Retain Your Best Care Staff Without Raising Salaries: The Financial Wellness Solution

Retain your best people, increase shift uptake and improve care quality with on-demand pay, real-time earnings tracking and smart money tools that support your care team’s financial wellbeing.

Our recent research reveals a stark reality: 56% of care providers we spoke to have lost staff to retailers, weekly-paying employers, or agency work. But here's what might surprise you – it's not always about higher wages. Often, it's about when and how staff can access the money they've already earned.

The Perfect Storm in Social Care

1. Budget Pressures Are Tighter Than Ever
The recent National Insurance increases alone have added over £900 per employee per year. For a care provider with 50 staff, that's nearly £50,000 in extra costs with no additional funding to cover it. Many providers have been forced to freeze salaries, creating tension in both morale and recruitment while margins continue to get squeezed from both ends.

2. Workforce Crisis Deepening
Overseas recruitment, which many providers relied on to fill gaps, has been significantly impacted by visa restrictions. It's no longer a reliable pipeline. Domestically, burnout and high churn rates are endemic – and every time a carer leaves, there’s a huge cost to replace them. Care England estimates that replacing a care worker costs approximately £6,000, considering factors like recruitment, training, and lost productivity.

3. Pay Competition Goes Beyond Hourly Rates
Here's the reality: four out of five job listings in the UK pay more than the average care role. Carers are constantly surrounded by better-paying options in jobs that are often less physically and emotionally demanding. Crucially, a large proportion of care workers who leave go into sectors like retail and hospitality – and many of these roles offer weekly pay as standard.

Why carers are really leaving

While pay matters, our research shows the issue runs deeper than salary levels. One in three carers struggle financially between paydays. That means every third person on your team is stressed about covering food, fuel, and bills before their next salary arrives.

When the boiler breaks down, the car needs repair, or a child gets sick, emergencies don't schedule themselves around payday. Carers are forced to borrow, use overdrafts, or turn to high-interest lenders, creating a debt spiral that leads to stress, distraction, and sometimes despair.

We're seeing carers take second jobs – not necessarily to earn more overall, but to get paid faster. Many have left full-time roles paying higher wages to join agencies offering less, simply because the agency pays weekly. Others pick up gig work like Deliveroo or Amazon Prime deliveries, not out of passion, but because they can access cash immediately.

63% of care providers we surveyed report that staff ask for pay advances, loans, or help before payday either "all the time" or "frequently" – clear evidence that traditional monthly pay cycles aren't meeting the financial realities of care workers' lives.

The Four Pillars of Financial Wellness

The solution lies in addressing financial wellness through four key pillars:

1. Instant access to earned wages provides protection against financial emergencies and reduces reliance on high-interest credit.

2. High interest savings accounts support staff to build financial resilience with long-term savings while they earn.

3. Real time earnings tracking helps staff see their shift schedule, earnings to date, and when they'll be paid, creating better financial planning.

4. Personalised AI insights from their own financial companion that offers guidance on benefits, budgeting, empowers staff to make better financial decisions.

Real-World Results That Matter

When care providers implement financial wellness solutions like earned wage access, the results speak for themselves:

57% of users actively choose jobs based on whether employers offer on-demand pay – it's becoming a deal-breaker, not just a nice-to-have
30% report getting more shifts filled as staff are motivated to pick up extra work when they can access earnings immediately
47% say they feel more loyal to their employer
Rated the number one most valued benefit by care staff – not training, not bonuses, not pizza Fridays

Breaking the Cycle

Here's a practical example of how this works: A carer sees there's a party on Saturday they'd love to attend, but they can't afford it. They notice an available Thursday shift that would provide the extra money needed.

Without earned wage access, they won't get paid for that Thursday shift until month-end – too late for Saturday's event. So they don't bother picking up the shift.

With earned wage access, they can work Thursday, access up to 50% of those earnings immediately, and enjoy Saturday's event while still receiving their full monthly pay. The result? More shifts filled, happier staff, and better work-life balance.

The Bottom Line

Skills for Care and Care England estimate ehe average cost to replace a single care worker ranges from £3,000 to £6,000 when you factor in recruitment, onboarding, training, lost productivity, and management disruption. Even small improvements in retention – saving just one or two people from leaving – can have a huge financial impact.

Financial wellness isn't about spending more money on salaries. It's about giving your existing staff more control over the money they've already earned, when they need it most. In a sector where cash flow control can be just as valuable as a pay rise, this approach offers a practical, sustainable way to improve retention, reduce agency spend, and build a more stable, engaged care team.

The question isn't whether you can afford to implement financial wellness solutions – it's whether you can afford not to.

This article is based on insights from Access PayWise+ webinar "Retain Your Best Care Staff Without Raising Salaries," presented by Chris Young, Head of Sales for Financial Wellness, and Abhishek Agrawal, July 2025.

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