Mapping Care Character to effective care

The PhD sought to establish criteria for effective performance of care workers, along with drivers of retention and attrition, in order to develop a strategy for the recruitment and selection of effective care workers.

Three research studies were undertaken including interviews with present and past care workers, developing and validating a performance measure to assess care worker performance and a longitudinal study of care worker effectiveness.

The main study included 357 performance assessments across 18 care providers within the following categories:

1) Day service for adults with learning disabilities

2) Residential care home

3) Residential care home for sensory impairment, physical disabilities and learning disabilities

Care worker performance measures:

The PhD examines in detail a number of  areas identified as drivers of care worker performance by the research. Some of the examples:

• Communication with service users—good verbal and non-verbal skills
• Encourage—a good care worker is encouraging in their nature
• Compassion—Considered an essential element in care worker performance
• Passion—no use a worker simply seeing it as just a job.
• Timely / follows procedures/ good at record keeping
• Independence—promotes and maintains the independence of the person supported.
• Demonstrates respect towards persons supported and upholds their dignity.
• Flexible/ helpful/ puts others first

Competencies Extracted

We took the personality elements of the themes identified by the PhD and mapped them to the Traits Online platform as 15 competencies

• Gregariousness
• Affiliation
• Care
• Empathy
• Preparation
• Industriousness
• Co-operation
• Prosocial
• Cultural openness
• Empathy
• Contentment
• Calmness
• Positivity
• Planfulness
• Detail Attentiveness

Request a copy of the PhD Executive Summary