HICA’s New Career Pathway Paves the Way for Staff Development

The HICA Group have been busy redeveloping their career pathway ensuring that those employees that wish to progress their career through the company and beyond are given the necessary tools and encouragement to enable them to do so.

HICA is the ideal place for passionate individuals within the care industry, or those just starting out, to advance their career, providing superb opportunities within this most rewarding of vocations.

Designed to be a facet of their extensive onboarding programme the pathway is a series of structured and connected initiatives and education programs that support employees in the workplace to progress over time to advanced roles and higher levels of education and training.

Director of Operations Heather Joy said, “Our employees are our most valuable asset. Their strength, commitment and dedication, along with their emotional connection with the organisation, are all qualities that we want to foster and evolve. Which is just what our career pathway is designed to achieve.

“Our new Team Leader Development Programme is launching shortly which is a blended programme with classroom-based learning, e-learning and on-the-job support. And we are delighted to be able to say that face-to-face training has returned as we feel this is the most effective method for learning.

“Another programme shortly about to commence is our Buddy Programme which is designed to help new employees settle into their new career by assigning them an experienced ‘buddy’ who will be a friendly ear throughout the first few months and provide support and the benefit of their experience.”

The new onboarding experience is just one of the initiatives making a job at The HICA Group so appealing. The reward and benefits package available to all employees is extensive.

All employees have access to the HICA Rewards app through which they can receive substantial discounts from high street and online shops. The app also gives access to supermarket, cinema, local gym discounts. The app even has free online gym classes. There are also salary sacrifice schemes that enable employees to purchase expensive equipment such as laptops and bicycles and repay, interest free, direct from salary. Access to the Credit Union also makes saving and borrowing much easier. All of this is available direct from a mobile phone or laptop/tablet.

Heather continued, “The app has proved extremely popular with employees who continue to make huge savings via the discounts section. The app is also the perfect way for us to stay in contact with what can be a very dispersed workforce, so they always know about policy updates, group events and other items of interest such as the monthly HICA Lottery draw.

Part of the success of The HICA Group is their belief that listening to their staff will help ensure that they will have what they need in order to continue to provide an excellent service. This includes making sure that all employees maintain a healthy work-life balance. Wherever possible personal commitments will be taken into consideration around shift patterns and roles can be tailored to better suit staff and their preferences.

For their domiciliary care workers they have introduced guaranteed hours contracts. For example you could have a 16 hour guaranteed contract but work as much, or as little, outside of the 16 hours as they wish. Workers are free to pick their own limits to suit their personal commitments. On top of that all shifts are paid on a block pay basis. This means workers are paid from first to last call regardless of any gaps. No complex calculations, no tricks! If a care worker arrives at their first call at 8am and leaves their last call at 2pm they get paid for the full 6 hours. This change was welcomed across each of the company’s 4 domiciliary care offices.

Heather added, “Proud to be a ‘Not for Profit’ company The HICA Group is innovative, forward thinking and constantly evolving, always considering new ways to support staff to provide the fantastic services that we are known for.”

The Group currently have a variety of positions available not only for carers but also in hospitality, maintenance and administration. All the current jobs can be viewed and applied for on their website at www.hica-uk.com. Alternatively you can simply express your interest by emailing recruitment@hica-uk.com.