How a social enterprise built a winning workforce

Adult social care gets a consistently bad rep.Whether it's coverage of the failure of successive governments to get to grips with a decent funding and delivery package, growing waiting lists for assessment and care, being blamed for discharge delays, recurrent workforce shortages or horror stories of poor quality – there's rarely an upbeat adult social care article that hits the pages of The MJ.While all these pressing issues present genuine daily struggles, behind the headlines are also stories of incredible staff supporting brilliant individuals who draw on adult social care despite the odds.Here's the story of how one small learning disability social enterprise in the North West has blossomed into a national health and social industry award winner for big-sized companies based entirely on the views of staff.PossAbilities is based in Heywood in Greater Manchester but operates across the North of England delivering bespoke person-centred support through supported living, outreach, day opportunities, employment services, short breaks and Shared Lives services.Over the last 12 years since the dream emerged for a new person-centred, strengths-based model of adult social care, the team has gone from strength to strength.As a business PossAbilities is thriving, with our profits ploughed back into improving services and building purpose-built homes for the people we support so everyone can have independence and their own front door. Housing is designed by the people we support to ensure it's just what and where they want it to be. We are always on the lookout for new sites and partnerships with councils to build housing for people with learning disabilities, autism or complex needs.We have a community farm where local Heywood residents socialise alongside the amazing people who use our services.When Care Quality Commission inspectors (all of our services are rated either good or outstanding) asked a client what he would do if he got a bad service he said: ‘I would go and tell Rachel. She'd sort it.'The all-female management team always have each other's backs. There's a culture of high support and high challenge as we dream big for the organisation and the people we support to live the lives they choose.Building a culture of happiness and fun is central to what makes PossAbilities work. Creating this kind of culture isn't just achieved through an annual award ceremony, a prize draw, vouchers at Christmas (we do all this too) but every single day through every single interaction.We have a Happiness Manifesto that sets out precisely how we are determined to build a culture of happiness and joy. Financial strategies can be a bit boring so ours is called ‘Crunching Numbers Not Dreams'.Staff are valued deeply for the amazing work they do every day. This recognition reflects their passion, commitment and the positive energy they bring to the people who we support.Investing in workplace culture has remained a key priority as the organisation continues to grow across the region, with a strong focus on leadership development for everyone with line management responsibility, health and wellbeing support and creating environments where our colleagues feel valued and able to thrive.But most importantly what do staff think? What did they tell the anonymous staff survey for the national award about the cultural reality? Sometimes boards and senior management teams are at the shallow end of the reality pool when it comes to having a genuine finger on the pulse of how frontline teams are feeling about their work, their manager, their organisation, the support they receive.In truth, most council chief executives would die for a set of results like this. We almost fell off our chairs:Staff happiness – 85%Empowerment – 86%b satisfaction – 87%Confidence in management – 87%Instilling pride – 89%Flight risk – 7%Reward and recognition – 81%Information sharing – 84%Wellbeing 83%I do something worthwhile – 94% • I have a good relationship with my manager – 92%Winning the award could have gone to our head but in true PossAbilities style we've knuckled down to do some work analysing the areas we can improve.In these kinds of awards you aren't up against others for the limelight but you are really in competition with yourself for year-on-year improvement. We've done an analysis of how we compare with our own results from last year and they have all improved significantly. This makes us very happy, but we aren't at all complacent.We know that social care is very tough business right now with many providers closing down as councils' budgets are cut continuously, demand for services increases and nationally the system is underfunded and badly designed. But PossAbilities is a model based on hope and happiness that shows what excellent could look like nationally.Donna Hall CBE is chair of PossAbilities and former chief executive of Wigan MBC, and Rachel Law is chief executive of PossAbilities

Title

ADULT SOCIAL CARE

How a social enterprise built a winning workforce

By Donna Hall, Rachel Law | 25 June 2026

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