Carer’s spotlight
28 November 2024
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By Tinga Umera, Managing Director, Nexus Care Services
As the weather gets colder and the days get shorter, employee wellbeing is more important than ever, with many employers stepping up year-round support programmes to meet the additional pressure of winter.
In the care sector, we hold staff wellbeing to be particularly important. As a family-run business, we treat our team members like part of the family, having been named regional winner for the Midlands of the Home Care Employer Award at the Great British Care Awards 2024.
This helps us in delivering outstanding, personalised care to our clients and helping them stay safe in winter – something which we should absolutely extend to our staff.
By embracing employee wellbeing in winter, we’re taking the lead to make sure that everyone, not just our clients, is safe and warm as the temperature drops!
Speaking from experience, educating our team on staying warm and safe during winter is a great first step – but practical help and support is where the real value lies.
We successfully introduced our ‘winter kits’ to great effect, providing ice scrapers, de-icer and other handy items to keep safe on the roads in winter, and it has made a huge difference to how our carers start their shifts in winter.
We all know how stressful it can be to spend time defrosting the car, particularly when the roads are icy and you are expected at a client’s home – so we have endeavoured to alleviate this stress and make our team’s commute safer.
We also recently introduced our ‘night safety kits’ to keep our carers safe in darker months. These include torches and a panic alarm, so that our carers can feel safe while carrying out their job after dark.
Our family values and family-first approach to operating are at the core of the support we offer to staff. Every one of our team members is part of the family, reflecting and championing our commitment to independence, personal development and help and support when it’s needed.
Being a family business is part of what makes Nexus unique and what has earned us nominations for a number of industry awards, including the Caring UK Awards. It also helped us become a Top 20 home care provider in the West Midlands!
A major element of this success, however, is Nexus as an employer as well as Nexus as a care provider.
Our approach to supporting the safety, wellbeing and development of our team is at the forefront of what we do, and this is nowhere more apparent than in the winter months, when extra support and flexibility may be required.
At Nexus, we pride ourselves on not only providing excellent care, but also in creating a culture of trust, support and professional development, as well as standing out as thought leaders in the sector.
We know that particular challenges are faced by carers in winter, including working early or late hours when it is more likely to be cold and dark. Additionally, it’s clear that travel and travelling safely can be more difficult when it is icy or wet.
Our team have taken steps to address these challenges, but the care sector as a whole could certainly be doing more.
Although the safety and comfort of our clients are paramount, the sector must recognise the importance of safe and healthy carers. Initiatives such as safety packs are an excellent way of taking steps to protect caring staff, as they are highly scalable and could be standardised across the entire sector.
This is something we would love to see, particularly as a way of boosting career satisfaction and retention across the sector.
Providers ought to consider the view that keeping staff safe and warm in winter is not at all secondary to client care – in fact, it is an integral part of it.
A safe team is able to provide more efficient, effective and personalised care with consistency, which is far better for client wellbeing and satisfaction than a team that does not feel supported or cared for.
This winter, for more information on our care services, please get in touch with our team.
