The importance of an open-door policy, company ethos, and employee value to maintain retention rates

Qasim:
My name is Qasim, I'm the director at PBL Care, my background was finance. I'm chartered accountant by profession.

Mohammed:
My name is Mohammed, I am the director and registered manager at PBL CARE. I've worked in the care industry since before we had started PBL Care, which is about seven or eight years ago now.

Shaked:
What do you think about the care image today?

Qasim:
The image and the way they portray it, Not a lot of people are interested to go into the care sector. A lot of companies don't reward the employees enough, the low retention rate, And I think at the moment that image kind of puts people off from applying. And there's not much money in this sector. With care it's an inner thing. You've got to be born with it. And I think if you have that, then you will actually see the benefits of it as well.

Shaked:
I think you just got an award for innovative process in europe?

Qasim:
Basically the award highlighted what we've done with technology. So what we've done is we've basically used AI and technology to implement it in the care sector because I think it was kind of missing in the care sector. And what this allows us to do now is to have a person centered care with each patient. So it allows us to see what the patient has eaten at lunchtime, what they've eaten in the evening. Are they having a good sleep? If they're not having a good sleep, why they're not having a good sleep. So it's kind of looking more deeper inside and seeing what the actual issue and the problem is and what we can do to resolve it by getting the data and the information.

Mohammed:
And I think what it does in terms of staff and retention, it makes it a bit more exciting for people to work in this industry because before it was very sort of meticulous. But now I think with technology and the way that organizations such as ourselves have adapted, the way we've changed, we're kind of attracting more people and people are staying with us, we’re retaining more staff because of the good work that we do. It's not sort of like we're coming in doing the same thing every day. We're coming in and we're making a difference. I think that's the key thing there.

Shaked:
Caregivers, they join the company, They go through the induction, probably one week and then 60, 90 days probably don't get any mentorship. They're out there alone. That's why we see also 53% of carers leave after six months. How do you guys deal with that and make such good retention to avoid those issues?

Qasim:
From the application stage, we make it very clear, the HR makes it very clear that there's a progression channel. We have employees in our office right now that started as caregivers and are registered managers right now. This also helps to the retention. You know, we will invest in their education, we’ll make sure they get their diplomas done if there's any of the courses that they're interested in, we would do that. Our registered manager and the team, they would keep supervisions where basically they get to know what the staff want as well. I think that's how you keep them as well as get the best out of them as well.

Mohammed:
I think the culture of the organization is very, very important for retention. I think it's very important to make people feel wanted, make people feel valued, and I think that's what we do very well at PBL Care, hence why we have a very high retention rate. We've had staff who have joined us from the first day and they're still with us now.

Shaked:
We see like a new generation entering the workforce, Generation Z and even like older people, we always used to communicate instantly to engage with each other instantly, to consume information instantly. How do you provide the same experience?

Mohammed:
In the new generation you know, everybody wants to have a flamboyant job, you know, something that's a bit, you know, boujee as they say. What we find is when we meet people who have gone through certain life experiences, certain things have happened in their households. They are the ones that are usually good carers and those are the ones that we are looking out for. There are certain skills that individuals have that make them excellent carers.

Qasim:
How we market them as well, attracting the right audience and tell them about the opportunities we have and how you can grow with us.

Shaked:
What can we do on top of pay in order to make sure to bring those talents and people that are doing this quality work and keep them for the long run?

Qasim:
Tell them about our ethos, our company, what our vision is, what their vision... and if it correlates, they want to stay within that company, they want to grow. If they know that we have an open door policy where they could go to the registered manager, both the directors are in the office and they can come and speak to us about anything. Then it kind of gives them that retention, they know ‘we’re respected’, ‘were valued in this organization.’ And I think that's very important.

Mohammed:
If you offer a job to someone and there's no movement, then there's not going to be any motivation from them. You're not going to get the best out of them. So if you offer opportunity to develop your skills, to progress in your career, to go further, what we've noticed that you get the best out of people, you get the best work out of them.

Shaked:
What is your number one focus for this year?

Qasim:
We want to be even better than we are. We want to make sure that we continuously grow with that quality, put new systems in place where we can basically enhance our quality even more. The main thing is that, always working with technology and how we can basically use data and whatever information we have and analyze it in such a way which it could be the best for the patient as well as the care staff as well. This is one of the KPIs that we're using technology and data in order to see where we can improve or what we can do for the patient differently to provide an even better quality service.

Shaked:
What is your number one piece of advice for new care providers?

Qasim:
The younger generation, the younger mentality, they have that openness where they want to be transparent, they want to talk to other partners and see how can we work together to grow. I think always work together, learn from each other. This is the biggest advice I would give.

Mohammed:
The client is always at the top, we have to make sure that we don't forget where our objectives are. We strive to provide the best care for, for the people that we care for.