Sunrise Senior Living

Achieved 30% reduction in employee attrition

£866k saved in recruitment costs

£1.5m saved in overtime costs

£2.76m saved in contract labour

87% colleague engagement

Sunrise Senior Living: Transforming Workforce Retention and Cost Efficiency

Our partnership with Sunrise Senior Living began in 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold. Comprising 46 care homes and 5,000 team members, Sunrise’s goals were obvious to us: improve employee retention, streamline recruitment processes and enhance workforce engagement. Yet, the unique vulnerability of their shielding residents coupled with the time-pressure of needing to recruit a contingent workforce of around 750 care roles to support lockdown operations, meant that the pressure placed upon the hiring team was extraordinary.

Developing Effective Strategies for Immediate impact:

We started our partnership with the goal of understanding the business’ self-proclaimed ‘clunky’ existing recruitment processes, aiming to streamline these to become both more cost-effective, and covid-safe. Taking the step to apply for a role herself, our founder Kate was able to assess candidate experience first-hand, completing an end-to-end review to simplify the lengthy process to one built around values and behaviours, which no longer required in-person interviews which could place residents at risk. The new online interview, application and candidate screening process supported the business in their immediate need for interim recruitment support and saw 800 new members of staff recruited into care teams in just twelve weeks, in a manner which was both safe and efficient.

Achieving Lasting Results:

Our partnership went beyond quick-fixes. The McCarthy team worked with Sunrise to completely reshape their recruitment strategy and culture. By improving candidate experience and developing internal policies and communications we achieved a 30% reduction in employee attrition, engaging the team and encouraging their continued investment in the future of the business.

A complete restructuring of the resourcing team was carried out, and was coupled with the implementation of a new applicant tracking system which made the hiring process seamless for new candidates and Sunrise’s internal teams alike. These changes resulted in significant cost savings:

£866k was saved in recruitment costs, thanks to better retention and a streamlined process
£1.5m saved by reducing overtime, once the right staffing levels were in place
£2.7m saved on contract labour, as turnover decreased and fewer temporary workers were needed to backfill roles

A Culture-Driven Approach with Measurable ROI:

McCarthy’s culture-driven approach proved invaluable in supporting the recruitment needs of Sunrise Senior Living during the COVID-19 pandemic. Beyond cost savings, we achieved 87% colleague engagement – an exceptional outcome in this sector under unprecedented strain. We at McCarthy assisted Sunrise in withstanding the immediate burden of the pandemic, but also positioned them for long-term success.

We knew at Sunrise that we would need a contingent workforce of about 750-1000 people. Kate from McCarthy came in, did a complete end-to-end review of all of our processes and transformed it from being a face-to-face interview process in a care home to an online process much more simplified, built around values and behaviours. We successfully recruited around 800 people in a twelve week period. Because we’d changed how we recruited our retention improved massively because we were getting the right people in that were staying, which meant that we saved on overtime and contract labour. We would not have been able to run those homes safely and sustainably had Kate and the McCarthy team not come in and helped us with that. You will not get ‘off-the-shelf’ from Kate.