Local health and social care charity Alternative Futures Group has been recognised for its excellence in care provision winning The Three R’s Great British Care Award at its North West Regional Finals.
The Great British Care Awards are a series of regional events throughout the UK that celebrate excellence across the care sector. The purpose of the awards are to pay tribute to those individuals who have demonstrated outstanding excellence within their field of work. As well as winning the Three ‘R’s’ Award, Alternative Futures Group was shortlisted in the following categories;, The Co-Production Award, The Palliative Care/End of Life Award, The ‘Putting People First’/ Personalisation Award and The Supported Living Team Award.
This award focuses on three vital areas for organisations in health and social care; recruitment, retention and recognition. To actively tackle their recruitment needs AFG partnered with a local agency to develop a targeted, multi-channel recruitment marketing campaign and transformed their internal processes. This resulted in a 67% reduction in agency spend which in turn meant that AFG could increase pay for its Support Workers by 11.1% and we were able to improve the consistency and quality of the support provided to vulnerable adults.
AFG also needed to create engaging learning programmes to support their ambitious recruitment plans, retain new and existing talent and address delays in training new starters.
The Learning and Development team designed and delivered role-specific induction pathways for the first six months for all new starters in the organisation, directing new employees to tools and mandatory training required to build skills and knowledge.
“To be shortlisted for six awards already acknowledges the outstanding personalised support provided by our front line colleagues across AFG, but we are thrilled to be able to take home an award further shining a spotlight on the fantastic work and dedication of our people. Our focus this year on attracting the right people, and retaining those individuals has meant we’ve been able to re-invest into our workforce through pay and recognition schemes that we know make our people feel like valued members of Alternative Futures Group. This transformation has been a whole organisation response and this award recognises the efforts of everyone at AFG” Kirsty Murphy, Chief People Officer, Alternative Futures Group.