4 minute read
Skills
RUNNING LOW ON HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE STAFF?
If your healthcare business is struggling to find new employees, you’re not alone.
In July, a Parliamentary Committee heard NHS vacancies had reached 105,000 in number, while a Care England survey last December found 95% of respondents struggled to recruit staff.
That’s why training the next generation workers is so important to the health and social care sector, with a pressing need for new talent to maintain the standard all of us desire. With your help, EKC Group can be the solution to the problem.
Four of our six Colleges – Broadstairs, Canterbury, Folkestone, and Sheppey – offer high-quality qualifications in Health and Social Care, with hundreds of students being trained in the area each year.
Both ambitious and eager, these learners are taught the most up-to-date knowledge and skills available to practitioners, ensuring they are ready to enter the job market immediately after graduating.
However, no matter how excellent they are, in-class lessons can only go so far. What’s needed to truly inspire students and prepare them for a career in the healthcare sector is face-toface contact with those already in it.
Whether that’s through talks, demonstrations, field visits, or work placements, every opportunity can enhance learning and crystallise what has been taught in theory. While our lecturers come from Health and Social Care backgrounds, meeting those currently in the profession is all the more impactful.
That’s where you come in.
If you’re in the sector and wish to help us inspire the next generation of passionate workers, you can get in touch with us today. We can work together to remain at the forefront of Kent’s Health and Social Care education and provision.
Your organisation can be a beacon of best practice and be at the forefront of learners’ minds when they complete their courses. By offering work experience or business and administration apprenticeships, you get instant access to young people with modern training fresh in their minds.
If you think you can help train the health and social care workers of the future, get in touch with us at ekcgroup.ac.uk today.
KEEPING STAFF WELLBEING AT OUR CORE
After the pandemic and its resultant lockdowns, maintaining health and wellbeing in the workplace is increasingly important.
Nearly 1 in 4 UK employees met the criteria for ‘clinically relevant symptoms’ of anxiety and depression, according to a study published this year by Champion Health.
At EKC Group, we strive to maintain a holistic approach to tackling this among our own staff body. Not only does this combat staff turnover, it also creates a welcoming and positive environment for both our employees and students.
A simple way of minimising stress and anxiety is ensuring employees have channels of communication with their managers, encouraging them to be open about their wellbeing during regular one-to-one meetings. This enables us to support the staff member individually, as well as identifying areas we can focus on as a Group.
We recognise that flexible working can be very beneficial to staff members. People are invited to discuss with their managers possible amendments to start times and working hours, as well as opportunities to work from home. This flexibility ties in with our policies for those with children or dependents, which have been crafted to meet the disruption parents and carers can face.
As a Group, we’re dedicated to easing already stressful situations and supporting our staff through them. In this endeavour, days off may be allowed to care for sick or injured children and dependents, for fertility treatment, and even for their child’s first day at school. Another way we assist staff through stress is by offering confidential counselling with an external service, ensuring employees can speak openly and honestly about any issues they’re facing both in and out of work.
Our Group also runs a virtual hub packed with courses for building confidence, boosting happiness and increasing organisation in everyday life. Accessible to anyone across the Group, these courses are enhanced through the provision of one-to-one wellbeing action plans for those who would like one.
We believe it is important for organisations to focus on employees’ stresses outside of work as well, so our support doesn’t end when the work day does.
Staff across the Group can benefit from discounted membership at our Canterbury College Sports Centre. We also facilitate employees creating after-work clubs, with our most popular being the running, yoga, and crocheting clubs.
