Analyzing Recruitment and Retention in Health and Social Care Sector

This essay provides a critical analysis of the factors involved in the recruitment and retention of health and social care (HSC) workers at the London Nursing Home. It emphasizes the importance of strategic workforce planning, considering organizational goals, skill requirements, and budgetary constraints. The essay also discusses relevant policy frameworks and legislative acts, such as the Employment Rights Act 1996 and the Data Protection Act 2010, which ensure fair recruitment practices. Furthermore, it outlines a systematic recruitment and selection process, including short-listing, interviewing, and pre-employment checks. The essay explores models for teamwork, such as Tuckman’s Stages of Group Development and Belbin’s Team Roles, to enhance team efficiency and interpersonal relations within the nursing home. Effective communication, mutual trust, and employee motivation are highlighted as key elements for fostering a collaborative and productive work environment.

Running head: HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE
Health and social care
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Introduction
Management of human resources in health and social care (HSC) is a coherent and
strategic approach towards organizational valued assets where people work together in
collaboration contributing to the achievement of goals and objectives. Armstrong and Taylor
(2014) stated that organizational management in HSC is to understand the recruitment and
designing strategies for building an effective workforce. Employment of workers in HSC is a
complex and challenging task as the workforce need to focus on the quality of healthcare
delivered to the service users. In the present case scenario of London Nursing Home, there is
need for workforce retention to have organizational improvement and identification of training
for HSC workers. There is also a need to focus on costs, time experiences, location, and number
of employees, quantity and quality of jobs, legislation, policies and organizational structure at the
nursing home. Budget is another aspect that needs focus for managing of service users’ needs
and time planning for staff recruitment, arrangement of interviews and selection (Shortell 2013).
Planning time is important for managing HR in nursing home as different organizational aspects
needs to be taken into consideration in a short span of time with accurate planning. Therefore,
the following essay involves the critical analysis of factors required for recruitment and retention
of workers at the London Nursing Home.
1.1 For the recruitment of HSC workers at the Nursing Home, planning needs to be done with a
focus on the goals and objectives of the organization. During planning, various factors need
to be taken into consideration like workforce planning, meeting of organizational needs,
analysis of skills, experience and qualifications of candidates, job description and
advertising. Workforce planning is important as it helps to select the right candidates in
providing the best quality of care and help to achieve the organizational needs. A good

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workforce help the nursing home to be more successful and get the right people with right
skills at the right place who are able to meet the changing needs and opportunities in the
future. The nursing home need to adopt a framework that must be tailored to meet the overall
operational, strategic and legislative requirements involving the stakeholders. The framework
outlines the guiding principles that are based upon individual workforce planning actions
(Imison and Bohmer 2013).
The health and social care workers at the Nursing Home should be capable enough to
meet the needs of the population and HR should plan for right competencies and skills in
delivering these services. As the resources are limited, HR should ensure that planning
projections are affordable, sustainable and deliverable are within the existing budgets and
allocations. Workforce planning is an important factor during recruitment, as the planning
must operate within the scope of availability of supply for achieving the organizational needs
and healthcare grades (Bohmer and Imison 2013). Moreover, workforce planning at the
Nursing Home should ensure that healthcare workforce is supported through training. It must
address the healthcare service delivery and adapt to the changing skills and competencies
required for effective healthcare delivery. Apart from workforce planning, the nursing home
should be clear about the competence, skills, experience and education levels of the
individuals whom they want to recruit. Considering this, other factors include availability of
workers who can fulfil the job requirements through internal or through external recruitment
(Miller and Tucker 2013). The financial factors also need to be planned that has implications
on recruiting and training individuals for required levels and competencies. Once the
planning is done, there is need to attract the right individuals for the required roles (Melchor
2013). Advertisements specifying the job requirements can help in gathering the adequate

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skilled workers for the London Nursing Home. This can be done through publishing the job
descriptions in the newspapers in the local job sections. The social media networking sites
can also be used to publish job vacancy, job fairs, and recruitment agencies to ensure that
HSC organizations can attract the suitable skilled workers (Florea and Badea 2013).
1.2 For the recruitment, selection and employment of individuals, various policy frameworks and
legislative acts have been enacted. These acts can help the Nursing Home to ensure fair
recruitment and selection of candidates that is not based on favouritism. These acts influence
the recruitment and selection of individuals in a more efficient and flexible manner helping
employers to make safe decisions during recruitment. Employment Rights Act 1996 is a UK
Act of Parliament under Conservative government that codify exiting law for individual
rights under UK labour law. This act guides the fair recruitment by setting out rights for
employees in situations like high rate of employee turnover, low pay, inadequate salaries and
poor working conditions. The Act will guide recruitment in a way where main terms between
employer and employee should be documented in a written statement containing particulars
(Pyper and McGuiness 2013). This document must be signed creating an enforceable
contract stating statutory rights of employment. Similarly, Data Protection Act 2010 controls
how the nursing home and government use the personal information of individuals being
recruited. Employers have the responsibility to follow legal protection act for protecting
information of employees. This Act covers data or information stored and provides a
guideline for setting up rules that selected employees need to follow. During recruitment,
employers should handle personal data of employees according to data protection rights
keeping them safe and secure (Koops 2014).

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Recruitment and Selection Policy in UK states that recruitment and selection of right
individuals is of paramount importance ensuring that best individuals are recruited based on
merit and selection is free from discrimination and bias. According to this UK policy,
recruiting departments and employers should monitor staff recruitment and convey
information that enables appropriate monitoring of recruitment activity. With these acts and
policies, employers at the Nursing Home ensure to select right individuals who enter the
workforce and appropriate procedures that avoid exploitation and discrimination within the
workplace (Townley 2014).
1.3 Recruitment and selection is a systematic process including steps: choice of candidate,
Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS), short-listing, interviewing, and appointment of
individuals in HSC. In this process, the selection panel should comprise of interviewers who
would short-list and conduct interview. The interviewers should be balanced and unaffected
by race and gender having understanding and experience in safe recruitment and selection
process (Ventola 2014). After the closing date of vacancy advertisement, HR manager should
close the position and start short-listing the candidates. In this process, there should be
consistent and systematic approach as all applicants must be assessed equally against the
specific criteria without any variation or expectation (Melanthiou, Pavlou and Constantinou
2015). The information given in the applications should be crosschecked and skills and
personal qualities should be used in relation to experience and qualifications. The next step is
interview where the candidates should be asked to appear with their original documents like
passport, birth certificate and photograph identification (Dmitrieva et al. 2014). Face-to-face
interviews should be conducted where it must be according to employment legislation. The
questions and answers in the interview must be retained and scoring should be done

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separately for each candidate. The evaluation of the information should be obtained and
based on that, decision should be taken to appoint candidate to a role working in HSC.
Finally, in the appointment stage, candidate must be selected based on their ability,
experiences and suitability in performing the role rather than availability or urgency of the
applicant (McGraw 2013). After this stage, appointment letter should be given to the
successful candidates that are conditional based on pre-employment checks of DBS. This
comprises of verification of medical fitness, relevant professional status, written references
and completion of probation period. These steps ensure selection of based candidates to work
at the London Nursing Home.
2.1 Various models are proposed for teamwork and one of them is Tuckman’s Stages of
Group Development (1965) that can help in building efficient teams at the London Nursing
Home. Four stages in this model pass from ‘newly formed’ to ‘high performance’ comprising
of forming, storming, norming and performance. The first step comprises of forming where
all team members in health and social care are new and learning about challenges and
opportunities that are faced in the team. In this stage, they are dependent upon their superiors
and managers for support and guidance and team bonding occurs while sharing information
and forming alliances and friendships (Raes et al. 2015). The second stage is storming where
the team members of health and social care adopt different ideas for tackling issues or
problems, although this stage may give rise to conflict as ideas competes and effective
management is required in this stage for resolving conflicts. In norming stage, team
members agree over the solutions proposed for their team. During this stage, members talk
openly regarding their opinions and gain the ability to adjust to avoid conflicts and as a
result, members agree on rules, values, methods of work and professional behaviour.

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Performing is the final stage where team members cooperate, understands and supports each
other working as one team in unity. This is the final stage where team members have to reach
to show high performance with increased level of knowledge, motivation, autonomy and
competence (Bell and Morse 2013).
Another model is Belbin’s Team Roles where every team member should have clear
responsibilities, as each role is essential for achieving team’s goal at its fullest. Every team
member is assumed to have different team roles where every member has a particular way to
behave and contribute to the team performance and success. The nine roles are shaper,
implementer, complete finisher, co-ordinator (chairperson), resource investigator, team
worker, monitor evaluator, plant and specialist. These nine roles of team members are
divided into three main categories like action-oriented roles, people oriented roles and
cerebral roles. This model will be helpful for the Nursing Home to motivate workers in
enhancing their satisfaction, performance and commitment towards the organization. `This
teamwork theory will be helpful for bringing harmony in the team as there will be proper
communication of important messages to one another especially during handovers
(Batenburg, van Walbeek and in der Maur 2013).
2.2 Effective team working is a collaborative process used for enhancing social relations and
defining roles within the team. Considering the case scenario of the London Nursing Home,
it is important for HR managers to improve interpersonal relations and efficiency of
teamwork. The HR managers should pay attention to elements of team working and
cooperation that is tough to foster. The planning, organization and right kind of motivation
can help in effective team working (West and Lyubovnikova 2013).

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As the nursing home is facing problems in communication, it is important to have open
lines of communication between the teammates as well as with seniors. There should be
proper interpersonal relation management where there should be mutual communication,
sharing and support between the members (Nancarrow et al. 2013). This also helps to
develop trust and confidence among the team members and as a result, it develops
cooperation to work towards organizational goals. Mutual trust develops open
communication between team members and as a result, the employees will communicate
important messages to each other at the time of handovers ensuring patient safety and high
quality of care. The sense of unity will be embedded in the team that in turn will encourage
the members to accomplish tasks and enhance organizational commitment. In this way, team
members are familiarized with the organizational changes that also lead to individual job
satisfaction and growth (Bleakley 2013).
Motivation is also an effective way to make the team members work in a productive way.
Employee motivation involves evaluation of team members’ abilities and delegation of work
that can be helpful in making them understand their individual responsibilities. Effective HR
management styles can motivate team by recognizing their individual efforts in meeting the
targets of the London Nursing Home. Managers can develop intrinsic motivation by
assigning the right candidates and matching their expertise and capabilities and extrinsic
motivation through rewards, compensation and team-building exercises. Motivation can help
HSC workers to be motivated to work efficiently that can result in reduction in medical
errors and enhance quality of care (Bonenberger et al. 2014).
Leadership is another aspect that affects working of teamwork. All members should
benefit from the cooperation of team members supported by team leaders and encouraging

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them to speak their minds through open communication. Effective leadership skills help to
motivate team members so that they perform to their best potential. The team leader can
employer the members by assigning tasks and building trust in them. In addition, trust
enhances employee engagement and they will be dedicated to work tied to ownership and
freedom that workers are given (Batool 2013). Leadership can do wonders in efficient team
working at the nursing home. Role clarification among the team members can help to
establish clear roles within the team and efficient working at individual levels. Leadership
qualities make team members play their respective roles in goal accomplishment becoming
engaged and motivated (Wang, Waldman and Zhang 2014).
These approaches can help in effective team working that led HSC workers at the
Nursing Home to communicate with patients and their families, as it is easier for a cohesive
team. This will also enhance to bring diverse skills and knowledge together that can result in
effective decision-making and proper application of clinical care standards and protocols.
3.1 Individual performance in health and social care can be monitored in many ways. Firstly,
it is important to identify the current performance level and acknowledge areas where
improvements are required and make an agreement between employee and manager on how
improvements need to be done to achieve success. This improvements need to be linked to
the aims and objectives of the team by a manager enabling the employee to understand their
individual roles and contributions to be made within the team having ownership over their
own roles.

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Among all the tools, performance appraisal (PA) is most frequently used for measuring
individual performance. PA is referred as performance review, career evaluation of employee
or a method to evaluate and document performance of employee. PA is a periodic process
that is used to assess the performance of an individual in relation to the pre-established
organizational objectives and criteria (Culbertson, Henning and Payne 2013). The objective
production, judgmental evaluation and personnel are three methods for PA data collection.
This method is used for managing and aligning to the organizational resources for achieving
highest performance. PA is way used in HRM that review overall contribution of employees
to organizational success that evaluates achievements, skills and overall growth of the
employees. There are five main components of PA that includes measurement, feedback,
sharing of ideas, positive reinforcement and agreement.
Measurement is the accomplishment of goals that is established by organizations and
performance level of individuals are appraised. The information is provided to the employees
that are based on their individual performance and progress through feedback. A feedback in
the form of positive remarks or critical comments can help to understand their progress
during their tenure (Taplin, Foster and Shortell 2013). Sharing of ideas can be helpful where
mistakes made by the employees in the past can be measured and how they have recovered or
maintained their performance during the tenure. The final phase is agreement where
employees make their managers understand what are the targets and objectives that should be
accomplished and how one can overcome problems. Although, there is no permanent
approach to measure and appraise employees’ performance level, however, PA is a better
way to evaluate performance (Nuti, Seghieri and Vainieri 2013).

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Rewards and recognition can be a way to appraise the performance of an individual. The
ratings received by the employees are a result of supervisor observation evaluation of
performance that can directly affect their salary. The evaluation of employees’ performance
helps to recognize dedication, hard work and commitment of HSC workers towards
organizational goals. In this way, problems of poor wages and job dissatisfaction among the
HSC workers at the Nursing Home can be resolved through awards and motivate them
towards accomplishment of organizational goals. Rewards and recognition can also help to
identify highly proficient HSC workers by employer, assigning them additional
responsibilities or even promoting leadership role (Okello and Gilson 2015).
Feedback is another method where there is performance evaluation through sharing of
feedback emphasizing on the strengths of employees rather than reprimanding him or her for
under performance (Christ et al. 2016). This process is used by HSC organizations to
recommend ways for improving skills and overcoming weaknesses. Supervision meetings are
other ways to discuss one’s progress, descriptions of findings and altering about issues.
These meetings are important for evaluating individual performance and provide feedback to
employees highlighting areas for improvement.
3.2 According to Essential Standards of Quality and Safety, the health and social care staffs
should take part in learning and professional development so that they are able to perform
individual roles effectively (Ogrinc et al. 2016). It is important for the managers to analyze
the competence of workers by good employers so that they deliver high quality care services
ensuring patient safety. Ensuring learning needs help to deliver meaningful and positive
outcomes for the patients and their families. E-learning is a form of technology that can
support learning. This can be helpful in enhancing learning on a particular topic that can be

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grouped together with online courses. E-learning comprises of guided discussions and
observation for turning knowledge into demonstration of skills. There are enormous benefits
of E-learning as it is developed to test knowledge and track results. This method is cost-
effective and highly flexible that can be learned in private and suits to pace of learners (Baran
and Correia 2014).
Continuous Professional development (CPD) is defined as planned learning or
development activity that is used to develop and extend skills, knowledge and understanding
of performance. This comprises of wide range of activities that can support HSC workers’
career development and evaluation of individual performance. This can help in improved
outcomes for patients who are using health and social care services and responsive to their
changing needs with effective resource allocation (Aveyard 2014).
CPD cycle comprises of planning for the employees that is done in systematic seven
stages that can help to fulfil individual training needs.
CPD cycle CPD methods Activities
Stage 1
Assessment of individual and
organizational needs
Development of person profile Reviewing of learning needs
against competencies needed
for the development of personal
CPD profile
Stage 2
Identification of developmental
needs
Assessment of development of
personal needs against person
profile
Appraisal and supervision can
be helpful through skills
benchmarking and feedback.
Stage 3
Identification of learning
Identification of learning
objectives
Identification of learning types
that helps to meet objectives of