Glen Mason, Managing Director of social care provider, C4 Care, offers insight into the genesis of their innovative career pathway, the C4 Academy.
Like lots of innovative ideas, it began around the water cooler and a conversation about a recruitment decision we had got wrong. An amazing CV, multiple interviews, a presentation and we had still appointed the wrong person! As we all know the cost of poor recruitment decisions are huge, particularly in a fast growing, quality focused company like C4. What could we do differently next time? How could we avoid the wrong decision again? how do we limit the damage of a poor appointment? By coincidence the same morning we had given flowers and a gift voucher to one of our amazing care colleagues who was our Carer of the Month. She had been chosen because of the amazing feedback we had been receiving about her from her customers and a social worker and her consistently going the extra mile. We all agreed she was the embodiment of our C4 vision and values.
Next followed a light bulb moment. We were trying to answer the wrong question! Rather than how could we improve recruitment decisions the questions was how do we develop our brilliant carers to be our next team leader or care coordinator This was the birth of the C4 Academy.
Building the Academy was a true team effort as we mapped out the questions we needed to answer and ideas stormed the elements of our project plan.
How do we select our leaders of tomorrow?
How do we develop them?
How do we ensure they are motivated and inspired to want to progress?
How do we make the academy inclusive of the various learning styles that people have?
We mapped out a nine-month programme that included monthly mentoring, bi monthly management development covering the essentials of management, people management, utilisation of staff, quality management, etc and crucially lots of experiential learning with Academy members sitting next to our experienced and talented Registered Branch Manager, Care Coordinators and Quality Officer. The classic learning on the job. All of this was combined with regular evaluations of Members progress and a graduation ceremony planned for September.
After an application process that included open applications, reviews of our colleagues personal development plan and encouragement to apply, long listing, short listing and interviews we have now launched the Academy with six care colleagues and four current care coordinators.
There is real excitement and energy in the company as we see new faces in the offices and we have new conversations. We are all so pleased at the start we have made and look forward to the next few months as we develop our academy members and they contribute to the development of C4.
c4-care.com
