Effective workforce planning systems
One of your responsibilities as a leader is to develop an effective workforce planning system. Good practice in this area has not been well defined as most research considers only the effects of poor planning.
To improve the development of effective workforce planning systems, you can read this practical guide from Skills for Care. It was developed for the adult social care workforce but will also work for the children's social care workforce.
The guide highlights the importance of the seven ‘elements’ of workforce planning.
The seven elements of workforce planning
Ensuring effective care and support services involves the right:
- people: having the right people with appropriate values, attitudes, and behaviours
- culture: encouraging an environment where staff feel valued, safe, and confident to communicate concerns and contribute to service improvement
- size: having an optimal number of individuals in suitable roles who spend the time required to provide effective care
- shape: maintaining a balanced mix of roles and experience levels within the workforce
- place: having staff resources available in suitable locations to meet service needs
- capability: ensuring that staff possess the necessary skills and competencies for providing the required care and support
- cost: achieving value for money in the provision of services
Strategic workforce planning requires understanding both long-term planning and managing short-term fluctuations in demand. Good-quality data is essential to understand and address potential needs.
Understanding demographics and having a strong grasp of social policy and long-term care delivery are critical. The National Health Service long-term plan emphasises the importance of a coordinated approach to workforce planning, focusing on population dynamics and anticipated demographic needs.
This includes plans for workforce recruitment, training, and retention, especially in adult social care. The Social Care Institute for Excellence notes “the importance of a strategic understanding of population needs to model the required contribution of various professionals and practitioners”.
A European Social Network report from 2017 suggests that workforce planning should include:
- a comprehensive system for collecting data on sickness and turnover rates
- analysis of professional development opportunities based on protected characteristics
- establishing national and regional consortia to forecast workforce demand and supply, considering how social policies may influence regions and localities
Skills for Care has developed the Adult Social Care Workforce Data Set.
The Department for Education produces the Children’s social work workforce data annually, which provides some insight into high-level workforce data. Some local authorities have used agency social workers as a quick solution to solve recruitment challenges. However, this approach often causes higher costs and presents retention difficulties. This can impact on continuity of care and outcomes for children and families.
Consider using values-based recruitment and other good recruitment practices
Try to involve practitioners from diverse backgrounds and other stakeholders in co-designing your approach. Evidence on effective methods for attracting, recruiting, and retaining social workers is scarce. Research with healthcare professionals suggests innovative approaches can provide insights and enriches the values-based recruitment process. For more information on how to use co-design, see Employment standard 4: Wellbeing. See more information about values-based recruitment in Employer standard 2: Workplace planning - Professional development.
Several initiatives have focused on international recruitment of social workers and social care staff, with resources and guidance available from the Local Government Association. Similarly, Social Work England offers guidance on assessment, support, and training to international applicants seeking registration.
A recent rapid review of innovations in social care recruitment by D Edwards highlighted the importance of pre-employment training, national recruitment campaigns and care work ambassadors (see references section).
Skills for Care ‘I Care Ambassadors’, a national team of frontline care workers, actively engage with educational institutions and employment agencies to inspire others to join adult social care.
Values-based recruitment aims to attract practitioners whose values align with those of the organisation, creating a sense of belonging and enhancing staff retention. Apprenticeships provide opportunities to recruit existing local authority employees.
These employees may already share the organisation’s values. Strategic leaders should clearly articulate their mission, vision, values, and practice model (see the resources for Employer standard 1: Strong and clear social work framework).
Practitioners who feel connected to their work are likely to stay and finding work meaningful can protect against burnout. This is the case even in high-demand situations. Research shows that values-based recruitment can reduce costs, lower turnover and improve retention.
There is some evidence that values-based recruitment approaches may be particularly important for younger workers. This is especially the case when organisations’ values align with practitioners’ values of societal contribution, work-life balance, and inclusive management practices.
Skills for Care offers a range of resources and toolkits to support values-based recruitment. See the Skills for Care 5As model below.
5As model for values-based recruitment |
Articulate: identify and describe your workplace values and behaviours then communicate them to potential and existing staff. Attract: advertise your roles in a way that attracts candidates who share your workplace vision and values. Apply: design your application process to ensure candidates can demonstrate their values effectively. Assess: use different selection tools to assess whether candidates are the right people for your roles. Assimilate: induct, develop, supervise, and manage staff so they know what is expected of them and how they can demonstrate your workplace values in their work. |
Involve practitioners from diverse backgrounds and other stakeholders in co-designing your approach to values-based recruitment. Research with healthcare professionals suggests that this can provide valuable insights and enrich the values-based recruitment process. For more information on how to use co-design, see Employer standard 4: Wellbeing.
Several successful initiatives have been implemented to recruit social workers and social care staff from overseas, with resources and guidance available from the Local Government Association (LGA). Similarly, Social Work England offers guidance on assessment, support, and training to overseas applicants seeking registration. The number of overseas social workers seeking employment in England has nearly tripled since 2020, primarily due to increased applications from India, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
Research highlights the value of recruiting international social workers to work in the United Kingdom. However, qualifications and accreditation of prior experience need to be assessed by Social Work England before they can start work. Clear and inclusive job descriptions are essential for attracting overseas candidates.
Practices like sending interview questions in advance and providing training on equality, diversity, and inclusion to interview panels are effective. Evidence suggests that overseas social workers often lack support when starting their new role. Give practitioners time to become accustomed to their new professional, cultural, and geographical surroundings before assigning a full caseload to support this transition.
Valuable insights and tips on supporting international social workers entering the workforce from the British Association of Social Workers (BASW) include:
- providing cultural orientation and English language support
- offering mentorship and peer support networks
- ensuring access to professional development and training
- promoting awareness of the unique challenges faced by international social workers
These approaches to recruitment can significantly improve the effectiveness and sustainability of the social work and social care professions.
Ofsted found that local authorities with leaders committed to retention had lower turnover rates, reduced reliance on agency staff and fewer vacancies. The report emphasises the importance of building strong relationships with universities and other education providers.
Strategies to encourage retention
Research in Practice has produced a strategic briefing about social work recruitment and retention which examines the most important challenges.
The briefing looks at 'push' and 'pull' factors, the reasons people want to stay or leave an employer.
Skills for Care identifies factors influencing individuals’ decisions to remain in or leave their positions. These factors are detailed in Employer standards 4: Wellbeing and Employer standards 1: Strong and clear social work framework.
Leaving an organisation is often due to a difficult working environment, stress, burnout, heavy workloads, lack of flexible work patterns, and limited career development. These factors encourage people to stay:
- a positive culture
- supportive relationships
- worker health
- inclusive practices
A survey found one in ten social workers considered leaving due to racism. To keep staff, strategies should promote anti-racist practices and promote diversity and inclusion. This supports employees with protected characteristics. Other retention strategies include offering competitive pay and valuing practitioner's achievements. You may wish to consider these insights from senior managers on developing an effective retention strategy.
Research also highlights the importance of developing a retention strategy informed by insights from senior managers. The following are some of the views the senior managers shared:
- Use the Professional Capabilities Framework (PCF) and career structure frameworks with practitioners to map their career trajectories, highlight their strengths, motivations, and interests.
- Reduce caseloads to reduce stress and improve the quality of work.
- Build a meaningful learning culture and offer relevant learning and development opportunities to support both registration and professional progress.
- Use the role of the Principal Social Worker to address concerns and implement solutions.
- Introduce a 'peripatetic social worker' post in a flexible pool of workers to meet variations in demand.
- Enable cross-agency experiences by providing opportunities to work with professionals in child protection from other agencies, such as the police and schools.
- Perform comprehensive exit interviews to gain insight into the reasons why practitioners leave, and carefully analyse the feedback provided.
- Strengthen support for reflective practice by ensuring consistent, high-quality supervision that prioritises the worker's needs over performance indicators.
- Improve levels of administrative support to simplify tasks and improve efficiency.
- Explore flexible retirement packages to retain the expertise of those reaching retirement, allowing them to contribute through mentoring, supervision, and other roles.
- Implement local and national measures to boost the morale, confidence, and status of social workers. Consider initiating a sustained campaign to improve positive public awareness of social work achievements.
Improve opportunities for flexible working
In the United Kingdom, employees have the legal right to request flexible working arrangements under certain conditions. Three new pieces of legislation related to flexible working arrangements came into force on 01 April 2024:
- Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act 2023
- Carer’s Leave Act 2023
- Protection from Redundancy (Pregnancy and Family Leave) Act 2023
The Advice, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) has developed a helpful Code of Practice. This supports employers in responding to flexible working requests. Flexible working is a way of working that suits an employee’s needs, such as having flexible start and finish times, or working from home.
Research shows that a lack of flexible employment options leads to social workers leaving the profession. Social workers may move from local authority employment to agency work to find more flexibility. Research found that less than a quarter of job advertisements in social work (23%) offered part-time or flexible hours. This shows the importance of providing more flexible work opportunities with advantages including:
- improved work-life balance
- increased productivity
- cost savings
- talent attraction
- improved health and wellbeing
- increased job satisfaction
- enhanced inclusivity
- environmental benefits
There are various flexible working options that employers can offer:
- remote work
- hybrid working
- flexitime
- compressed work week
- part-time work
- job sharing
- flexible location or place
- annualised hours
- phased retirement
The Local Government Association (LGA) has a suite of flexibility measures. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) provides a guide for employers on flexible working with a series of case studies.
Research indicates that to get the best from this approach, employers should provide targeted support to maintain a secure base for social workers. Research also indicates that a hybrid model is popular among social care workers. This combines the advantages of remote working and essential face-to-face practice.
Flexible working lets employees control their schedules. Initiatives with longer hours can harm wellbeing, balance, and performance. This impact varies by gender, age, and job demands.
Other examples of flexible working include the Department for Education. The department offers 'returnerships' for those over 50. This can include apprenticeships and access to the lifelong learning fund for reskilling.
As work attitudes shift, the need for flexibility will rise. This is especially true for Generation Z and beyond, who value work-life balance. However, some social work roles, like those in children's homes, cannot support remote or hybrid work.
Barriers to flexibility include service continuity, supervision, and cover in settings where there are higher levels of need. Skills for Care emphasises the importance of designing social work jobs to enable flexibility. Pay attention to these 3 dimensions of work to maximise flexibility:
Revise tasks: structure processes, assessments, actions and monitoring to support outcomes, integrated working gains, early support, and smart task allocation, as well as maximising technology benefits.
Use location: integrate resources locally, sharing expertise and capacity across areas, subregions and regions, promoting resource mobility, enhancing peer support, and improving Continuing Professional Development/career development pathways.
Use practitioners time well: align resources and expertise with service demand, optimising time utilisation, client contact, and team contact.
Have effective induction and return-to-work initiatives
Effective induction helps practitioners understand their role and the organisation's policies. Moreover, it improves social worker retention.
For more on induction, review Employer standard 6: Continuing Professional Development.
Ensure your workplace is committed to equity of experience and deals with racism and other discrimination
An anti-racism strategy starts with defining your organisation's values. Make it clear that your organisation does not tolerate racism. Then, develop a plan with all employees, reviewing policies and processes for fairness, inclusion, and diversity.
Next, leaders should take visible, consistent action. They should be open to change. Review the way you manage people. Encourage open discussions about race. Share the anti-racism strategy with everyone. This will promote conversations to match actions with intentions.
Research shows that United Kingdom minority group social workers experience:
- more scrutiny of their work than white colleagues
- limited opportunities to progress their career
- regularly experience passive racism such as microaggression and unconscious bias
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) provides guidance on addressing the barriers to progression for UK minority group workers. Additionally, the CIPD offers resources to encourage inclusivity in the workplace including support for:
The CIPD also provides a resource for developing an anti-racism strategy for organisations:
| Tackle racism and ensure equity, inclusion and the celebration of diversity |
|---|
- clarify your organisation’s values and establish a zero-tolerance on racism - co-create an action plan across the organisation to scrutinise policies and processes to ensure equity, inclusion and the celebration of diversity - commit to visible leadership focused on action and sustained willingness to change. - critically assess your people management approach - connect the people in your organisation, enabling safe spaces for open discussion about personal experiences, learning, and the need to change - communicate anti-racist commitment and strategy clearly across the workforce, fostering two-way conversations to align behaviours with intentions |
Enable relationships with education providers
Formal partnerships with social work education providers are crucial. They help in planning for the workforce and securing future social workers.
Universities benefit from these partnerships with employers, ensuring enough statutory social work placements are available. This effort encourages student social workers to stay in local authority social work.
Support from skilled practice educators and a positive culture also encourage retention.
Research shows that organisations with such partnerships improve workforce planning which, in turn, improves recruitment and retention. Evidence also suggests these partnerships attract high-quality students. Evaluations highlight better collaboration and professional development.
For more on these partnerships, refer to Employer standard 8: Strategic partnerships.
Create professional development opportunities
Ofsted found that local authorities' retention is tied to effective career pathways. These pathways can support staff to move from unqualified roles to team management roles.
Funding advanced training for practitioners can help retain staff. It also improves capacity to take on complex work. Understanding why staff leave and focusing on retention is important.
For more on continuing professional development, see Employer standard 6: Continuing Professional Development.
Recognise that turnover is inevitable
Some turnover is normal and beneficial. It brings in fresh ideas and fosters innovation.
When staff leave, it's a chance for others to grow and learn. Turnover also allows for diverse talent to join. However, preventing unnecessary turnover encourages workforce stability.
References
This is the list of research and evidence sources used to produce this section. Publicly available links are included.
Baginsky, M. (2013). Retaining experienced social workers in children’s services: The challenge facing local authorities in England. London: Department for Education.
Bakker, A. B., Demerouti, E., & Euwema, M. C. (2005). Job resources buffer the impact of job demands on burnout. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 10(2), 170–180. https://doi.org/10.1037/1076-8998.10.2.170
Cocker, C. (2023). Social work teaching partnerships: Changing landscapes in social work education. Practice, 35(1), 1-4. https://doi.org/10.1080/09503153.2022.2139367
De Ruyter, A., Kirkpatrick, I., Hoque, K., Lonsdale, C., & Malan, J. (2008). Agency working and the degradation of public service employment: The case of nurses and social workers. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 19(3), 432-445.
Department for Education. (2020). Social work teaching partnerships: An evaluation. Final report.
Department for Education. (2022). Longitudinal study of local authority child and family social workers (Wave 4) Research report.
Edwards, D., Trigg, L., Carrier, J., Cooper, A., Csontos, J., Day, J., Gillen, E., Lewis, R., & Edwards, A. (2022). A rapid review of innovations for attraction, recruitment and retention of social care workers, and exploration of factors influencing turnover within the UK context. Journal of Long-Term Care, 205-221.
Exeter University. (2018). Recruitment and retention issues in the adult social care workforce in Devon.
Ganster, D. C., Rosen, C. C., & Fisher, G. G. (2018). Long working hours and well-being: What we know, what we do not know, and what we need to know. Journal of Business Psychology, 33, 25-39.
Giga, S. I., Jain, A. K., & Cooper, C. L. (2008). State-of-science review–working longer: Hours of work and health. A science review for the foresight project on mental capital and mental wellbeing. Report for the UK Government Office for Science.
Hussein, S., Manthorpe, J., & Stevens, M. (2010). People in places: A qualitative exploration of recruitment agencies’ perspectives on the employment of international social workers in the UK. British Journal of Social Work, 40(3), 1000-1016.
Local Government Association. (n.d.). Overseas recruitment bite-size guide for social care providers in England.
Local Government Association. (n.d.) Flexible working and work-life balance
NHS Long Term Plan. (n.d.)
Ofsted. (2012). High expectations, high support, and high challenge.
Research in Practice. (n.d.). Social work recruitment and retention strategic briefing. Dartington.
Skills for Care. (n.d.). Retaining your workforce.
Skills for Care. (2021). Practical approaches to operational workforce planning: A guide for adult social care providers.
Skills for Care. (2021). The state of the adult social care sector and workforce in England. Leeds: Skills for Care.
Skills for Care. (2021). Values-based recruitment.
Skills for Care. (2021). What is workforce planning and why is it important?
Skills for Care. (2023). Understanding the reasons care workers move on and their future intentions.
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The resources have been developed by
Research in Practice
in collaboration with
DfE.
Published: 30 October 2024
Last updated: 18 December 2024
Published: 30 October 2024
Last updated: 18 December 2024