Leadership in Practice
The UK’s fastest-growing news and insight platform for the care sector.
Practical advice, strategies and insights to help care sector leaders attract, recruit, retain and develop exceptional teams. Our guidance covers everything from writing job adverts that attract the right people and identifying interview red flags to understanding the cost of a toxic team member, with a range of resources to help you build stronger, more effective workforces.
For decades, care workers have been told that their work is valuable while their pay has frequently suggested otherwise. They have been praised as compassionate, essential and heroic, yet many have continued to earn wages that do not reflect the skill, responsibility and emotional demands of their roles.
The development of England’s first adult social care Fair Pay Agreement represents a potentially significant change. The proposed negotiating body is intended to give care workers, employers and other representatives a formal role in discussions about pay and conditions across the sector.
For employers, this cannot be treated as a single change to the hourly rate. If care workers begin to receive greater recognition through pay, they are also likely to look more closely at the rest of their employment experience. They will ask whether their rotas are fair, whether their time is respected, whether progression is genuinely available and whether the organisation’s values apply to its workforce as well as the people it supports.
Fair pay may become the beginning of a much wider conversation about what care workers should reasonably expect from a good employer.
There is a tendency to discuss employee wellbeing, recognition and workplace culture as though these things can compensate for low wages. They cannot.
A thank-you message does not pay an energy bill. An employee award does not cover rising food costs, and a wellbeing event cannot remove the stress created by an income that does not meet essential household expenses. Care workers deserve to be paid properly for the work they perform. Their roles require responsibility, judgement, emotional intelligence, practical skill and the ability to respond safely when circumstances change. The work may involve medication, safeguarding, personal care, complex communication and supporting people through some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives.
Employers cannot control the entire funding system, and many providers are operating under enormous financial pressure themselves. However, organisations should be honest about what they can influence and avoid presenting inexpensive gestures as substitutes for proper pay. Fair pay is the foundation of a good employment offer. It is not the whole building.
A higher hourly rate will not provide complete financial security if workers do not know how many hours they will receive. Care workers may be expected to remain flexible while their own need for stability is overlooked. Rotas can change at short notice, shifts may be cancelled and employees can struggle to plan childcare, healthcare appointments or a second job.
Predictability will increasingly become part of how workers judge an employer. This does not mean care services can eliminate every last-minute change. People become unwell, needs alter and unexpected incidents occur. However, there is a difference between unavoidable disruption and an organisation routinely depending on staff to absorb poor workforce planning.
Employers should examine how far in advance rotas are issued, how often they are changed and whether the same employees are repeatedly asked to cover gaps. They should also consider whether refusing an additional shift carries an unspoken penalty. Workers should not have to remain permanently available in order to be considered committed.
Care does not begin and end neatly at the scheduled times written on a rota. Employees attend handovers, travel between visits, complete records, collect equipment, respond to calls and sometimes stay beyond the end of a shift because the person they support cannot safely be left.
If this time is routinely unpaid or treated as an expected act of goodwill, an improved basic rate may not feel particularly fair. Employers need to understand the full working day rather than looking only at contact time. This is particularly important in homecare, where travel delays and tightly scheduled visits can create intense pressure.
Workers may also question whether mandatory training, meetings and supervision are properly paid. If attendance is required by the employer, staff should not be expected to donate their time. Fairness is not simply the number printed beside the hourly rate. It is whether the worker is paid for all the time the organisation requires from them.
Care staff work closely with people who may be particularly vulnerable to infection. Despite this, financial pressure can leave employees feeling that they cannot afford to stay home when they are unwell.
Changes to Statutory Sick Pay are bringing greater attention to how employers respond to sickness. This creates an opportunity for care providers to examine the culture surrounding absence, not only the legal minimum they must provide.
A manager can protect service continuity without humiliating someone for becoming ill. Staff should understand how to report an absence, what communication is expected and what support is available when they return.
Patterns of absence may sometimes need to be managed, but every sick call should not begin with an assumption of dishonesty. A workplace in which people are frightened to report illness can place colleagues and those receiving care at greater risk. Care workers are likely to expect employers to recognise that health is not a sign of loyalty. Working while genuinely unwell should not be celebrated as dedication.
The Care Workforce Pathway is intended to provide clearer career structures across adult social care. That will increase expectations that employers can explain what development actually looks like inside their organisations.
Telling a care worker that there are opportunities is not enough if every route eventually means becoming a manager. Not everybody wants to manage people. Some workers want to deepen their expertise in dementia, autism, end-of-life care, medication, behaviour support or another area of practice. They should be able to progress and receive greater recognition without leaving the frontline work they value.
Employers should be able to show what skills are required for each role, how employees can develop them and whether additional responsibility leads to additional pay. Acting-up arrangements should not continue indefinitely without formal recognition.
Workers will also notice who receives opportunities. If training and promotion consistently go to the loudest, most visible or managerially favoured employees, a written career pathway will mean very little.
Most employers describe their staff as valued. Workers decide whether that is true by observing what happens on an ordinary Tuesday when the service is under pressure.
Are breaks protected, or do they disappear whenever staffing is tight? Are employees consulted before their shifts change? Does the manager listen when someone raises a concern? Are night workers remembered when food, training or recognition is arranged?
Respect is visible in whether uniforms and equipment are available, payroll errors are corrected quickly and staff receive information that affects their jobs before hearing it through rumours. It is also visible in how managers speak to people. Care workers should not be shouted at, embarrassed in front of colleagues or contacted aggressively when they are off duty.
An organisation can have excellent values displayed on a wall while creating a daily experience that feels disrespectful. Employees will increasingly judge the behaviour rather than the statement.
Care work can involve distress, frustration and behaviour that challenges. Staff may also experience aggression from relatives, members of the public or colleagues.
Compassion for the person receiving care should never require an employer to minimise what happened to a worker. After an incident, staff need more than an instruction to complete a form. They need to know that the event will be reviewed, risks will be reassessed and practical steps will be taken to reduce the chance of it happening again.
Comments such as “They did not mean it” or “It is part of the job” can leave employees feeling that their safety matters less than maintaining the service. A fair workplace recognises the complexity of supporting people compassionately while also protecting the workforce. Care workers should expect appropriate training, safe staffing, risk management and genuine support following a frightening incident.
Care organisations depend heavily on flexible workers. Employees cover weekends, nights, bank holidays and unexpected absences. They rearrange family plans and respond when services urgently need help.
When those same workers request flexibility, however, they may encounter far less understanding. A good employer cannot approve every request, particularly where safe staffing must be maintained. Nevertheless, decisions should be consistent, explained and free from favouritism.
Workers may need flexibility because of childcare, disability, health appointments, religious observance or unpaid caring responsibilities. Managers who understand the person behind the rota are more likely to retain them. Flexibility should not mean the employee is endlessly adaptable while the organisation remains completely rigid.
International recruitment has helped many care organisations maintain essential services, but sponsorship creates a significant imbalance of power.
Workers whose immigration status is connected to their employment may feel unable to question unsafe practice, challenge unpaid time or report poor treatment. They may fear that raising a concern could threaten not only their job but their ability to remain in the country.
Ethical employers must do more than meet sponsorship requirements. International workers should understand their rights, receive accurate information about pay and hours and have safe ways to raise concerns. They should also receive the same access to progression, preferred shifts and workplace recognition as their UK-born colleagues. Racism from colleagues, families or people receiving care must be addressed rather than accepted as an unavoidable part of the role.
A sponsored worker is not an employee who should be permanently grateful and silent. They are a professional entitled to dignity, fairness and a voice.
The Fair Pay Agreement process reflects a broader principle: care workers should have a voice in decisions that shape their working lives.
That principle should also exist inside individual organisations. Employees do not need to control every management decision, but they should be consulted about changes that affect how they deliver care. This is especially important when introducing new technology, changing rotas, redesigning roles or altering working practices.
Consultation cannot mean announcing a completed decision and asking whether everyone understands it. Workers should have an opportunity to identify practical problems before implementation. The people delivering care often know exactly where a proposed system will fail. Listening to them is not only respectful; it can prevent expensive mistakes.
An organisation may improve pay across its workforce and still lose good people because of one manager. Care workers remember whether supervisors support them during difficult shifts, deal fairly with conflict and remain calm when something goes wrong. They notice managers who take credit for the team’s success but disappear when accountability is required.
As employment standards rise, workers may become less willing to tolerate poor behaviour simply because “that is how care is.” Employers will need to invest in managers rather than assuming that excellent care workers naturally know how to lead people. New managers require training in communication, conflict, absence, performance, equality and emotional support.
Promoting someone without preparing them is unfair to the manager and the team they inherit.
Better pay should improve recruitment and retention, but it may also make differences between employers more visible. If rates become more consistent across the sector, workers will compare organisations using the factors surrounding pay. Which employer provides predictable hours? Which one offers development? Where do managers listen? Which service protects breaks, recognises additional responsibility and treats staff fairly when mistakes occur?
The organisations that retain strong teams will be those that understand this early.
Care workers are not expecting perfect workplaces. They understand that services are demanding, funding is constrained and unexpected problems occur. What they increasingly expect is honesty, consistency and evidence that the organisation values them as people rather than regarding them as names required to complete a rota.
Fair pay is coming into the national conversation because care work has been undervalued for too long. Employers should welcome that progress while preparing for the question that naturally follows.
Once workers are paid more fairly, what kind of working life will employers build around that pay?
Join organisations across health and social care that are investing in happier, healthier workplaces with the Daily Round Wellbeing Employer programme.
Download our Employer Wellbeing Brochure to discover what’s included, or become a Daily Round Wellbeing Employer today.
Posted by:
K Jadon
Editorial Assistant – The Daily Round
Busy day? We’ve got you covered. Get FREE daily news, practical insights, opportunities and wellbeing content, carefully curated for busy health and social care professionals. Just enter your details below to get The Daily Briefing delivered straight to your inbox.
newsdesk@dailyround.news