Friends of the Elderly, a not-for-profit charity dedicated to providing exceptional care, appointed Cohesion as their preferred recruitment partner in 2018. Since then, Cohesion have delivered over 500 starters into the charity, reducing agency spend across their 13 care homes and day care services based in locations including Dorset, Surrey & Oxfordshire.

Current retention of starters is bucking industry trends, with turnover at 24%, compared with latest overall sector turnover data reflecting 30%* and 2022 care worker turnover data reported at 36.1%**.

Beyond delivering better recruitment results for the charity, Cohesion have enhanced the recruitment process, using AI chat for applicant conversations and implementing Care Character, the definitive values based recruitment & retention tool for the care sector.

Mathew Yates, Head of Human Resources at Friends of the Elderly said “Cohesion have taken away the worry of recruiting and ensuring new staff are compliant. They are the experts in recruitment after all, and keeping candidates engaged through the recruitment process has helped us recruit more staff and consequently reduced our agency spend”.

• * The size and structure of the adult social care sector and workforce in England (skillsforcare.org.uk)
• ** The state of the adult social care sector and workforce 2022 (skillsforcare.org.uk)