, it offers a practical DIY framework for the small provider.
HR professionals in larger organisations (or HR professionals assisting small organisations) are going to find this a useful toolkit too. The groundwork in developing person specifications, advertisements and selection processes has been done. It only remains for the processes to be applied skilfully.
Getting recruitment right
Good selection is not sufficient on its own – leadership, supervision and training play their part – but it is the starting point and feeds through to all the right indicators, retention, effective care, and, where this is a consideration, return on investment.
Get recruitment and selection right and you will be able to focus on your main raison d’etre.
In the hands of any committed individual, adoption of this toolkit is bound to lead to better care provision, but, as with many online resources, there is still a place for trained HR professionals.
Anyone using this kit for recruitment is unlikely to regret it.
Malcolm Martin of Employer Solutions – QCS HR Expert contributor.
