Workforce Insight Series – briefings that highlight the voice of social care workers

We’ve created our first annual set of written briefings, which summarise and highlight key information about the social care workforce in Wales.

We used our own research, which has been carried out or commissioned by us, to create the Workforce Insight Series. The research used in the briefings draw together key findings on workforce-related topics.

The aim of the briefings is to help policy makers, employers and partners plan for the future and make informed decisions around attraction, recruitment and retention in social care. Using information given to us by social care workers in our annual workforce survey, and supported by data from other sources, the briefings explore the experiences that really matter to the workforce.

To support our 2024 to 2027 Workforce strategy, we explored two areas to support the development of an engaged, motivated and healthy workforce.

Good terms and conditions are important for workers’ well-being, and poor working conditions can impact on retention rates, attraction and recruitment to the sector. As part of our first briefing series, we used information from our research to find out how people felt about working in social care.

The findings were grouped to explore key themes, which include: job satisfaction, pay and reimbursement and employment benefits.

*In our workforce survey, we were told that most social care workers and social care managers were satisfied with their current job (57 per cent and 68 per cent respectively). But responses also highlighted the challenges of retaining an experienced and qualified workforce. Over a quarter of all registered workers said they expected to leave the social care sector within the next 12 months, and 44 per cent expected to leave within the next five years.

In our workforce survey we asked people working in social care how they felt they were seen and if they felt valued by those around them.

**The sector employs an estimated 84,134 people in Wales. *** In the general population, there’s strong support for the social care workforce with 72 per cent agreeing or strongly agreeing with the statement ‘I have confidence in people who work in care’. This percentage however doesn’t reflect what people working in social care told us about how they think they’re seen by others. ****Some social workers raise concerns about the media influence on public opinion, stating that the profession is judged unfairly, and calling for more balanced media coverage.

Our briefing explores the reasons behind how valued the workforce feels, and the knock-on effect this can have on attraction, recruitment and retention.

We asked social care workers registered with us to take part in the ‘Have your say survey’ between March and May 2023. Along with independent research that we conducted and commissioned, this information was used to create the first annual set of Workforce Insight Series.

The full briefings can be found on our Insight Collective website.

References

* Social Care Wales (2023a) Pilot workforce survey - Overall report of findings

** Social Care Wales (2022) Workforce data collection report, 2022.

*** Social Care Wales (2023b) Public Perceptions Survey. Unpublished.

**** ORS (2023) Agency workers’ motivations. Unpublished.