Planning for the year ahead: tips for individual employers

As the new year begins, we share information and advice to help individual employers plan for the year ahead. The start of a new year is a good time to get organised and make plans for the year ahead.

As an individual employer this could mean looking how and when you’ll need to be supported, making a plan and thinking about developing the people you employ, including finding out about funding options to help to develop both you and your personal assistants (PAs).

To help you prepare for the year ahead we’ve rounded up planning tools and tips for individual employers.

Workforce planning

Workforce planning means thinking about and putting into action a plan that sets out your current and future needs in terms of the people that support you. It’s an essential part of ensuring that you have the right number of people with the right attitudes, skills, values, and experience to support you at the righttime, both now and in the future.

When workforce planning for the year ahead some key things to think about are:

• the PAs that support you now and how that might change, for example if any of your PAs may be nearing retirement or planning to relocate
• whether your access to PAs might change or you might make use of volunteer services
• anything that’s going on in the wider environment that could affect you
• what’s going on in your own life that may mean a change to who supports you, for example if you’re moving house or starting a new job.

We have a range of resources available to help with workforce planning including a workforce planning guide , workforce planning template and contingency planning template.

Training and development

Another consideration when planning for the year ahead is thinking about the training or development needs of your PAs so that they can continue to best support you and any changing needs you may have.

To find out what training your PAs may need think about:

• what skills you need your PAs to have now
• what additional skills you may need from the people who support you in the future
• which of these skills they currently have and which they are missing.

From this you can identify skills gaps and training required, and plan to put relevant training in place.

As well as thinking about training for your PAs you can also look into training and development for yourself to help you in your role as an employer. This could be training around communication, leadership, or administrative tasks of managing your PAs.

Funding

There are two ways individual employers can access funding for training through Skills for Care.

One is to apply directly for money which can cover direct costs of training and qualifications, travel, and the cost of hiring replacement support whilst your usual PA is attending training.

The application deadline for this funding is 31 March 2022 and any training that you want to be funded must be started by 30 April 2022.

You can find out more about individual employer funding and how to apply on our website.

Skills for Care also provides funding to certain organisations to allow them to offer funded training courses for personal assistants and individual employers. This is provided through our user-led organisation funding (ULO). This year we’ve funded 22 organisations to provide training to individual employers and PAs.

The training options available include training in supporting people with neuromuscular disorders, first-aid, dementia care, moving and assisting as well as training for individual employers, and much more.

You can view all ULO training courses available on our website.

Find out more about how our ULO programme works and how to sign up for one of our funded training courses on our website.

For more information and support for individual employers visit our Information Hub.

Find more support for planning for the year ahead with our #PrepareToCare22 spotlight.

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