Care UK
Developing the people vision and strategy for a leading health and care organisation to help attract and retain a dedicated workforce.
The Opportunity
Following the turbulence of the Covid-19 pandemic, Care UK were keen to look ahead to the next 5 years; they established a need to build a robust and forward-thinking people strategy to enable sustainable growth and attract, engage, and retain the right talent. With a new COO coming on board, it was a great moment in time to review and strengthen the people plan and employee experience (EX).
Our Solution
To ensure the new people strategy would be lived across the entire organisation, dragonfish sought to gain a full picture of the existing Care UK EX - conducting both qualitative and quantitative research.
An inclusive, data and insight driven approach was key to our solution. These methods included a managers’ survey; focus groups with employees, managers, and team leaders; one-to-one conversations with new starters (both experienced carers, and new-to-care) and key stakeholders; as well as desktop immersion in the organisation’s key documents and resources.
Based on this input, and working closely with the HR team, we created a people vision and a people strategy that would support Care UK in the next 3-5 years – to deliver on their ambition, and also attract, engage, and retain their dedicated workforce. Critical to success was that the people strategy should also be aligned to their values and employee value proposition.
"As we start to navigate our way through a new set of post-pandemic challenges, not least of which is a sector-wide skills shortage, it was the perfect time to revisit and refresh our people strategy. The thorough consultative process we have been through with Dragonfish has ensured we have landed on a truly inclusive, co-created strategy that is closely aligned with our purpose and values.”
- Andrew Knight, CEO
Our Impact
dragonfish developed a People strategy and vision aligned to their culture, and employee value proposition that will help Care UK attract and retain talent:
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Designed an overarching framework for the new people strategy
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Crafted five key pillars (“People Priorities”) for Care UK to focus on in the next 3-5 years: 1. Recruit people who genuinely care; 2. Deliver a warm welcome and create a place where everyone belongs; 3. Support people to thrive; 4. Inspire and enable people leaders; 5. Celebrate success every day
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Each People Priority was accompanied by its own unique initiatives – categorized as ‘Continue doing & embed,’ ‘Strengthen & enhance,’ and ‘Refocus or transform’ to help them to plan, budget, and build business cases
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Developed a People Vision statement to guide Care UK over the next 3-5 years: “To provide every colleague with an experience where they feel valued and supported, and have the opportunity to make a difference and truly belong.”
Whilst currently early days since the launch, feedback has been overwhelmingly positive with the general sentiment being that the People Priorities identified resonate with everyone across the organisation.
Care UK has also already seen a huge uptake in colleagues engaging with the company’s benefits packages, with an increase in engagement of 6 percentage points (a significant increase).
Significant progress has also been made in overall engagement, which is particularly encouraging given the ongoing challenges in the labour market and post-pandemic burnout hitting staff across the sector.
To discover more about how we can help your organisation, get in touch with us.
"This project was key to meeting our aim of providing a space for fulfilling lives and fulfilling careers. We wanted to be as inclusive as possible to ensure our new strategy reflected the realities facing our workforce. Having dragonfish, a trusted, long-term partner, guide us through the process provided a degree of objectivity and challenge that has resulted in an even stronger vision and roadmap.”
- Leah Queripel, HR Director