How to find the RIGHT job in Home Care

Looking for the right culture
Our Caregivers joined Right at Home from different working background and all share the same high standards. Due to our supported training, previous experience is not always necessary, with so many Care providing companies all looking for new staff, how do you find the right one for you? Here are a few crucial questions you may consider asking during the recruitment process.

Question One - Are the majority of your home visits hourly?

Shorter visits could reduce your time needed with Clients and effect your hourly rate of pay. Support in the community is often arranged through the local authority and due to the lack of funding quite often care and support can end up being under an hour per visit, 30-45 minutes in some cases. Its good to know how many of these visits you are likely to attend when you’re considering a position in home care.

The reason this could be important to know, apart from the risk of poor quality of service, (and rushing the people you are meant to be supporting), is that you will usually be paid for the time on each visit so £10 per hour could be reduced to £5 for a 30 minute call. Spending a good proportion of your time traveling and not supporting Clients could leave you disillusioned when you calculate your actual hourly pay rate. Short visit times could also leave you short of job satisfaction and even place the client at risk as you can miss important warning signs due to rushing.

Here at Right at Home Nottingham we always assess our new Clients as hour + visits, some require longer to include social outings. Building as much value into each visit ensuring our Clients are supported without compromising service or safety. We also pay both travel time and a mileage allowance making sure that you are not out of pocket during your working hours.

Question 2 – Will you be properly introduced to the people you support?

It is often the little things in social care that make a big difference. When supporting people in their home, learning about each individual and their preferences before starting their support should require a formal introduction from one of their dedicated team. Delivering a personalised service and putting the Client at ease should be a daily occurrence in effective home care. Picking up on any changes to mood or behaviour could save lives. Building positive and meaningful relationships with clients also improves your job satisfaction.

One of our promises is that we never send strangers to our Clients. Even in an emergency the person visiting will have been formally introduced. We also encourage constant feedback and updates to be communicated so we constantly improve our individual support. Keeping people safe and supported well involves building those relationships in healthcare.

Question 3 – What type of training do you provide?

We are proud to learn every day in our Job! Knowing more about the ongoing training offered from the beginning will provide an insight into the culture of the company.

Training should be viewed as an ongoing process much like other healthcare roles and can include a combination of online, Self-led and classroom-based training. Ideally your learning will be assessed and observed by an experienced member of the team. Some questions regarding training may include; Will I be paid to attend training? Will it be based on my current levels of knowledge? Will I receive on the job training and support?
It’s always good to ask for testimonial and online reviews (Facebook, Indeed or Google)

We approach training in a similar way to supporting our clients, always taking into consideration the individual. Everybody learns differently and our structured 6-12-week training programme allows the correct time and assistants to understand the fundamental information to support people safely in their home. That said it becomes second nature as you also learn from others and through hands on experience.

Good Luck with your search, professional support requires a commitment and dedication to improve the lives of people in our community fuelled by a caring heart.