You may have read “What Does It Take To Be An Outstanding Manager In Social Care” in CMM Magazine which focuses on the research of outstanding care managers using the Judgement Index assessment.

The results were strong and consistent, providing a real insight to the values-based behaviours of those managers. We’ve had many enquiries since the original study was published from care providers wishing to understand how their own managers compare. If you’d like to discuss how this can be done for your company simply get in touch and we can provide more information. You can find more about the study in our news section.

Care Homes, Domiciliary Care & Hospitals

The majority of our work in the UK is focused on the care sector & social care and our clients are seeing remarkable results including reduced staff turnover, the elimination of agency fees and an increase in the quality of care provided.

The reason why the Judgement Index is having such strong results within this sector is because most rely on a selection process that just isn’t thorough enough. CV, referencing, mandatory check and interview do not uncover true values & often an unsuitable candidate can slip through the net. The associated risks are not just the impact on the team & the cost to replace that candidate, but the risk to brand should an incident occur.

The true cost of staff turnover in care

There are the obvious costs such as advertising for the post or paying recruitment company fees, the cost of time for contacting the applicants, sending forms and arranging interviews, CRB checks, induction, training, shadowing, supervision, uniforms and administrative and payroll set up.

With the average cost of recruiting estimated to be £1,000 per employee, the Guardian newspaper stated in 2016 that the average cost to recruit and train a care worker was £3,500. When you combine that with the average staff turnover rate in care being 25% according to Skills for Care, then there are some startling high costs associated with employing the wrong person.

What makes the Judgement Index different from other tools used in care

Some organisations have introduced psychometric tests or rely on the NHS values based interview questions, but as these are self reporting (that is the candidate is asked to describe themselves as true or false to a scenario) they can easily be manipulated to get the desired result, and just don’t go deep enough to uncover what’s “behind the mask”. Because of the abstract nature of the Judgement Index, it is not possible to manipulate, and because of our research, we can more accurately predict success in care than any other assessment.

Our research into the UK’s best healthcare workers

In the past years we have been working with a number of care sector organisations, researching the profiles of the best health care workers.

We asked managers and owners to nominate their very best care workers, the ones who they would clone if they could, and we put them through the Judgement Index assessment.

We found some very interesting results:

• Top health care workers, as you would expect, scored very high in “People Skills”; they were highly empathetic, compassionate, engaging and communicative.
• They scored high on “Noticing and Sensitivity” which measures a person’s ability to pick up subtle cues and/or signs of risk in their environment as well as a heightened capacity to read non-verbal signs of communication in people.
• They showed high levels of “Work/Task Processing Ability”; which measures trainability, reliability and work ethic – it predicts how well a person is likely to complete their tasks with speed, efficiency and dependability.
• They scored well for “Work Side Stress” levels meaning that even though they may be dealing with stressful circumstances, they have good coping skills. Interestingly, a fair percentage showed heightened levels of “Self Side Stress” which is the indicator that measures how well a person copes with stress outside of work. We flagged this up as an area for managers to discuss with those affected, because it is advisable to discuss an intervention plan around coping with personal stress, as any noticeable amount of stress sustained over a period of time, can have negative effects on a person’s abilities and capacities in the working environment, potentially posing a risk to your organisation.
• The most interesting finding for us was that the best health care workers showed a great “Strategic” capacity. This measures how well a person can understand the “big picture”; how well they can plan ahead, predict the consequences of their actions, and understand cause and effect. The best health care workers averaged as well, and in some cases better, than some of the best project managers in the Europe.

This research into the UK’s best performing health care workers, coupled with the statistics collated by our colleagues in the US, have enabled us to create a hiring template specifically for health care workers, which gathers the key indicators identified in top performers. This allows you to profile potential employees at selection stage and the effects of hiring staff that have good judgement and excellent work ethic will ripple through your organisation. Everyone involved in your group from staff to residents and patients to residents will notice the benefits.

Please see the Case Studies page for testimonials or simply get in touch and we can provide more information.

Below you can find highlights from our time at Health Plus Care 2017. To see the full seminars along with a case study presented by Julia Clinton, CEO of Sonnet Care please see our YouTube Channel.