Case Study - Care Home

Ascent in the care industry

Five women, who work as team leaders at a care home in Anglesey, recently joined several other care home workers from North Wales to complete the Ascent Level 2 Team Leading Award.

Such are the pressures of balancing their managerial and caring duties, the five rarely have a chance to meet up, so the Ascent training event was their first time together in months, and they were soon making negative statements about their working lives. When talking about the work/life balance, for example, these women made it clear that they had none, often working for fourteen days without a break, and, as team leaders, having to provide cover whenever other staff were absent.

Because the Ascent programme aims to give women the skills and confidence to find solutions that will make the workplace more productive, our Ascent trainer wanted to turn these negatives into positive output. So, when any of the five brought up a problem, our trainer presented it back to the group and alternative approaches and solutions were discussed.

One discussion looked at how the caring roles of the five often conflicted with their managerial roles, and so other staff did not always respect them. When asked what should be done, the five said that they wanted senior management to provide clear job descriptions, which could then be circulated to all staff. Workers from other care homes at the training event also suggested regular performance appraisals were best practice. As a result, the five women planned to put these ideas to their senior management team and so improve the situation at their workplace.

While it will take some time to see the impact of this, the five women who attended the Ascent programme are now taking the first steps towards working as a team and finding the right solutions.