Why is working as a Comfort Keepers Home Carer such a rewarding career? We have 17 offices around the country with over 1300 carers and yes, we have vacancies in some of our offices as we are continually expanding. If you are interesting in caring as a career, we would like you to consider working for Comfort Keepers. We asked some of our staff why they enjoy working for Comfort Keepers and this is what they told us:
#1. Good Communication
There’s excellent communication between all members of staff – from carers to their client care managers, from office staff to the carers and from carers and supervisors to the client or the client’s families. Communication comes in many forms – by email, texts, phone calls, conversations, memos and there’s occasional social activities too.
#2. Support for Carers
Caring is a job that means you are never alone in that you are with your clients but carers don’t see other team members on a daily basis. As carers are really lone workers, Comfort Keepers feels it is important that they feel they can get support from other staff at any time, they can telephone in for support or with queries at any time and various team building days are held during the year to help them feel part of a team.
#3. Ethos
Comfort Keepers works to ensure that carers treat each client as if they were a member of their own family. This is an important part of the induction and training process and staff feel that they are trained to treat each client with compassion, dignity and respect. They act as guests in each client’s home, sensitive to their boundaries and treating them with empathy and respect.
#4. Formal Qualification
Comfort Keepers subsidise the training of all our carers to the extent that 75-80% of the costs are covered. With a little time, each carer works his or her way towards a formal qualification. It is worth remembering that many nursing or occupational therapy students work as carers too, giving them a practical understanding that will stand them in good stead in their future careers too. Some of our carers have gone on to study healthcare at a different level such as nursing or occupational therapy.
#5. Recognition
Staff feel that their expertise, knowledge, skills and quality of caring is recognised and appreciated. Comfort Keepers holds a ‘Carer of the Year’ event annually when each office nominates carers. These are judged and then the regional winners have to wait to see who is crowned Carer of the Year at a Head Office event.
#6. Social
In recognition of the fact that carers are often lone workers, social events are held to encourage them to feel part of a team but also for enjoyment. Some offices have up to twenty events in the year – coffee mornings, walks, barbeques, family events – they vary throughout the year. Coffee mornings are sometimes held on the day that carers bring in their time sheets to the office.
#7. Flexibility
Comfort Keepers staff can work part-time or full-time. Comfort Keepers is also flexible if a staff member’s circumstances change. For example, if a carer moves to a different county because of a spouse’s work situation, they can register with the other office. Work isn’t promised immediately but in practice, it generally happens very quickly that clients are assigned.
#8. Quality
Comfort Keepers constantly evaluates its performance, its training, its quality of care, the timekeeping of staff, the relationships between staff, the support that is offered and is constantly striving to improve. We’ve won many awards recently and these include Homecare Provider of the Year, the highest band of the Q Mark and the Deloitte Best Managed Company.
Home Care Vacancies
If you would like to partake in a fulfilling career in Home Care, do check out our careers page and get in touch. We have many vacancies in our seventeen offices around the country.
