QMYOU / Creativity & Culture 11
Psychology experts help charity with staff retention of care workers
Experts from QMU have been trying to identify how an East Lothian charity can retain support staff who care for people with challenging behaviour .
UNIVERSITY PSYCHOLOGY experts have been working with ELCAP , a charity which supports people with challenging behaviour , to improve staff development and retain individuals for longer periods of time .
Support workers are at the sharp edge of voluntary organisations ’ support work . Dealing with unpredictable behaviour from clients can be extremely stressful and often these positions are not well paid . The challenge for these organisations is to keep and develop good support staff and not lose them to more attractive job opportunities . A loyal staff group committed to the long term care of the client group helps ensure that support organisations can provide continuity and quality care .
Karen Goodall , the psychologist who led the research , said : “ Focus groups with care staff helped to identify how people felt about their jobs and what they wanted from their employer . We found that staff members who perceived their jobs to be highly stressful had less job satisfaction . Staff who had lower job satisfaction were more likely to express their intention to leave the job within a six month period . Our research also showed that longer serving members of staff tended to stay in the job due to their commitment to their client , rather than a loyalty to the company .”
Karen Goodall explained : “ Many of these care workers perceived their jobs to be stressful because they were exposed to extremely challenging and unpredictable behaviour . More than anything , staff wanted recognition for the fact that their work could involve managing physical and verbal aggression on a daily basis .
“ Staff were realistic that , although pay was a factor , it was unlikely that pay rewards could be made as compensation . However , it was felt that more staff involvement in certain aspects of decision making could improve job satisfaction and should therefore contribute to better staff retention .
The researchers made several recommendations to ELCAP to improve staff job satisfaction . This included empowering staff by providing them with a higher level of involvement with the design of their client ’ s service plan and allowing pro-active team members to take a lead role on more complex cases .
Further recommendations focused on the recruitment process . The researchers recommended that ELCAP allows longer standing employees to contribute more to future recruitment by ensuring that new support staff were a good fit for the client group . Also , it was felt that service users could , in a structured way , make a valuable contribution to the interview process .”
Karen Goodall continued : “ We feel that ELCAP should be commended for commissioning independent research which ultimately has the potential to improve their company ’ s service delivery by reducing staff turnover .”
She concluded : “ The move for more people to be cared for in the community means that a range of support jobs do exist and that if not satisfied , skilled care staff will move organisations , possibly leaving a skills deficit . So it is becoming a priority area for caring organisations to develop a culture which supports and retains good staff . We hope that the recommendations from our report are helpful for the future success of ELCAP .”
Linda Headland , Director of ELCAP said : “ At ELCAP we work hard at being a good employer as well as an excellent service provider . The learning from this project is helping us to support better our staff who work in very challenging situations , and this in turn enables those staff to work with greater confidence and clarity of purpose . We are grateful for the chance to work with QMU and will be happy to do so again if the opportunity arises .”
Professor Petra Wend , Principal of QMU , said : “ It is very satisfying that QMU ’ s work is being used to assist a local East Lothian charity which is involved in the care of individuals and families . This research is a good example of the relevance of the University ’ s work and our commitment to improving quality of life .”
To fund this work , ELCAP was awarded an innovation voucher from Scottish Funding Council via Interface , the knowledge connection service for business , to the tune of £ 4736 . This paid for the research work undertaken by the University ’ s experts . ❒
QMYOU / Creativity & Culture 11