the Importance of employee Health Benefits within the Social Care Industry
Everyone has the right to a healthy, nourishing lifestyle, and social care plays an essential role for many people. Typically, care homes provide support for people with mental, physical, and learning disabilities or illnesses. During the pandemic and the post-pandemic period, our care homes faced many challenges.
These include employee absenteeism, hiring, and retention issues. If you are one of those troubled social care home managers or owners looking for a solution to these issues, we have got you covered. Let us discuss the significant issues faced by the social care industry, their solutions, and the benefit of employer-funded health plans for your employees.
Top Issues Faced by the Social Care Industry
Here are the key issues that the social care industry is facing:
1. Absenteeism
The first and one of the primary challenges the social care industry faces is increased employee absenteeism. As domiciliary and general healthcare workers were on the frontline against COVID-19, they were more exposed to minor illnesses and major mental and physical health issues. In the UK (United Kingdom), male workers lost around 1.8%, and females lost 2.6% of their working hours, which is 0.3 percent higher than in 2020.
However, the absence rate was higher for older people as they are more exposed to different issues and infections. To give you a better idea, the absence rate for older employees or workers in 2021 was 3.2%, which is the highest on record.
This unexpected increase in the absence of workers puts social care managers and owners in a difficult position because it becomes challenging for them to deal with the high employee demand. Moreover, due to this, costs increased while productivity moved on a downward trajectory.
2. Recruitment
Recruitment is another issue the social care industry is facing because there are a lot of vacancies available in the market that need to be filled. The replacement or turnover rate is 31% in the UK social sector compared to the average of 15% in all other sectors. Moreover, the vacancy rate is also 8% higher than the 3% vacancy rate in all other departments.
This shows that there are a lot of vacant seats available in the social care industry that need competent candidates.
However, the low pay and absence of other incentives for a social worker deprive the social care industry of skilled candidates. So, to attract potential workers, managers and social care homeowners need to add different benefits to make the job more compelling. Otherwise, the care provider will always have a shortage of employees, resulting in over worked and stretched employees..
3. Retention
Once you have hired a suitable candidate for a position in the social care industry, being the worker manager or social care homeowner, you need to ensure they do not leave. Most often, employees leave the new position within a few months or days due to the heavy workload without any benefits or incentives.
Moreover, the social care sector struggles the most to retain younger workers, and the turnover rate for employees under their 20s was 52.6%. All this is because the job either is not attractive enough or the business fails to support the new employee. Hence, the newly filled seat again becomes vacant, and employee retention becomes another huge issue. Leaving the recruitment and training cost for that employees which can be up to £3000 or more.
A health plan is a policy that covers employees' healthcare issues, such as dental or optical visits, and it empowers them. Below, we have discussed the benefits of providing employees with an app-based health plan.
Here are the features of the app-based, company-funded health plan that make it an ultimate success:
Offers regular MSK (Muscular skeletal) treatment solutions and dental and optical cashback
Provides short-term talking therapy solutions to support employee mental health
Cashback for regular treatments usually within 2 working days.
It offers explainer videos, sharing benefits details and ways to use the health plan proactively to help prevent illness and injury.
Need for a Health Plan for the Social Care Industry
The primary reasons for employee absenteeism and sickness and with little to no availability of company-funded health benefits, employees are reliant on the NHS (National Health Service) which we know is struggling currently. At the same time, employee hiring, and retention issues can be due to the high workload, lack of support from the business, and low pay. Hence, to get the best from your employees, the business needs to work for the employees' betterment, while they work to support your clients' health.
A company-funded healthcare plan provides a solution to these problems and can differentiate your business from other similar paid roles being offered by your local competitors.
Benefits of a Company-Funded Health Plan
Here are the amazing benefits that you can get by introducing a company-funded health plan for employees:
Reduce absence: As mentioned earlier, social care workers are often absent due to physical and mental illness. The health plan covers proactive and reactive treatment solutions for both.
Supports the Family: Most health plans offer child support, and you can even introduce employees' partner health support options to make the plan more welcoming.
Easy Recruitment and Retention: A health care plan can be used in recruiting to attract competent employees. The incentives associated with this plan make the job attractive for many young mums because as it can include child cover also.
More Engaged with Technology: With a healthcare plan, the employees learn about different digital health-related issues and seminars. They benefit from important digital health programs that raise awareness.
Conclusion
Having a proper company-funded health plan can make your business more stable and can help you recruit and keep quality candidates. In addition, you get free from the major social care industry issues. However, creating a health plan alone can be overwhelming and may not be ideal for all employees.
That is where PegasusHealth comes in! We have an excellent team that carefully understands your social care industry needs. We can help you launch a plan to cater to the needs of all employees. We search the market to bring you peace of mind and give your employees excellent healthcare benefits while working in social care. So, do not wait and contact us today to get your plan now!