Natalie Quilter, Notting Hill Genesis – 21/06/2024
Since the introduction of the Carers Leave Act on 6th April 2024, more organisations are starting to think how can we support carers in the workplace.
This is a great start, however without the collection of data businesses will be unable to determine if the support in place is working or more over whether they are even aware of what is available.
We introduced our first Carers Staff Network in February 2020, which was spearheaded by Natalie Quilter following her own experience of being a carer for her mum. This is where the journey of data collection began.
The first session saw 5 colleagues attend and join the network. We were unsure on how many colleagues would join, especially after learning that studies by the NHS finds it can take someone on average 2 years to identify themselves as a carer. Therefore, to address this, Natalie Quilter ran a “Am I a carer” session during an all staff conference, this specifically focused on carers from different ethnic backgrounds who due to their upbringing and culture saw caring as an expected part of life. However the issue with this is, people are caring out caring responsibilities without getting the support and benefits they are entitled too – Carers UK found as many as half a million unpaid carers in the UK are failing to claim carers allowance despite experiencing high levels of poverty.
Alongside this, Natalie Quilter also introduced the “My Life as a Carer” campaign, where people across the business share their stories of being carer. A focus over the last 12 months have been senior leaders sharing their stories to show you can balance a career and being a carer and to try and break the perceived glass ceiling. Through these initiatives and others Notting Hill Genesis Carers Network now sits at 152 active members, but there is more work to do as further data shows this number should be much higher.
Following the introduction of the carers network, in 2021 Notting Hill Genesis began collecting data on the number of employees with caring responsibilities via their annual staff satisfaction survey. However, once the data was reviewed and analysed, it had been realised that colleagues that were parents and not carers also ticked this box and therefore we knew further education was required on the difference between a parent and a carer. Natalie Quilter introduced a Self Education Library on Caring and Caring responsibilities providing a list of books, websites, films and other resources so colleagues could improve their understanding and learn more on what it means to be a carer. Alongside this workshops were run by internal colleagues and external colleagues on what it means to be a carer and Notting Hill Genesis introduced an e-learning module on “Supporting Carers in the workplace” so colleagues and managers not only knew what it means to be a carer but how they can support them.
Amendments were made to the annual staff satisfaction survey including adding the definition of a carer as set by the NHS, and in 2023 they had 337 colleagues identify themselves as carers. This was broken down further into 3 categories “Carer for adults”, “Carer for children” and “Carer for adults and children” – this is to determine the satisfaction of carers and if there is a specific cohort within this group that need further support. Overall satisfaction for Notting Hill Genesis in 2023 was 86%, and amongst these groups it came out at Carer for adults – 93%, Carer for children – 86% and Carer for adults and children – 77%. This was positive to see carers in the business are generally satisfied if not more so than other colleagues in the business, but with carers for adults and children being lower than the average – this has given us a clear area to focus on and over 2024 we are looking more into sandwich caregiving what it means and the best support for this group.
Along with looking at those already in the business, it is important to understand who is coming to the business and what types of candidates we are attracting. Since the beginning of 2023 we have added caring responsibilities to our Application Tracking System. We have seen this gradually increase, and currently sit at an 8% declaration rate. It is hard to understand the benchmark as there is very little data documented on this, however we are focusing on ensuring we are externally promoting ourselves as a carer friendly organisation, and partnering with carers UK, actively stating we are carer friendly organisation, sharing the work of our carers network we hope to see this number increase in line with the percentage of working carers in England.
Anecdotally, through the Carers Network, Natalie Quilter runs focus groups to get qualitative data on their experience of being a carer at Notting Hill Genesis. Most strikingly is the number of people that have stayed in work due to the support available. Having a range of support and resources in place truly makes a difference, this is evidenced by Carers UK who found there are 600 carers leaving the workplace everyday.
Data which we will be collecting in the future as they have not been in place for 12 months, will be the number of colleagues self certifying themselves as a carer on our HR management system, usage of our carers policy and number of days taken, flexible working requests based on caring responsibilities and completion of the Supporting Carers in the Workplace e-learning course.
We are on a journey with the collection of data, however the insights it provides means we are focusing on the right topics or groups and we can achieve the impact and results we are looking for.
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