This framework provides social care organisations with tools and actions to help with retaining staff. Retaining staff with the right values and skills is essential in providing the relationship-based care and support that matters to people.
Staff retention – the current challenges
Our 2025 Have Your Say survey showed that retention is one of the most significant challenges facing social care.
Nearly one in five workers say they plan to leave social care within the next 14 months. The reason they listed for leaving the sector included:
- low pay
- lack of recognition
- poor working condition
- limited development opportunities.
High workloads and staffing shortages increase pressures and can push people out of the sector. At the same time, almost half of the workforce said they needed better training and clearer routes for career progression.
These findings demonstrate why it’s essential to improve retention - not only for workforce stability, but for delivering high quality and consistent care.
About the framework
This framework highlights resources that are designed to help employers address these challenges directly.
Our aim is to help you create conditions that encourage staff to stay, grow, and thrive in their roles.
We’ve brought together resources and research that could help to improve the retention of the workforce and resolve some of the issues that high turnover can cause. They’ll help provide a positive workplace experience for people, which in return will lead to improved care for people accessing care and support.
Key themes to support retention
Themes
Our key themes
We’ve grouped the resources under four key headings:
What next?
We’re committed to developing further resources over time to support managers, leaders and organisations to improve the retention of their workforce.
These include: retention surveys, pay and progression frameworks, and approaches to values-based recruitment.
Contact us
Are there other areas of support or resources that you feel would help you to improve retention of the workforce? Let us know by e-mailing workforcestrategy@socialcare.wales.