Honey, we grew the team – with Spotify and TikTok

Infinite Care, with 18 residential aged care locations nationally, is innovating how it recruits, retains and trains its workforce, engaging in all forms of social media to great effect. Competition for staff is immense. New recruits, retention of existing staff, warding off competitor poaching. It is a rolling battle every day. Operators are constantly ‘on’ in their HR strategies and refreshing their hunting processes. The expense is substantial and often with diminishing returns. Is there a solution?

Infinite Care launches Spotify podcast

With most care workers relying on their mobile phones as their primary source of consumer information, Infinite Care has taken this as a cue. The private operator has launched a publicly available podcast ‘Honey, We Grew The Team’ on music streaming service Spotify in May this year to discuss some of the potentially sticky topics that its 2,500 staff face in their work and how to deal with them.

“Like a lot of providers, we have difficulty at times, particularly getting some of our leaders to engage in particular training that might be required for them,” said its Chief People & Transformation Officer, Rebecca Pacey (pictured), who co-hosts the podcast with People and Culture Adviser, Georgia Harvey, a recent graduate with a background in psychology and HR. So far, episodes have covered issues such as staff not wearing their uniform, drinking in the workplace and how managers can better connect with their staff. While the podcast has not replaced the provider’s traditional training, it is offering the opportunity to support staff in navigating their roles and this – along with its other retention strategies – is helping to improve turnover, which has declined over the last four to five months.

“Last year, we had a 21% response rate to our engagement survey,” said Rebecca. “This year, it was 66% and we received an 8.2 satisfaction rating.”

Infinite Care is not the only operator to turn to podcasts to connect with new and existing staff. Last year, aged care provider Estia Health launched an eight-part series ‘Care is Calling’ on Spotify to talk about some of the myths and misconceptions around working in aged care.

TikTok the next learning platform? 

There is also an opportunity for providers to better use social media platforms to engage with and educate staff, according to Will Egan (pictured), the CEO of Ausmed, which delivers continuing professional development (CPD) education to over 400,000 health care workers including aged care staff. He says there is space for providers to offer an internal TikTok app style stream to deliver information.

“It’s a channel that your staff are already on,” he pointed out. “You’re leveraging existing technology infrastructure so all you need to do is create content.” Infinite Care started its own TikTok channel this year to engage with their staff, who now have an average age of 39-40 compared to mid-50s five years ago. Rebecca says the social media stream has helped staff to feel more invested in the organisation and therefore more invested in training. It has been a big thing for bringing new staff on board.

Creating keen ambassadors amongst younger staff

“We have some team members who are very active on those platforms, particularly on TikTok, and they do enormous amount of marketing for us and that helps us to attract people,” she stated. The car is also an ideal interface for communicating information, Will added.

He cited the example of a CarPlay app where home care workers driving between their clients could listen to a recording of clinical notes about a client on the way. “The client management system can connect in with the CarPlay to provide a one- to two-minute audio summary of what this person needs so the carer arrives at the front door of the next client feeling confident, familiar and equipped to help that individual with what they need,” Will said.

New media cost effective

Ausmed also offers its clients access to audio or video-based learning software as a cost-effective option.

“If the operator can create that content, we can give them a private channel to share it with their employees,” said Will.

Unlike traditional training, providers don’t have to pay staff for the time spent consuming this type of content – reducing the cost further.

Their own time, their own way

Ausmed has around 20,000 aged care workers that have personally registered with their organisation to complete online courses independent of their employer – indicating that staff are interested in these opportunities. “The message is that if you can create the content in a manner that people find appealing and they can see that they’re investing in themselves, they will go out and do it,” said Will.

SATURDAY: Investment in training and new platforms to engage with your staff is a no-brainer for aged care providers that want to improve workforce retention and culture as well as the quality of care for consumers.