Labour market campaign ‘vacation buddy’ for De Zorgcirkel recruits young people for elderly care
It’s an annual challenge in senior care: finding staff to fill summer shortages. It is a period when employees and family members of the elderly go on vacation, which can make the seniors feel lonelier. Residential care location Prins Hendrik of the Zorgcirkel believes that the elderly deserve person-oriented care and loving attention even in vacation periods. Therefore, they decided to set up a campaign to recruit young people with a care training for a vacation job in elderly care. We were responsible for the concept and the roll-out of the campaign.
Approach: An all-inclusive vacation job in healthcare
We took a step-by-step approach to the campaign for the Care Circle, always focusing on the campaign’s goal: to recruit students with healthcare training during the summer. And what do you think of when you think of summer? Sun, sea, beach, having fun with friends. The attractive location of care institution Prins Hendrik in Egmond aan Zee offered the perfect vacation destination. This is how the idea of an all-inclusive vacation job came about: a workplace including accommodation close to the beach, together with your study mates and hours that you can plan yourself. In this way we were able to meet the needs of the target group.
But how did we reach that target group? Social media and a hippie bus were used to achieve this. We filled the Instagram and Facebook accounts (search term: “vacation buddy“) with striking news about care, odes to care influencers, campaign materials and personal stories of the elderly and caregivers at residential care facility Prins Hendrik. The bright orange hippie bus toured the care colleges where flyers were handed out. And with a free publicity trajectory we tried to get the campaign into the media.
Result: Happy seniors with extra summer help
Within two weeks, the target to fill the staff shortage in elderly care during the summer months was reached. More than sixty enthusiastic students signed up. In addition, national, regional and professional media paid attention to the campaign: among others the AD, Zorgvisie, Noordhollands Dagblad and Zorg van Nu. The campaign was also chosen as campaign of the week by Werf and highlighted by Fonk and Adformatie.
"The enthusiastic way of recruiting vacation staff has paid off and De Zorgcirkel Prins Hendrik has put itself firmly on the map and this labour market campaign is an example for other care institutions. The success is partly due to the flexibility of the care institution. They were open to new, refreshing ideas. Nothing was too crazy: young people could stay in a tent or apartment and arrange their own hours with friends. That makes such a vacation job a lot more attractive to young people."
Anne van den Nulft, PR-advisor
