It’s just dawned on me: this is the quickest, least stressful and most effective way to find good care workers you actually like!

I’ve spent ages, and I mean ages, over the past few years trying to find the right set of care workers who can administer the personal care I need without driving me crazy, stealing my stuff or just not turning up. I’ve put numerous adverts in local papers, at my old college, at hospitals and you know what, the main way I’ve found good employees is none of those. Most of the time I’ve found people through…

NETWORKING!

You know the old saying: it’s not what you know, but who you know? Well it’s true!

Only three of my eight current carer workers have come directly through advertising, the others have all either been people I know, or people who have been recommended to me.  The fact is, most of the applicants you get from an advert in a local newspaper will be rubbish, full stop!

Sure, you can and will, find excellent employees through advertising, provided you’re persistent and phrase the advert right, and I’m not saying you shouldn’t try, in fact, you definitely should, but it often takes time, a long time. As with everything in life, the key is ‘to do as much as possible in the shortest time possible’ so never give up on advertising, it’s a valuable resource that finds people you might otherwise not consider.

BUT, at the same time, ask around, talk to your friends and family, get them to ask their friends and family, you’ll be surprised how many people come back and say ‘I was talking to so and so and they’re really interested and I’m sure they’d be great’. The best thing about networking is you, hopefully, get an honest and reliable reference which is a lot more than you get for advert applicants.

Having said how great networking is, there is one thing to be careful of. 

Because it invariably means employing people who are known to your friends and family, you need to make sure nobody gets offended if it doesn’t work out with an employee. The best way is to, as always, be honest from the start about any problems, as well as the fact that if you have to get rid of someone it won’t be anything personal. From the very beginning, make it clear to both the person recommending a potential employee and that person themselves, that you can’t guarantee it will work out, explaining why this might be so.

That’s it for now folks!

See you soon,

George

‘Your personal health and social care guru’    

Tweet This Post 

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!