Extra care housing provider boosts employment offer

A retirement and extra care housing provider has boosted its employment package in a bid to attract more workers and improve staff retention.

Housing & Care 21 is offering care staff a basic salary at 10% above the National Living Wage, combined with the introduction of 100% guaranteed hours contracts.

Tony Tench, Chief Operations Officer at Housing & Care 21, said: “It is no secret that the care industry is suffering from reputational issues when it comes to staff retention and attracting new recruits into the sector. As a leading provider of extra care housing, we are looking to address this head on by playing our part and supporting our care staff with what matters most to them, higher rates of pay, guaranteed hours where appropriate and a supportive working environment with management time dedicated to their development.”

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The move follows Skills for Care statistics revealing a worsening a skills gap in the sector with up to an additional 700,000 care workers needed by 2030.

Tony added: “Working in care is hard, we recognise that and have chosen to increase the hourly rate for our carers to reflect the value of the work that they do.  Our residents tell us that the quality and continuity of their care staff is really important to them so we want to do our best to attract and retain really good people.  You can’t put a price on kindness, but we are doing everything we can to ensure our staff are valued and supported in the work that they do.”