Bosses should pay staff the living wage, says home care director

A "holistic ethical" approach to business, requiring bosses to pay staff a living wage, is crucial says Robert Stephenson-Padron, the managing director at home care firm Penrose Care.

With 20 workers who regularly support 15 clients in Belsize Park, North London, he says his company’s ethical approach to care has seen it become one of the first accredited Living Wage employers in the UK’s home care sector.

He pays his staff £9.40 an hour (London wage) and £11.35 an hour overtime (at nights and weekends) and believes other bosses should be giving their workers the living wage they deserve.

The UK’s minimum wage (National Living Wage) of £7.20 an hour for over 25-year-olds was introduced last April. However, the home care boss is among the 2,600 employers paying the voluntary rate of £9.40 an hour in London and £8.25 in the rest of the UK, dubbed the ‘proper living wage’.

In its report published on 29 July, the trade union UNISON highlighted the “low pay norms of the social care sector.” With some care bosses still not paying staff the minimum wage UNISON is calling for the Low Pay Commission (the independent body that advises Government on the National Minimum Wage) to honour its 2014 commitment to seek 'significantly faster increases' in the minimum wage to address an ‘urgent need’ to raise the National Minimum Wage to the level of a ‘proper living wage’.

Mr Stephenson-Padron says: “The home care sector in the UK has a lot of problems. For instance, non-compliance with the National Minimum Wage, inappropriately low-payments for sleep-ins, the misclassification of employees as contractors (to avoid employer’s national insurance and holiday pay) – put ethical providers (which pay the London living wage, pay for travel time, comply with the minimum wage for sleep-ins, operate an occupational sick pay scheme, and classify all workers as employees) at a cost disadvantage.”

“First and foremost we need to have a level playing field. Providers that flout labour laws with impunity need to be replaced by those that follow them. Complying with basic labour laws needs to be the base standard."

He says organisations should also strive to pay the living wage and then start “augmenting their business models to support those standards.”

Turn down work that doesn’t support ‘decent’ employment standards

He admits to turning down work saying: “The bulk of potential work that comes our way we need to refer on, as we will not accept work that does not allow us to support a model that provides our care workers with decent employment benefits."

Referring to unfair wage practices, he works with authorities and other organisations "to combat these bad practices to make the care market fairer.” A struggle that is not without its challenges.

Private sector can play a part to fund social care

“Funding is of course an issue. If the public sector is not keen to increase funding however, there needs to be a policy impetus to support employers to offer elderly care as part of benefits options - similar to childcare.”

The home care boss says paying his workers the living wage has contributed to the ‘pay-off’ of receiving client and staff feedback that has “been consistently excellent since we started trading in 2013.”

Typical working day

Mr Stephenson-Padron, who runs his company with co-founder Dr Matthew Knight, made his comments during an interview about his typical working day.

He says: ”The first work-related task starts at 7am from home: I make sure that workers show up.

“I’ll get in the Penrose Care office around 9am or I’ll attend an event. This morning, [27 July] I attended an event on the living wage held by the Resolution Foundation. At the event, a speaker said that the real living wage is a serious factor in a ‘holistic ethical’ approach to business. I couldn’t agree more.

Once in the office, he begins resolving any issues during the daily auditing of care worker notes. On the subject of auditing notes, he says: “A worker may note that a client is developing signs of depression or a rash. If it was discovered during the evening/night, we'll follow up with a client's GP, go get these things checked up, if the care worker on duty didn't have the opportunity the previous day.”

The rest of the MD’s day can involve assessing new clients, reviewing existing clients, managing communications, organising staff meetings, ensuring rotas are set, recruiting and supervising staff, approving marketing projects, reading up and complying with compliance-related matters and undertaking general accounting and financial administration.

Feedback-triggered training

He has also been working on a project since last year on training schemes to upskill care workers.

In 2015, the company started working on a household management training scheme with a local hospitality college, after receiving feedback from a client. The home care client said workers needed to improve their housekeeping skills such as knowing when to close blinds and put things back where they belong.

The MD’s day finished at 5-6pm …“but” he adds “if there are pressing projects that need to be completed, I can work into the middle of the night.”

He says: “The most difficult aspects about running the home care firm is managing challenging behaviour associated with say, dementia, when it arises. You have to be adaptive in solving these situations as every situation is different. It is why you need caring but also capable people to be care workers.

“The profession of supporting vulnerable people with their daily lives can be difficult and complex but is also incredibly rewarding. I get to learn from the 'greatest generation'. And I do try to integrate this wisdom into my daily life.”

When asked what qualities were needed to run a home care firm, he says “Be committed to doing the right thing and the follow on from that is shaping your culture and business model to support that commitment.

“The other thing is the commitment to work hard. I am okay getting out of bed in the middle of the night. People are alive 24/7, may need to be supported 24/7, and so if they or my staff need me for whatever reason, I feel it is my duty to be available.”

The MD's qualifications include a degree in economics and health and social care-specific training including higher level certificates in compliance, being a registered manager, moving and handling, medications, nutrition, food safety and First Aid at Work.

'Marked divergence in care'

On the subject of the sector's future direction he says: “Due to ageing populations, I think you’ll see a social care sector that is continuously under pressure for the foreseeable future and as a result, a marked divergence between the quality of care between organisations dedicated to ethics and those that will accept the market as it is.“