Worker responses to HR practice in adult social care in England

• Author: Carol Atkinson,Rosemary Lucas
• Published date: 01 July 2013
• Date: 01 July 2013
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-8583.2012.00203.x

Worker responses to HR practice in adult social

care in England

Carol Atkinson, University of Bradford School of Management

Rosemary Lucas, Manchester Metropolitan University Business School

Human Resource Management Journal, Vol 23, no 3, 2013, pages 296–312

In this article, we consider care worker (CW) responses to enacted HR practices and CW attitudes in

adult social care (ASC) in England. Our findings derive from a project that examined HR practices and

comprised interviews with 18 managers and 58 CWs. We argue that both HR practice and employee

attitudes are more robust than other research in this sector has suggested. Our contributions are

threefold: first, we present the under-reported CW perspective. Second, we contribute to understanding

of HR practice in low-wage sectors, research in ASC being limited despite increasing elsewhere in

low-wage sectors. Finally, we question the likely effectiveness of regulation in achieving its aims of

enhancing labour supply and ensuring high quality care delivery.

Contact: Dr Carol Atkinson, School of Management, University of Bradford, Emm Lane,

Bradford, West Yorks BD9 4JL, UK. Email: c.atkinson5@bradford.ac.ukhrmj_203296..312

INTRODUCTION

In this article, we consider care worker (CW) responses to enacted HR practice and CW

attitudes in adult social care (ASC) in England. ASC is part of the increasingly important

low-wage sector (Edwards and Ram, 2006) and the rapid ageing of the UK population and

associated increased need for social care provision are well documented (DH, 2007). By 2026, an

additional 1.7 million adults will require social care services and the number of paid ASC jobs

could increase from the current 1.6 million to between 1.8 and 2.6 million (CfWI, 2011). In

response, ASC policy seeks to ensure an adequate labour supply to support high quality care

delivery (DH, 2009). We explore the role of HR practice within this. Our contributions are

threefold: first, we present the under-reported CW perspective (Eaton, 2000), bringing the worker

‘centre stage’ (Guest, 2011: 5) and adding much-needed qualitative data to understanding of

employee responses to enacted HR practice (Atkinson and Hall, 2011). Second, we contribute to

understanding of HR practice in low-wage sectors, research in ASC being limited despite

increasing elsewhere (Marchington et al., 2003; Carroll et al., 2009; Edwards et al., 2009). Finally,

we question the likely effectiveness of ASC policy.

The context of ASC has changed dramatically over recent years. Successive governments

have outsourced almost 80 per cent of ASC provision from local authorities to independent

providers (Cameron and Boddy, 2006) and over 40,000, mainly small, firms provide or organise

social care (Eborall et al., 2010). This reduction in state control of services has occasioned quality

concerns and introduction of formal regulation to ensure high quality care (Gospel and Lewis,

2011). The Care Standards Act (2000) established a set of National Minimum Standards (NMS)

of care delivery.1This is a statutory framework regulating social care provision against which

service providers are inspected and awarded quality ratings by the Care Quality Commission

(CQC).2HR practice is central to this and NMS require, among other things, interventions

in staffing levels and skills, performance review, training and qualifications. Workforce

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doi: 10.1111/j.1748-8583.2012.00203.x

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 23 NO 3, 2013296

© 2012 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Please cite this article in press as: Atkinson, C. and Lucas, R. (2013) ‘Worker responses to HR practice in adult social care in England’. Human

Resource Management Journal 23: 3, 296–312.

development policy (most recently, DH, 2009) supports acquisition of skills underpinning NMS,

delivering through Skills for Care3(SfC) a training and qualifications framework for CWs. This

regulatory emphasis on development also seeks to enhance labour supply (Gospel and Lewis,

2011). NMS and workforce development policy thus exhort a strategic approach to HR,

determining ‘bundles’ of progressive HR practices that require investment in the workforce to

deliver positive employee attitudes and better quality of care (DH, 2009), thereby promoting

HR as a means to superior performance (Wright and McMahon, 2011). While research is

broadly supportive of this strategic approach (Purcell et al., 2003), there is limited research in

ASC, and critics have argued that it overlooks the importance of context (Edwards and Ram,

2006). Accordingly, it may be appropriate to high-value sectors (Batt, 2000) rather than ASC

where workers typically have low skills and few qualifications (Cameron and Boddy, 2006).

Recent research has, however, claimed a more prominent role for HR practice in the low-wage

sector (e.g. Marchington et al., 2003) and we contribute to this stream of literature.

Our primary focus is CW responses to HR practice enacted via one mechanism of formal

regulation, i.e. NMS and workforce development policy. We do not consider other mechanisms

of formal regulation. However, a broad definition of regulation comprises the forces and

pressures that shape employer decision-making beyond formal regulation (Kaine, 2009) and

we recognise the inter-sectionality of these forces in ASC (Kaine, 2012). We reflect this in

our analysis and demonstrate the complexity occasioned by regulation via: market pressures,

both local authority funding (Edwards and Ram, 2006) and labour supply (Grimshaw and

Carroll, 2002); informal regulation through management prerogative, particularly relevant in

the low-wage sector where many firms exhibit small business characteristics (Marchington et al.,

2003; Carroll et al., 2009; Edwards et al., 2009); and regulation via social norms (Kaine, 2009)

through, e.g. the gendered nature of the ASC workforce (Palmer and Eveline, 2012). We report

findings from a research project funded by SfC4where we examined CWs’ responses to enacted

HR practice and CW attitudes. Our findings indicate that both are more robust than other ASC

research has suggested (Rubery and Urwin, 2011). However, we argue that formal regulation

may be effective in driving positive attitudes in only a particular subset of workers prepared

to tolerate low pay. This calls into question the capacity of current policy to sustain an adequate

supply of labour into a rapidly growing sector and may ultimately compromise its aim of

ensuring high quality care.

In what follows, we first discuss research on HR strategy broadly, before considering HR

practice in ASC specifically. We then outline our methods, present and discuss our findings

before drawing conclusions.

HR PRACTICE IN ADULT SOCIAL CARE

Here we briefly outline the case for strategic HRM and progressive HR practice before

discussing in more depth strategic HRM in ASC. We then outline a ‘bundle’ of progressive HR

practices, using this as the basis of our research project, and consider the likely feasibility of

these practices in ASC.

ASC regulation is arguably premised upon strategic HRM whereby ‘progressive’ HR

practice supports investment in, and development of, HR (Wright and McMahon, 2011).

The term progressive is widely used (Marchington and Grugulis, 2000) but rarely defined.

Here we consider progressive HR practices to be those that reconcile both employer and

employee interests, promoting positive employee responses, attitudes and outcomes. We

might expect such progressive practice to be sophisticated or highly formalised (Boxall and

Macky, 2007). A mutual gains scenario for employees and organisations is claimed (Wright

Carol Atkinson and Rosemary Lucas

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 23 NO 3, 2013 297

© 2012 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.