Consider what it means to care for someone at the end of their life.
The physical closeness, the sustained emotional attentiveness, the willingness to show up day after day in a role that is underpaid, physically demanding and largely invisible in public debate.
One in five care workers in England comes from a Black, Asian or minoritised ethnic (BME) background. The sector, already carrying 130,000 vacancies, had the Social Care Worker visa route closed in 2025. The overseas recruitment pipeline many providers depended on was effectively switched off.
Supply of workers is a problem, but so too is retention. The Skills for Care SC WRES 2024 report shows that BME staff are 48% less likely to be appointed from shortlists, 37% more likely to enter a formal disciplinary process and 21% more likely to leave their role within 12 months. These are not marginal differences. They are structural signals.
The sector is increasingly dependent on a workforce it is failing to retain. That is not just a workforce planning problem. It is a governance problem, one of trust: who holds it, how it is built and how it is lost. Our research highlights how trust underpins organisational relationships and shapes experiences of fairness, commitment and belonging.
For small and independent providers, those that make up most of the UK care home sector, this matters. Trust is not distributed through formal systems but built through everyday practice. Unlike large NHS trusts, these providers do not have Workforce Race Equality Standards teams, EDI leads, or independent escalation routes. In a 30-bed care home, the line manager is the institution. How they handle grievances, allocate shifts, or respond to employee crises are not minor operational details. They are the organisation’s trust infrastructure.
The dominant response has largely centred on training, unconscious bias modules and e-learning packages, delivered for compliance rather than change.
The evidence does not support training as a standalone solution. Only interventions built around active, in person engagement with the lived experience of racially minoritised staff are associated with improvements in knowledge, skills, and behaviours. There is limited evidence that implicit bias training, on its own, leads to sustained changes in practice. The sector continues to invest in approaches that are the least likely to deliver meaningful impact.
Additionally, there is a dimension that organisational debate often sidesteps. Discriminatory conduct from residents. Research in long term care settings consistently shows that BME front line workers encounter discriminatory behaviour from the people they care for, though it is rarely named as such. It is reframed as dementia, age, or confusion, but the impact is the same.
That is not a personal coping failure.
Workers are expected to cope, even though the organisation has provided no procedure, protocol, or formal acknowledgement that this situation exists. The absence of a written procedure is not neutral. It is a decision. It tells the worker: this is yours to carry alone. And they do, until they leave.
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development’s Health and wellbeing at work report notes that only 29% of organisations train line managers to support mental health. Where training is provided, confidence improves, but in its absence many managers lack the skills to recognise distress or handle sensitive conversations. This reflects wider questions about institutional trust. Where formal structures are weak or absent, trust becomes embedded in everyday interactions. Line managers do not simply supervise work, they become the point at which trust is built, sustained, or undermined.
Reframing the Problem
The workforce crisis in adult social care is not simply a numbers problem that a new visa route will resolve. It is a trust and governance issue centred on line management that must be addressed.
First, raising concerns must be structurally redesigned. Psychological safety for BME staff cannot depend on the goodwill of the line manager, particularly when the line manager may be the source of concern. Routes for raising issues must bypass the immediate management relationship. And structured check-ins should normalise speaking up before a crisis emerges, not only in response to one.
Second, written protocols for discriminatory conduct from residents are not optional. They are a basic governance requirement. Without formal acknowledgement and response pathways, workers absorb harm silently. The protocol does not need to assign blame. It needs to ensure that workers are not left to manage these situations alone.
Third, training investment must be rebalanced. The sector needs to move away from compliance-driven e-learning modules and towards active, in-person learning that engages meaningfully with the lived experience of BME staff. That is where the evidence shows impact.
Daily decisions on grievances, shift allocation and staff check-ins form part of the organisation’s trust infrastructure. Care managers should treat them as such.
For small and independent care providers, it is essential that routes for raising concerns exist outside the direct line-management relationship and that clear protocols are in place to manage the discriminatory behaviour of residents.
The sector depends on BME workers to function, and any credible strategy must address retention as well as recruitment. For policymakers, a more coordinated approach is needed. Changes to visa routes, in isolation, do not constitute a workforce strategy.
The residents in these homes are not separate from these governance questions. They sit at the end of the same chain. The system is already indicating where the pressure points lie. The issue is no longer whether the signals are there, but whether we are prepared to act on them, and in doing so, restore and sustain trust where it matters most.
Interested to Learn More?
Skills for Care (2024) Social Care Workforce Race Equality Standard: Annual Report. Leeds: Skills for Care.
Omeihe, K. (2023). Trust is important if you want to succeed at work – here’s how to build it. The Conversation.
Authors
Olufunke Olawale is a management specialist and doctoral researcher focused on how organisational design and people systems shape business performance. Her work centres on organisational development, SME strategy, and capability building, with particular interest in how structure, leadership, and performance systems support sustainable growth. She is committed to helping organisations and businesses build resilient, people-centred systems that improve execution, accountability, and long-term effectiveness.
Kingsley Omeihe is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at the School of Business and Creative Industries, where he serves as an Associate Lead for Research Impact. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Trust Studies. Kingsley holds an affiliated position as Chair of African Studies at the British Academy of Management. He is the author of Sage's Qualitative Research Methods for Business Students.
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