2023 will be the year that Social Care…'reaches the tipping point for digitisation.'

Neil literally wrote the book on transforming the sector. Described as "a vital resource for any care provider", Saving Social Care provides practical advice to employers on where to find great people and how to attract more of them, along with 20 great retention strategies to ensure they stay for the long term.

More recently, he's channelled all of his experience into Care Friends, an employee referral app developed in partnership with Skills for Care. He saw an opportunity to digitise traditional referral programmes, which can be hard to track, time-consuming to administer, and unengaging and easily forgettable for frontline staff.

With Care Friends, staff earn rewards for supporting the recruitment process in numerous different ways, not just for successfully referring someone they know for a job opening. The app also helps them spread the word on social media, increasing the reach of job adverts.

700 providers are now on board, generating more than 85,000 referrals so far. People who join following a Care Friends-generated referral are typically 50% less likely to churn in year one, making it a powerful tool for boosting retention as well as recruitment.

 

In conversation with Neil

Describe your 2022 in one word:

Frenetic

What was your / your team’s biggest achievement in 2022?

Approval of the app by NHS England for use in hospitals.

What was the biggest challenge and how did you overcome it?

Bootstrapping a high-growth business. We were able to fund ourselves from internal cash flow as customers pay us annually in advance.

What are your priorities for 2023?

Growing on four fronts: social care, NHS, hospitality and international.

Name a skill or habit you would like to cultivate this year:

More time on the Bridge and less in the engine room.

Which bit of tech (hardware or software) could you not live without?

Slack

Android or iPhone?

iPhone

Teams or Zoom?

Zoom

Neil recently joined us to share his views on how Social Care organisations can consistently praise and recognise their staff for their contributions: