OUR AIMS

The development of an articulate organisational narrative and inspiring shared vision will be essential to create a sense of purpose and direction, as we work to embed this pillar. Central to this will be the alignment of our people and processes to our overall strategy.

This means our leaders, managers and staff working collaboratively to identify the best interventions to address their challenges and improve performance.

This strategic pillar will be further measured through an operational dashboard. This will be used to communicate and monitor key people objectives and their impact at service level.

Aim 1: Attracting the best people, with the right values in the right number

To successfully deliver on our business priorities it is essential that we are able to attract the best people, both from within and outside of the sector, recognising the value of diversity. Recruiting and retaining staff with the right values and in sufficient number enables us to provide our service more consistently, reducing agency usage, which provides greater continuity to the people we support, which in turn supports them to achieve their outcomes.

We will

Continue to raise the profile of equality, diversity and inclusion as an integral part of the future of Making Space, and ensure equality & diversity is embedded in key policies, practice and through learning and development
Develop our employer brand by ensuring all recruitment activity and employment documentation clearly and consistently represents the Making Space brand, this includes creating a quality experience for job applicants, standardising all recruitment selection processes and training all recruiters

Develop an online staff handbook which presents a consistent narrative on Making Space, its values, key employment information, personal development and career pathways
Develop our recruitment processes and practices to ensure they are flexible and attuned to our needs. This includes firmly establishing recruitment activity at service level to increase responsiveness and engagement with applicants, whilst actively involving the people we support in this process. This will be backed up with a highly efficient central recruitment support service
Develop a set of behaviours that underpin our values and act as a set of cultural norms that we will use to inform recruitment and measure performance, attitude and leadership

Key measures:

Number of vacancies
Agency costs
Equality and Diversity Monitoring

Aim 2: Developing the skills of our people to fulfil their potential

Our people are our core strength; supporting, developing and training our staff to achieve their full potential enables us to provide quality care to the people we support. As the environment in which care and support is provided continues to change, we need to have the agility in our workforce, where skills are transferable, new ways of working are adopted and we embrace and develop core digital skills.

We will:

Develop our induction to ensure all new staff are welcomed and receive a standardised induction programme which meets care certificate standards, and enables them to be introduced to their role as efficiently as possible whilst improving new starter retention
Continue to review our skills matrix and provide an annual training plan that meets mandatory training requirements, required service specific training and continuous professional development
Develop staff in line with Sector Competency Frameworks including undertaking a job-related qualification, which will help to upskill and professionalise our workforce

Continue to develop the digital skills of our staff in line with the Skills for Care Core Digital Skills Model through Project Shine and by communicating, sign posting to external training providers and through apprenticeships
Introduce Practice Development through researching, identifying and developing models of high-quality personal-centred care and support. This evidence base will be embedded into our learning programmes and competencies using a range of interventions including coaching, reflective practice, training and supervision in order to add value to the quality of the support we provide

Key measures:

New starter retention under 6 months
Mandatory training compliance %
No. of staff qualified to recognised qualifications

Aim 3: Supporting our people to give their best with wellbeing at the heart

We want to create a culture in which our staff feel engaged, have autonomy in their roles, are highly productive and give their best. To achieve this staff need to feel aligned to our purpose and be clear as to how they contribute to our success and be rewarded for doing so. We also want to place health and wellbeing at the centre of this to encourage everyone to look after their wellbeing.

We will:

Review our corporate values and communicate a strong and consistent narrative about Making Space that is compelling and authentic in which staff can relate
Create greater autonomy and understanding of team purpose and goals through a range of interventions to facilitate collaboration, team effectiveness and decision making
Continue to work across the organisation to promote, encourage and review engagement through listening events, roadshows, staff surveys, opportunities to meet with EMT, our reward/ engagement platform, welcome days and a greater visibility of senior leaders
Develop a reward and recognition strategy which aims to create a culture of appreciation and team working, that recognises staff achievements, values-based behaviours and service milestones whilst continuing to improve the effectiveness of our internal communications

Aim to keep lowest pay levels above the National Living Wage and review pay and rewards regularly against market benchmarks
Develop a new ‘best fit’ performance management framework, ensuring staff receive regular and meaningful 1 to 1’s, whilst introducing a ‘real time’ review of objectives. This will include assessing staff performance against our values and behaviours and introducing Personal Development Plans (PDP)
Continue to raise awareness of wellbeing through a revised wellbeing policy and programme, which includes training a number of Mental Health First Aiders to act as champions across Making Space, running a number of wellbeing initiatives and events, and continuing to communicate the benefits of our Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) and utilise it more effectively across the workforce

Key measures:

Staff turnover
Number of staff having regular 1 to 1’s / appraisal
Sickness levels

Aim 4: Leading through excellence

A successful future needs excellent leadership, which is transformational. This means that our leaders are supported and inspired to have the courage to think differently and look for new solutions to the challenges we face. It is imperative that we have the leadership in place that has the capability and confidence to achieve optimum performance of our services, develop new services and facilitate the high performance of our staff.

We will:

Equip our leaders with the necessary skills and behaviours to lead others through developing a bespoke leadership development programme
Develop our talent management pipeline and create a future leaders programme, providing act-up, development and project opportunities across Making Space

Establish and embed a coaching culture across Making Space by continuing with the coaching skills programme for leaders and front-line supervisory staff and embed through competencies
Build our internal coaching expertise by training a pool of qualified coaches to further embed our coaching culture and provide formal coaching interventions to support leadership and talent development
Introduce 360◦ feedback at senior management to service management levels
Support the growth and development of newly appointed leaders and managers particularly in business critical areas

Key measures:

Internal promotion %
Coaching/ leadership evaluation
Number of staff undertaking talent programme and evaluation

How the dedicated and committed workforce
pillar aligns to our values...

We build a culture to support our people to fulfil their potential with wellbeing at the heart of all we do.

We engage directly with our workforce through listening events, engagement surveys and external audit from Investors in People. We tailor-make the organisation to meet the current and future needs of the workforce in response to feedback.

Taking a Practice Development approach we identify, research and develop models of working to provide high quality person-centred care and support.

Creating greater autonomy with a shared understanding of team goals and purpose through a programme of learning and development activity designed to increase team effectiveness and decision making.

Recruiting and retaining staff with values aligned to the organisation and in sufficient numbers to provide continuity of service and being ready for whatever comes our way.

How the dedicated and committed workforce
pillar supports our other strategic pillars...

Co-produced services

Our core aim is to attract the best people, with values aligned to Making Space and in the right numbers. People we support and their carers will be at the heart of our recruitment campaigns.

Care designed for the future

Through a programme of leadership investment, our current and future leaders will be supported to have the courage to think differently and look for new solutions to the challenges we face.

Digital capability

Developing the digital skills of our workforce, in line with the Skills for Care Core Digital Skills model will increase the autonomy and agility of our teams.

A Dedicated and
committed workforce