Transformation roundtable - Sticking around: the art of keeping great people in adult social care, 3 December 2025

Georgia Rudin (GR), Adviser, LGA 

GR, Adviser at the Local government Association (LGA) in partnership with the chair Patricia Jones-Greenhalgh (PG), Regional Care and Health Improvement Adviser in the Partners in Care and Health team, opened the session by welcoming participants and set the context emphasising that adult social care is built on relationships, compassion and expertise. 

The Chair highlighted the persistent challenge of retention, the impact of high turnover on continuity and quality of care, and the additional pressure these places on already stretched local authority budgets. 

This roundtable was framed as an opportunity to share practical approaches for keeping great people in adult social care, with a focus on culture, leadership and employee experience during transformation.
 

Laura Gaudion (LG), Director of Adult Social Care and Housing Needs, Isle of Wight Council

LG introduced the Isle of Wight ‘Possibilitree’ as a visual, living workforce plan for adult social care and housing, created after a three-year strategy and extensive engagement with staff, HR and learning and development.

The tree maps career pathways for every role and promotes psychological safety, diversity, inclusion and growth, showing that careers are not linear and that people can move, grow or step back at different stages.

Its structure uses roots for recruitment, retention, coaching, mentoring and succession planning, the trunk and branches for the range of roles and pathways, and “weather” (raindrops) for the support that nourishes the workforce, such as wellbeing offers, supervision and learning time.

Inclusive leadership and values-based recruitment is embedded around the tree, with all staff guaranteed protected learning and development time each month for training, shadowing and system-wide understanding, supported by refreshed supervision frameworks and a strong emphasis on flexible working.

The model has delivered tangible results, reducing reliance on agency staff in key roles to just 1 worker now moving into a permanent post, improving budget control, reducing risk and strengthening continuity and quality of care, while making progression and succession routes visible to staff.

Sharing the ‘Possibilitree’ with NHS and voluntary partners has underpinned a unified workforce plan across health and social care on the island, and the tree itself now acts as a focal point for conversation, celebration and feedback, reinforcing that the plan is shared, active and continually evolving.

Dr Meenakshi Krishnan, (MK) Principal Research Fellow, Institute for Employment Studies

• MK presented CQC-commissioned research based on a survey of 600+ staff across adult social care and the NHS, examining which inequalities they face, how these appear in daily practice and how they affect retention and quality of care.
• Inequalities were reported most frequently around race and ethnicity, followed by physical disability, mental health, gender and nationality, with many staff experiencing intersectional disadvantage where multiple characteristics combined.
• These inequalities were most often felt as microaggressions, unfair access to opportunities, pay and progression, and social exclusion rather than overt discrimination, leading to distress, damaged relationships, higher intention to leave and reduced quality of care.
• Respondents linked these patterns to individual behaviours, organisational culture and wider national systems, describing a “cycle of silence and inaction” where staff feared speaking up or felt complaints would not lead to meaningful change.
• Common interventions such as mandatory training, high level policies and “celebrating diversity” events were not seen as effective, whereas fewer but more impactful measures included robust complaint follow up, visible and accountable leadership, transparent use of diversity data, strong staff networks and better grievance and whistleblowing routes.
• MK introduced a policy process practice framework, stressing that policies must be matched by fair recruitment, progression and pay processes and consistent everyday behaviours, and urged councils to treat equality, diversity and inclusion as core to workforce sustainability and care quality.

Laura how did you start developing talent pools and what does that look like in practice, including for workforce planning and skills?

When talking about talent pools on the Isle of Wight, it’s describing something that has grown from day-to-day conversations rather than a single formal Programme. The council use one-to-one supervision and career pathway discussions to understand what people really want from their careers and where their strengths lie, even if that does not sit inside their current job description. One example is a domestic worker from a reablement center who was redeployed and supported into a support worker role, and who is now moving into an occupational therapy apprenticeship. We still draw on her strengths with residents who struggle to settle. Similar things have been done with equipment delivery drivers who showed a strong interest in safeguarding, supporting them to become safeguarding champions. In practice this means we look at passion and strengths first, then shape roles and progression routes around that, which in turn informs us how we plan for future skills and capacity.

Meenakshi, what talent pools are you seeing from the research, and which groups should employers focus on?

From the research done at the Institute for Employment Studies,  We can see that adult social care continues to rely heavily on talent pools, especially women and workers over 50.It is important that we acknowledge this reality and design roles and progression routes that genuinely work for older workers, carers and people with complex responsibilities. Employers need to be more deliberate about bringing people with lived experience of inequality and minority backgrounds into leadership and decision making, not only into front line roles. When those perspectives are present at the top table, they shape culture, policies and practices in a way that makes the entire system more inclusive and more attractive to a wider range of people.

Flexibility is critical for older workers, but many line managers resist it. How can we persuade reluctant managers that flexible working is worth their while?

This concern is seen repeatedly in our work with the Centre for Ageing Better. Line managers often see themselves as guardians of efficiency and consistency, so flexible working can feel to them like added complexity and exception handling. The starting point is to show them clear evidence that flexibility supports retention, reduces recruitment and induction costs and sustains performance in the long run. We then work with organisations to give managers practical tools and confidence to manage different patterns, rather than leaving them with a policy and no support.

For us as an organisation, it is also essential to link flexible working explicitly to organisational priorities around retention, equality, and quality of care, so managers can see that this is not a favor to individuals, it is part of how we run a sustainable and fair service.

Is the policy, process and practice (PPP) framework publicly available, and how can organisations access it?

There is currently no standalone published document setting out the PPP framework. It was developed by IES as a conceptual tool for organisations that want to understand how far they have progressed on equality, diversity and inclusion and what “inclusion 2.0” might look like. The framework is used within consulting assignments to review policies, recruitment and progression processes and everyday practises, and to identify entry points for further change.  discussions will be had offline with the LGA and interested councils and suggested that a short blog or summary resource could be developed, noting that the framework has already supported employers such as a media company to redesign their next phase inclusion strategy.

How do you build and sustain a “door opening” culture that gives everyone fair opportunities and supports progression?

Building on Laura’s “door opening culture” starts with leaders who genuinely walk the talk.  We should encourage leaders to show staff what has changed because of their feedback, so employee surveys and staff engagement exercises are not seen as tick box exercises.  It would be sensible to place a lot of value on staff networks and employee resource groups, and   how these groups should have real influence and recognition for the time and energy they invest. When leaders listen carefully to lived experience, act on what they hear, and are transparent about the decisions they make, staff begin to feel that they matter and that they can grow in the organisation. Over time this moves equality, diversity, and inclusion from being a communications exercise to being part of how people experience their working lives and their chances to progress.

Participants reflected on how the presentations mirrored their own experience, sharing work in places such as Durham to change public perceptions of adult social care and attract new recruits, and in Sheffield to reshape specialist teams with clear communication, apprenticeships and “grow your own” approaches. There was a strong focus on improving understanding of the full range of roles in adult social care, presenting them as attractive careers with progression, and gathering better data to demonstrate the financial as well as human case for investing in retention and development.

Across the discussion there was clear agreement on the importance of leadership that builds trust, visibility and resilience, with delegates emphasising senior managers who are accessible, act on staff feedback and address inequitable practice. Patricia closed by asking participants to identify one immediate action to support their teams through change, while Georgia directed them to further LGA transformation resources and confirmed that slides and the summary would be shared.