Delivering Adult Social Care (ASC) services is a core responsibility for Essex County Council (ECC). Over 35, 000 people in Essex are working in the care sector, making it one of the county’s biggest workforces.
However, the media has recently highlighted pressures the sector is up against, namely staff recruitment and retention. To help Essex to overcome these challenges, the ‘Your Career Matters. Bring your Passion. Work in Care’ campaign launched earlier this year.
By targeting audiences across the county, the campaign is displaying opportunities for career progression and development.
Eleanor Totman, Senior Campaigns Advisor shares a behind the scenes look at the campaign.
Who is the ‘Your Career Matters. Bring Your Passion. Work in Care’ campaign targeting?
While the ASC workforce is facing the joint challenges of retention and recruitment, this campaign will support both. One of the target audiences is younger people, encouraging them to see care work as a long-term career opportunity. Then, this counters the retention challenge.
Also, the campaign benefits residents and businesses alike, by:
- Offering residents careers in the care sector, with opportunities for skills development
- Reassuring residents that recruitment issues being publicised in the media are being addressed by ECC
- Sharing resources with care providers to support and enhance their recruitment activity
Which channels are we using?
First, digital advertising across Google, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram will encourage Essex job seekers, especially younger audiences, to see Adult Social Care (ASC) as a long-term career opportunity. Plus, in the coming weeks, radio adverts will reach a wide audience and a campaign toolkit for partners and ASC providers is in development.
One example of content is case studies from Lily, who works in a care home as an activity leader. Watch her inspiring story below.
These channels will use an ‘always on’ approach
During 2023, the campaign will run with regular updates and results-based improvements. Several marketing platforms will follow an ‘always on’ schedule – a planned approach to optimising continuous marketing activities to support the customer lifecycle.
It is not an uncommon approach, especially for recruitment campaigns where raising awareness is key. ECC’s Fostering team follow an always on schedule for their marketing campaigns too.
What are the pros and cons of an ‘always on’ marketing approach?
For the pros of an always on approach, I think it is that there is an ongoing need that a short-term campaign wouldn’t address. The always on enables us to review over the longer term and adapt campaign creative, CTA and channels based on results and more data gathered over a longer time frame. For example, we are comparing week on week, month on month and year on year to inform our changes.
The cons are the challenges of keeping the campaign fresh and relevant plus the budget required to invest in the long term.
Evaluating the ‘Your Career Matters. Bring Your Passion. Work in Care’ campaign
The campaign is in the early stages but initial results for the digital advertising are promising, with above average engagement and click through levels. Quarterly evaluation will take place to ensure we’re making improvements to keep the campaign relevant and fresh.
Job listings are on the Working for Essex recruitment portal with opportunities available for the whole of Essex. These applications will also be tracked to assess impact.
Liaison with the care market should also indicate the impact of the campaign on vacancies.
Collaborating with partners across Essex
The campaign is covering all of Essex, pointing to a dedicated landing page on the Working for Essex recruitment portal. ECC are leading the promotion via our corporate channels.
Tom Bendy, the Procurement Manager who led the campaign, gives insight into the support he received from a multi-disciplinary team (MDT).
“Partnership working for the campaign has opened access to a wide variety of skill sets, experience and insight. Working as an MDT, with experts in each field including social media, digital marketing and design, has developed a strong campaign. Also, we got feedback from care providers, making sure we were on the same page.
We built good relationships, though at the same time, working across numerous departments and external organisations has its challenges. The main challenge is decision making takes longer.
We have each learned a lot along the way, and working collaboratively makes the end result so much better.”
Take part in the Adult Social Care campaign
To maximise the campaign’s reach, and represent the county’s diverse audiences, we’re asking partners to share the dedicated Adult Social Care landing page with your internal and external channels.
Leave a comment