How Digital Tools Can Simplify Care Recrutiment

Hiring and retaining highly skilled talent is one of the biggest challenges facing care organisations, regardless of their size.

In a busy industry that demands a comprehensive skillset, where expectations are high and regulations are strict, every hour spent chasing paperwork and manually completing admin-heavy processes is time that could be better spent supporting your teams to deliver high-quality care.

Additionally, recruitment and onboarding new staff can be a lengthy and expensive process for care providers, especially among smaller care organisations that may lack the support of larger HR departments.

That’s where comprehensive digital recruitment platforms come in!

Digital recruitment platforms bring job posting, application tracking, compliance checks, and onboarding into one comprehensive, centralised platform.

As a result, providers can save time, reduce admin, and get the right people into the right roles more efficiently.

Why Effective Recruitment Matters in Care:

In today’s social care landscape, recruitment isn’t just filling a vacancy on a team; it is also about protecting the health and well-being of your service users.

As a result, it is essential that hiring teams have a strong hiring process in place, as it helps:

• Maintain the continuity of care being delivered with fewer gaps and last-minute changes,
• Reduce turnover by hiring people who understand the role and align with the organisation’s goals,
• Respond quicker to changes in service demand, and
• Meet the established regulatory requirements.

A smooth and efficient recruitment process is essential to ensuring candidates feel looked after and are more likely and stay and grow within the organisation.

Recruitment Essentials in Ireland and the UK:

In Ireland, the National Vetting Bureau (Children and Vulnerable Persons) Acts 2012-2016 introduced new requirements for any individual working with children and vulnerable adults, requiring them to become Garda Vetted prior to starting their first shift.

As a result, potential candidates will have to verify their identity, submit their information to the Garda for a background check, and be fully cleared before they can accept a position and join the organisation.

Similarly, in the UK, individuals working with children and vulnerable adults require a criminal record check and can also require right-to-work checks. The rules differ slightly depending on which part of the UK you operate out of:

• Providers in England and Wales must complete the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks,
• Providers in Scotland must complete the relevant checks mandated by the PVG Scheme, and
• Providers in Northern Ireland must complete the checks laid out by AccessNI

When advertising new roles, it is essential that providers fully know what checks are required and allow enough time for the checks to be processed.

How Digital Recruitment Platforms Streamline the Hiring Process:

Recruitment, like all other processes in care, involves a lot of moving parts; however, comprehensive care recruitment software allows hiring teams to manage every step of the recruitment process in one centralised location.

Additionally, these platforms allow hiring teams to post job openings directly to online job boards, reducing the time it takes to advertise for roles and empowering them to keep the post’s messaging consistent.

When creating the hiring process within digital recruitment platforms, hiring teams can embed a short screening questionnaire directly into their application form, allowing them to easily identify candidates that are more likely to fit the organisation before they even schedule an interview.

Hiring teams are empowered to set up interviews directly from their recruitment platform and sync them with their calendar, enabling them to set automated reminders to notify both the hiring manager and the candidate shortly before the scheduled interview.

Care recruitment platforms also come packed with an extensive HR Toolkit, allowing hiring teams to upload and store right-to-work documents, vetted records, and reference checks securely.

Providers can also see the progress of the required background checks within the system, further reducing the time spent chasing potential candidates. When an offer is made to a candidate, the new hire’s details will automatically flow into the HR Toolkit for onboarding, eliminating the duplication of work.

Additionally, with extensive built-in reporting functionality, care recruitment platforms allow teams to see the duration of the hiring process, where potential candidates chose not to continue with the hiring process, and where the candidate found and applied for the role.

From Offer to First Shift – The Digital Tools That Simplify Onboarding:

The recruitment process doesn’t finish when a candidate accepts the offer, with the time between accepting the job and completing onboarding creating the foundation for their future with the organisation.

As a result, it is essential that providers have a comprehensive onboarding process in place.

When integrated with a robust eLearning platform, providers can easily assign mandatory eLearning courses that must be completed before the candidate has their first shift once the candidate’s contract has been signed.

Once the mandatory learning and background checks are completed, candidates can be easily added to the organisation’s rota, meaning they can start contributing to the delivery of care as soon as possible.

Additionally, the built-in document library allows new starters to instantly access the key policies, procedures, and documents that are specific to their role prior to their first shift, reducing the number of potential queries hiring teams receive.

Book a demo of the OneTouch Recruitment platform and see how you can manage recruitment, compliance, and onboarding in one easy-to-use system.