|
October Package Review
We have been busy over the last few months looking at staff terms and conditions (especially in light of no pay rise) and staff development. We have spent time looking closely at our competitors in the care sector and are proposing the following to come into effect in the Autumn of this year. Please read below and if you have any questions, please speak to myself or Karen Peatfield at Head Office
Thanks, Ceri Lennon, HR Manager
1 Increasing full-time Contract Hours
Historically, at Eden, support workers (and Project Workers in Enhanced) on a ‘full-time’ contract have been capped at 35 hours. This was due to a few reasons, mainly around flexibility to meet the needs of the service users. In the past, however, most staff have been able to ‘pick up’ extra hours / sleeps to increase their earnings if they so wished.
Recently, there has been a push in regions to discourage support staff working over their contract hours continually for many reasons i.e. health and wellbeing of the staff member, problems covering 40+ hours when that person is on annual leave or unwell and gaining more flexibility with more people working less hours. With the increase in floating support in some teams the option of sleeps is not as available.
With the drop in sleepover rate (even though sleepovers are less hours) some staff have seen a reduction in their net pay.
Therefore, we are proposing that from October this year support workers and project workers is the Core business and Enhanced can opt to increase their contract hours to 37.5 per week if they so wish. Homecare will not have this option for the moment unfortunately and managers, administrators and all others based in offices will see no change to their contract hours.
Therefore, from now we need to establish how many staff would wish to extend their contract hours so over the next few weeks all staff will receive a questionnaire to fill in and return. When we know how many staff (and hours) we need to find, we will work with the management teams and rota writers to work towards achieving 37.5 hours for those staff. This may take a few months in some areas so please be patient as we do not want to disadvantage other staff in any way. Long term we will achieve this by recruiting new staff on part-time contracts as we will still need the flexibility – especially around evenings and weekends. When we are confident we have achieved the increase in hours for all staff we will amend contracts as such.
2 Level 2 re-launch
There have been some concerns voiced in staff forums about our current system of selecting level 2’s. Some staff have been reluctant to push themselves forward and nominate themselves and others have felt unhappy about not being selected. We have listened to the points raised in staff forums, Managers’ meetings and spoken to individual staff members about their concerns and are therefore proposing the following:
Support Workers and Project Workers across all 3 services ESH, Enhanced and Homecare will be put forward for level 2 pay (an extra 50 pence per hour) if they have the following:
Ÿ They have worked continuously for Eden for 5 years
Ÿ They have completed their NVQ level 2 (or equivalent)
Ÿ They have no adverse comments on their files regarding absence or disciplinary
Ÿ They have met their objectives in their annual ‘Personal Review’ (see below for details)
Level 2’s will be awarded October every year and the first group will be informed prior to the pay review this
Autumn. It will have a significant impact on the number of staff paid at the higher rate – especially in the more
established regions. Newer services and regions will see the increase over the next couple of years and will then
see continual growth. Current staff on Level 2 will remain.
3 Personal Review
A working group has been meeting to look at our annual ‘appraisal’ system, which is called currently the ‘development review’. We have been looking at ways of making this annual meeting more meaningful for those concerned and are about to launch the ‘Personal Review’ later this year.
A Personal Review is an opportunity for staff to meet with their line manager annually to discuss their achievements over the past year and aspirations for the coming year. It is an ideal opportunity both to reflect on how you have developed and what support you may need to meet any personal goals you may have or your managers may feel you could reach. These objectives will be clear, manageable and achievable.
We are piloting this new simpler process in the Nottingham Region from September and will roll out across Eden from January 2011. In the meantime the current format ‘Development Reviews’ will continue. You will hear more in your team meetings over the next few months. As with any process, this can only succeed if you give it some thought and contribute towards your own development by filling in the short questionnaire prior to your meeting and being open to developing yourself and the service we deliver.
|
