Retention

Agency workforce resources

Local authorities engage agency child and family social workers to provide temporary cover for vacancies or to meet other workforce capacity needs. Permanent staff may be attracted to agency social work because they want more control over where they work and the work they do.

Retention is the practice of creating a workplace where employees feel engaged, looked after, listened to and supported to develop.

Creating these conditions can help to:

keep staff in permanent employment
convert agency social workers to become permanent employees

Retention strategies play a crucial role in developing and maintaining workforce stability. Workforce stability can support improved outcomes for children and families.

This section outlines three approaches to improving workforce stability:

understanding critical career episodes to improve retention
developing anti-racist systems leadership capacity
converting agency social workers to permanent employees

These are not the only approaches to improve retention, and you may use a different approach in your local authority. Understanding how well you are retaining staff will support effective workforce planning.

Critical career episodes

Research in Practice has published a briefing called Strengthening the workforce: Retention in social work. It explains why many social workers leave their jobs and suggests practical ways to keep them. It’s important to keep a stable experienced team that can provide consistent care and support for people accessing services.

The briefing explores challenges like workplace culture, burnout, and the need for career growth. It explains the importance of understanding why social workers leave and the effect of agency work on workforce stability and outcomes for children and families. It calls for fixing broader issues to make the workforce more stable.

The report also emphasises creating supportive environments for social workers at all career stages and checking that workplace practices align with professional values. This approach aims to encourage a positive culture that supports resilience and wellbeing, crucial for keeping skilled workers practicing.

How to manage 'stay or go' moments

Experienced social workers often face critical moments, called 'critical career episodes' (CCEs), that make them rethink their careers. A critical career episode can occur after a one-off incident, such as a traumatic practice experience. It can also build up over time, for example, when a social worker feels that they cannot do enough for the people they are working with.

CCEs can trigger questions about if professional identity is aligned with personal values. When they feel out of alignment, social workers may be more likely to think about the possibility of leaving the profession and experience ‘stay or go’ moments. It's important to offer support when social workers experience CCEs to support long-term retention.

Here are some things to consider when planning to improve retention:

recognise CCEs as defining career moments
support the alignment of personal and professional identity
match a social worker’s desire to help with available resources
commit to supporting social workers to navigate CCEs to keep them working.

Addressing barriers for minority group social workers

Minority group social workers face extra challenges in career progression. To support them:

offer accessible professional development resources for all
ensure transparency in promotion criteria
actively support the progression of minority group social workers

Ways to retain social workers

Push factors are the negatives that drive social workers to leave, like high stress, poor work-life balance, and lack of support. Pull factors are the positives that keep them in their roles. To help retain, focus on ‘pull factors’ that encourage social workers to stay, such as:

creating a positive work environment
offer strong peer and team support

Improving these areas can help keep social workers committed and motivated.

Read the full briefing to find out more about how you can improve social worker retention in your organisation.

Developing anti-racist systems leadership capacity

In social work minority group staff face discrimination and underrepresentation in senior roles, impacting their career progression and overall workplace inclusivity. Some local authorities have made substantial progress in addressing these issues, other local authorities need to take further action.

Why anti-racist systems leadership is important

Research in Practice has produced a strategic briefing called: ‘Anti-racist systems leadership to address systemic racism.’ The aim of this briefing is to support social care leaders in developing critical thinking to understand how systemic racism is constructed. It shows how racism is perpetuated in policies, tools and practices within individual organisations and partnerships. The impact of systemic racism includes:

recognition that parts of society are experiencing deep inequalities
how people from minority groups face higher rates of violence, illness, and death
how public sector systems, such as the police and mental health services, disproportionately target people who are from minority groups

The briefing:

provides explanations of important concepts
signposts to research and resources that show the multi-layered impact of racism in communities, workforces and across local public service systems
offers tools to enable partners to develop their capacity to be anti-racist systems leaders
offers case study examples of local systems’ development

The practice of anti-racist systems leadership will help to address systemic racism.

Read the strategic briefing to find out more about how to develop anti-racist leadership in your organisation to support efforts to address systemic racism.

The resources have been developed by Research in Practice in collaboration with DfE.
Published: 30 October 2024
Last updated: 30 October 2024

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