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Being deliberate in how you recruit is crucial to reducing staff turnover and future recruitment demands.

You should communicate clearly with applicants about progress on their application, to not only keep them on board during the recruitment process but to help build positive relationships from the start. Share information and timeframes early on to ensure eager applicants can start as soon as possible. 

Values-based recruitment is a way of getting to know people, their motivations, passions, interests and whether they will be a good fit for your organisation and the roles you are recruiting to. This enables you to make the best possible recruitment choices for those who you provide care and support to. Values-based recruitment gives organisations the ability to look wider than the usual pool of recruits to find people who may not have any previous experience in care but who have exactly the sorts of values and behaviours that would make them an asset to any care organisation. 

Employee referral schemes – which encourage staff to source candidates in exchange for rewards or compensation – are a proven way to recruit staff with the right values who are more likely to stay for longer. Employees referral schemes can be managed in various ways, including through the , which is used by over 700 care providers with over 40,000 app users. 

Research has found that values-based recruitment has resulted in lower recruitment costs, positive return on investment, increased staff retention, and better staff performance.

Top tips: 

  • Use your workplace culture development to decide what values and behaviours you want to embed in your organisation and map these to job adverts.
  • Support managers to implement values-based recruitment through effective training and development.
  • Support candidates throughout values-based recruitment by being upfront about the style of interview in the job advert, and what values and behaviours you are seeking.
  • Buddy up and/or mentoring new employees with another staff member on arrival, so they have a clear advice and support route immediately.
  • Continuously review your values and behaviours as your culture evolves and ensure that your interview methods reflect this. Review your interview methods to see if it is boosting retainment and bringing in the right skills, values and attributes.
  • Use an employee referral scheme to enable your current workforce to help recruit people with the right values to work for you.

Claire Callaghan, Registered Manager and Director, Bowfell House

What we did:

We set a target this year to reduce our turnover within the first 13 weeks of employment by strengthening our induction process and new-starter training.

Why we did it:

Recruitment is costly and disruptive for everyone, so we wanted to be getting it right first time.

How we did it:

It started with the recruitment process and getting the right people in from the start. We reintroduced face-to-face interviews, which includes a follow-up session with successful candidates where they spend time with our staff and the people we support, who each then provide us with their feedback on the candidate and how they engaged. We take a very values-based approach to recruitment, to make sure people are the right fit. Once in the role each new starter has a mentor to help them settle in professionally and personally. They also have regular supervisions with their line manager and an appraisal at the end of the probation period.

The results:

From Sept 20–Sept 21 we had 14 people who left the organisation within their probationary contract. This year we had 0. 

Useful links

Manchester Metropolitan University’s

ԭζÊÓƵ’s Workshop and Seminars on values-based recruitment

ԭζÊÓƵ’s Attracting people

Care Friends