Investing Effectively in staff

High performing staff are essential if an organisation is to deliver outstanding services to vulnerable people. Member agencies tell us they have difficulties in recruiting and retaining great people. Other sectors seem to offer more to staff – be it in terms of remuneration, progression opportunities, effective support for frontline workers, job security or just showing staff that they are valued.

Long-term reliance on agency staff can be incredibly damaging to consistency of service delivery and more importantly have a hugely detrimental effect on service users. Homeless people say that it is the way frontline staff work with them that makes the biggest difference. Being passed from one keyworker to another every few weeks can set service users a long way back in the process of change and be very demotivating for the staff involved, who cannot form effective relationships with service users in the longer term which would help the service user to move forward.

There are also a number of lessons the sector can learn from other sectors – not least in how to prevent burn out in staff who deal with some of the most vulnerable and difficult service users. Support and clinical supervision have been split in some services for years, and extensive research has shown that this is an effective way of ensuring staff are able to develop reflective working practice which benefits both the service user and the frontline worker. Some services find it more efficient to split services into those delivered by generic project workers and those delivered specialist staff (such as drugs workers or mental health specialists) to ensure the full range of competencies are available, without expecting staff to be all things to all people.

Most of the organisations consulted as part of this strategy also said they currently employed staff who they didn’t think did a good job. Management of performance and capacity in the sector is a real issue, with people accepting the situation that it is better to have staff delivering some kind of service, than no service at all. Some staff recruited into the sector simply do not have the skills they need to do their jobs, which highlights shortfalls in recruitment practice within the sector. One hostel manager talked of the difficulty of finding suitable staff; having tried three rounds of recruitment he was reliant on agency staff to deliver services, as no suitable permanent staff were available. However, many frontline staff came to work in homelessness agencies for a reason – that they care about the service user. Staff who under-perform generally do so for a reason – this might be due to lack of skill to undertake the work which was not identified during the recruitment process, poor management, lack of support and supervision, lack of clarity about their role and how they are expected to work, or simply being burnt out after working in the same role for a long time without the refreshers and re-motivators of training and development activity.

Once the right staff have been recruited, they need to be supported effectively, and given the right tools for personal and career development.

What does success look like?

The Richmond Fellowship has an outstanding approach to staff support and performance management and are in the Sunday Times Top 100 List of Best Small Companies to Work For. Staff have regular support and supervision sessions with their manager which cover performance management, support and clinical supervision. In projects with special clinical needs, additional clinical support is provided through a range of mechanisms including staff meetings. In cases of suicide or death on-site, staff are debriefed very shortly afterwards and are given support either through one-to-one counselling or through access to their Employee Assistance Programme. This programme is bought in by Richmond Fellowship for all staff members, and provides short term solution focused therapy for staff, for issues relating both to work and out of work (such as marital breakdown, domestic violence and financial problems).

Foundation Housing, based in Leeds, are also in the Sunday Times Top 100 List Best Small Companies to Work For, independent recognition of their excellent staff support and engagement. The organisation is described by independent auditors as being consultative, creative, friendly and non-hierarchical, with good terms and conditions for staff.

What factors inhibit agencies from recruiting, retaining and supporting great staff?

• Recruitment and retention policies that don’t attract the right people
• Procurement environment affecting retention – i.e. funders reducing funding for a service
• Internal support and supervision procedures that need revising
• Lack of training budget
• Fear of industrial tribunals and negative publicity/reputational damage from releasing staff
• Lack of promotional and personal development opportunities
• Lack of access to or investment in an appropriate level of HR support and advice
• Lack of a consistent set of standards in managing staff and training for managers in effective people management
• Higher paying positions in other similar sectors

What can agencies do?

• Recruit staff under a competency framework and think about whether having minimum experience criteria are actually putting off applicants who could deliver a great service
• Invest in excellent induction procedures which clarify expectations of the role, the organisational culture, values and working practices
• Invest in training and development activity for all staff which enable them to move upwards - this can include on the job training and formal qualifications
• Separate clinical supervision from managerial support and development
• Provide alternative means of support to staff other than line managers through ‘buddying’ or peer mentoring schemes
• Undertake regular evaluations of services and benchmark with partners to consider current service delivery practice
• Review staff recognition packages – it doesn’t have to be just about salary
• Praise, recognise and celebrate excellent staff and achievements at all levels
• Provide access for staff to learn other areas of the business for potential sideways movement within the organisation.
• Provide potential for staff to be engaged in projects such as development or strategic work so they can feel closer to driving the organisation.
• Debriefs after particularly difficult or emotional cases or periods of working
• Periodic reviews of market rates for jobs which ensure that agencies are not wildly overpaying or underpaying for different job roles
• Have a clear and internally consistent sent of policies and processes for managing staff
• Ensure managers have performance standards set for their role as people managers and are trained to deliver against these
• Link into an affordable source of HR advice for avoiding problems in the first place and dealing with them effectively when they do arise

What Homeless Link can offer now:

• Qualifications (London only) and training for staff
• Training on support and supervision techniques

Potential future Homeless Link projects:

• National access to qualifications for all staff
• Training on specific areas of expertise (i.e. drugs work for hostel staff)
• Mentoring networks – both peer to peer and mentor-mentee
• A national job swap scheme for specific job roles such as hostel managers to facilitate learning and development
• Best practice briefing on staff development
• Management training
• National benchmarking exercise to assess pay levels in the homeless and similar sectors
• Development of professional development pathways including membership of a professional body
• A joint project with ProspectUs and the Foyer Federation – a recruitment project for homelessness agencies in London, based on the learning from a previous pilot project

What partner organisations offer:

• Shelter and SITRA offer a range of training for people working with homeless people
• The Workforce Development Hub offers a range of material and support for voluntary sector agencies
• The Chartered Institute of Housing and The British Association of Social Workers offer membership and professional development for staff
• ‘Beyond a helpline’ project – Broadway offer personnel and central services support to small agencies in partnership with the London Housing Foundation
• NCVO offer training and resources on how to support staff working in the voluntary sector.

Previous Next