Care Home Professional – August 2019

32 CARE HOME PROFESSIONAL | August 2019

IN FOCUS RAM GOYAL, MANAGING DIRECTOR, HALLMARK CARE HOMES

As part of its retention focus,
Hallmark has reassessed its benefits
structure.
The care home provider has
continually reviewed its annual internal
awards, and offers a new cinema voucher
scheme and store discounts as part of a
raft of new measures.
Hallmark team members also have
use of the company’s Rolls-Royce and
chauffeur for special occasions such as
weddings.

The company has introduced a ‘refer

a friend’ and ‘golden hello’ scheme for

nurses. The ‘golden hello’ scheme offers

nurses who join Hallmark directly and

not through an agency £2,000 in Wales

and £1,000 in England after being

successfully placed. In addition to

this, Hallmark has also begun offering

£25 vouchers to encourage nurses to

interviews.

“It gives us an opportunity to

share our vision and our charter and

demonstrate our facilities and it’s

starting to bear fruit,” Ram said.

The MD noted that Hallmark had

reduced agency usage significantly.

“You will always have a level of

agency but the culture should be that

our residents are supported by our own

team,” Ram stressed.

The MD said there was a direct

correlation between home manager

longevity and agency usage.

“The longer serving home managers

know who they can call upon to do

extra shifts and have bank teams they

have developed,” he said.

The Hallmark leader highlighted

effective rostering as a key way of

keeping agency use to a minimum.

“Good managers understand good

rostering, which is about knowing their

team and making sure they put the

right people together and also making

sure that rotas are up in advance so that

people can plan two to three months

ahead,” Ram noted.

“One of the big issues is where rotas

are going up just a month or a few weeks

in advance so people are taking time off

because they are not able to plan their

personal lives.”

Hallmark is looking into trialling

a punch-in electronic system and is

speaking with various suppliers to

further increase efficiency in shift

scheduling.

Ram said Hallmark’s private pay

model enabled it to remain an attractive

place to work for people and deliver the

highest care standards.

“We have been moving over the years

towards the private pay model because

of our vision to be able to deliver the

best care,” he highlighted.

“The private pay model allows us to

be financially stable and to be innovative

and be at the leading edge of design.”

Ram explained that being

predominantly private pay also

enabled Hallmark to invest significant

sums in its refurbishment programme

to incorporate the latest facilities in its

current homes.

“We are a very financially stable

company and so are able to reinvest

back into our business and our new

development programme,” Ram said.

“There is no conflict between profit

and care and reinvestment. What we saw

early on was that good care pays. If you

can provide good care, that allows you to

reinvest. We reinvest all of our profit back

into the business and that’s how we have

grown quite rapidly. We provide one of

the highest amenity spaces per bed in the

industry and that is why we have won so

many awards over the last 22 years.”

The provider is a sector leader in

terms of innovative care home design

and has won the Pinders Healthcare

Design Award eight times. At this year’s

ceremony, Hallmark was also recognised

with the ‘Outstanding Contribution to

WE NOW ACT

VERY QUICKLY TO

ENSURE WE ATTRACT

GOOD PEOPLE”

Given, the traditionally high level
of turnover within the sector, which
stands at around 26%, Ram said it was
crucial to retain a stable, core team of
leaders, including general managers
and heads of department.
“The idea is to improve the retention
of heads of department, which will
then have an impact on other retention
levels,” Ram noted.
In terms of carer retention, Hallmark
incentivises people to take on more
training and skills through its pay
structure which is graded according to
qualification.
Hallmark is also developing
champions in different aspects of
care such as lifestyle, activities and
dementia to offer more opportunities
for the team to develop themselves.
The care provider carries out regular
competitor analysis to understand
where it sits within the sector in terms
of pay and benefits.
“We are always aiming for the upper
end of the top quartile,” Ram noted.
As its competitors, Hallmark faces a
constant challenge in keeping agency
to a minimum within a challenging
labour market, particularly in nursing.
Ram said Hallmark had managed to
deliver a significant drop in agency over
the past year.
Nursing recruitment at Hallmark’s
homes in Wales was a particular
challenge, however, he added.

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