New home care referral app helping to improve 'recruitment and retention'

Home care provider Bluebird Care has announced plans to roll out a new innovative recruitment app Care Friends to all its offices in the UK and Ireland this month.

Care Friends is an employee referral app which uses an applied game design to incentivise care staff to share jobs with their friends and contacts straight from their phones as well as allowing managers to reward staff instantly for great work.

Care Friends was created by Neil Eastwood, author of ‘Saving Social Care’ and was launched in June 2020 in partnership with Skills for Care.

Mr Eastwood said: "I am delighted we are now partnering with Bluebird Care nationally. It is validation of the excellent results we have seen across our pilot homecare sites, which have continued apace since our official launch just three months ago.

“This partnership demonstrates the potential of Care Friends to support the recruitment and retention of a high-quality homecare workforce, at scale."

Employees who join the industry through referrals are more likely to stay in the care sector for longer and Care Friends will allow Bluebird Care to access hidden talent within local communities.

Katy Falconer, head of people, engagement and culture at Bluebird Care said: “We are delighted to be collaborating with Care Friends, this innovative app is exactly what we need to help us improve both our recruitment and retention.

“Some of our best carers have joined Bluebird Care because they were inspired by other friends and family in the care sector. With Covid-19, our recruitment process has been streamlined and we are increasingly using technology to ensure we comply with social distancing guidelines.

“It is great that our teams can benefit from recommending friends in this way and managers can instantly acknowledge outstanding work straight to the care assistant’s phone. Recognising and rewarding our carers have always been our top priorities and we look forward to utilising the app more."

Several offices from across the Bluebird Care franchise network have been piloting the app for several months.

Phil Miles, director of Bluebird Care North Hampshire & West Berkshire, said: “We have over doubled the number of referrals using Care Friends compared to our old referral scheme."

The app financially rewards the employee at each step of the referral process as well as allowing them to collect bonus points as a thank you, or be recognised for an accomplishment, such as long service.

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