As the quality of your staffing care will dictate the ultimate success or failure of your care home, it is essential you recruit the right quality and quantity of staff at the right price. Your care home staffing costs will probably be your largest single type of running cost in your profit and loss account. With this in mind your business plan will be highly dependent upon approval from your local authority. They will be checking staffing levels to ensure that the ratio of care assistants to residents during the day and night complies with the legal minimum.
You will need to recruit a team of people. Most importantly you will need an officer in charge as well as a deputy officer in charge. You will also need to recruit care assistants, domestic staff and cooks. The larger the care home building and greater the number of residents, the greater the probability you will also need other staff as well. These may include handymen, laundry assistants, kitchen assistants, a gardener and a secretary or receptionist. You may also need a least one trained registered nurse on duty at any one time.
Staffing costs are one of the few variable costs that can actually control by deciding to increase or decrease them to meet your business needs. However the population’s increased demand for high-quality care should take paramount over cost-cutting. Many of your staff will be on a part-time basis and working in shift patterns. This will help you manage unexpected staff illness and keep National Insurance costs down. So is vital you understand the latest employment laws and rights of part-time workers.
Setting up the fixed working patterns (typically day shift and nightshift) will also help to manage staffing wages in your care home. Don’t forget that retaining good staff is almost as hard as recruiting them in the first place. So as a manager of a care home you need to offer descent pay and provide industry standard benefits and flexibility. The quality and safety of your working environment is also important. You obviously want to avoid claims for negligence from a member of staff that has suffered any type of injury. At Assetsure we provide employers liability insurance for care homes to cover against claims from employees.
Probably the simplest way to advertise for qualified staff is to use your local job centre, classifieds in your local newspaper, online health care recruitment websites and through existing word-of-mouth contacts. The law dictates that you follow fixed guidelines for what goes into your advertisement and you should check the latest rules with the United Kingdom Homecare Association (UKHCA). Checking references with their previous employer is also an essential part of the recruitment process. You should also speak with your solicitor to make sure that you are complying throughout the recruitment process with all employment laws including how to behave in an interview process, how to correctly make a job offer, the employment contract itself and the basis for any redundancies in the future.
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