Explore inclusive workforce planning strategies for adult social care, including workforce data, retention, recruitment and future workforce needs.
Organisations often focus on their immediate people and skills requirements; however, it is important to consider the medium and long-term requirements too. This is just as critical to a small, growing organisation as it is to a larger one.
Workforce planning involves:
- Identifying future workforce needs.
- Considering the people and skills you currently have.
- Assessing the gap.
- Developing a plan to address it.
It is important to align workforce planning to your strategic business plan. Workforce planning is fundamentally about making sure you have the roles, people, and skills you need at the right time to retain your staff, feed into a future pipeline and deliver your organisation’s ambitions.
Top tips
- Use workforce data to understand your staff, identify trends and plan for future workforce needs.
- Regularly review your progress to see what's working and where improvements are needed.
- Gather feedback through appraisals, staff surveys and exit interviews to understand why people stay or leave.
- Use this feedback to improve the support, benefits and development opportunities you offer staff.
- Where possible, help staff continue their careers within adult social care, even if they move to another role or organisation.
- Encourage opportunities such as shadowing, work experience and development days to help staff explore different career paths within the sector.