Five Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Care Work

Think you know what care work is all about? Think again. In this post we dispel five common misconceptions about being a carer.

1. Caring is for all kinds of people

The first of our five things you didn’t know about care work is all about them team you’d work with.

When people picture care workers, they often imagine a middle-aged woman who’s been working in the industry for decades. But that only accounts for a few of the amazing colleagues you’d have if you joined up as a Bluebird anywhere in the country.

From male carers and trainers to teens fresh out of college, people leaving high-flying corporate jobs and even literally high-flying flight attendants, our care assistants’ backgrounds are every bit as diverse as our customers’. If you decide to move into care, you’re bound to find someone you relate to – and you’ll make friends here that will last a lifetime.

2. Care work can fit around your availability – and at Bluebird Care, it’s surprisingly well paid!

Another of the big five misconceptions about care work is that the hours are inherently unpredictable. Some people even worry about being told when you have to work, and feel concerned about how that might work with their life.

All understandable. But at Bluebird Care, we’re happy to say that we make your hours work for you.

As a Bluebird Care Assistant, you’ll have a choice of a zero hours or guaranteed hours contract that can fit around your life and availability. And while there may be additional hours on offer, we’ll never make you work a shift you aren’t free for.

What we will do however is reward you well for all of your hard work. Our care assistant rates are between £10.50 - £11.50 per hour, with paid travel time and paid mileage. Our live-in care assistants meanwhile get between £575-£725 per week! Both roles also enjoy a pro-rata 28 days paid holiday, meaning you can feel refreshed and renewed, to come back and deliver the high level of care all of our customers deserve.

3. There’s a clear career path loaded with training and qualifications

The third of our five common myths about care work is that it’s an ‘unskilled’ job with no career progression. At Bluebird Care, that couldn’t be further from the truth!

In our Bournemouth and Poole branch, our carers get their own individual training budget to use on whatever learning they feel passionate about.

Take Lisa, for instance. When we talked to her for our recent post on carer’s training, she’d just that day been awarded her care certificate. Yet she was already planning to take training that would not only help her assist customers with incontinence issues, but would also allow her to train her fellow Bluebirds in that skill as well. And that was all within her first four months on the job!

Whatever area of care you care about, there is a clear pathway for you to learn and grow as a care assistant. If you believed that wasn’t the case before, then you simply hadn’t been talking to the right care provider.

4. The wider benefits package is brilliant

We’ve already mentioned flexible hours, a generous pay package, plus paid mileage, holidays and training. But the benefits of being a carer don’t stop there when you work for Bluebird Care.

Some of the other perks in our wider benefits include:

• A generous end of probation bonus
• An enhanced bank holiday pay rate
• Mental health first aider & 24hr remote GP service
• Refer a friend scheme 
• Refer a customer scheme
• An Employee assistance programme, offering aid with life areas like wellbeing, legal, and financial
• Nest auto-enrolment pension scheme
• Length of service loyalty awards
• FREE MOT
• FREE Breakdown cover
• Use of the company car if your own vehicle breaks down.

That’s a lot of benefits – and with them, yet another of the five common myths about care work dispelled!

5. Carers are needed right now more than ever

The last of those five things you probably didn't know about care work is just how urgent the need for carers currently is.

You may have heard the term ‘care crisis’ a lot recently, but the phrase really doesn’t capture the reality of the current situation. At Bluebird Care, we literally have months-long waiting lists of people who need care in their own home, and currently have to learn on friends and family – making do as best they can.

We believe firmly in offering the best level of care possible. We also believe that our staff can only deliver it if they have a fair, balanced case load where they’re given the chance to rest and refresh on their days off. So one thing we don’t want you think is that coming into a care role means you’d be overworked. That absolutely isn’t the case.

What becoming a carer WILL allow you to do is bring much-needed help to more people who urgently need it. You’d help us provide physical help, reassurance, levity, laughter and company to more of the country’s most vulnerable people. If you have that caring bone in your body, it might be the most rewarding career change you could possibly do.

Curious about becoming a carer?

Visit our Bournemouth & Poole carers jobs page to see our complete list of vacancies, or get in touch for a chat about life here at Bluebird Care.

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