Today we continue our reflection on the need to make professional roles more flexible and enriched across the different profiles found in care settings.
In our previous article, we highlighted that flexibility in roles and the development of broader capabilities form the foundation for evolving professional competencies and responsibilities.
Specialist professionals
When it comes to social workers, occupational therapists, psychologists, physiotherapists, nurses, physicians, and other common care-center profiles, the key challenge is to strengthen interdisciplinarity and avoid fragmented interventions disconnected from the person’s life project (understood in its broadest sense).
These specialist roles require a greater ability to interpret situations collaboratively, share data effectively, and engage in truly interdisciplinary work. They should also place stronger emphasis on preventive and anticipatory actions. Additionally, these professionals should increasingly take on roles in research—or structured knowledge development—teaching, and even leadership within their organizations.
This shift from fragmented to integrated care can be implemented efficiently by leveraging Care Plans. These should evolve beyond traditional Individual Care Plans (or similar tools), becoming instruments capable of generating real impact and transformation in people’s lives—both in their daily experience and in achieving broader life goals.
Care planning represents a key opportunity to embed these new approaches through a “learning by doing” model. However, practical learning should be complemented by theoretical training tailored to the specific needs of teams and individuals.
Ultimately, we propose that specialist professionals become true architects of care continuity—capable of integrating information from multiple sources and translating it into meaningful, actionable decisions for the team, ensuring that all interventions align with what truly matters to the individual.
Leadership and management
At the management level, the transformation involves moving beyond an operational focus centered on occupancy, costs, compliance, and incident management—while still maintaining these as essential elements—towards a leadership model primarily focused on care delivery and support models.
This means maximizing both professional and organizational capital to achieve better personalized outcomes for service users.
Key management responsibilities should include:
- Translating care models and personalization into daily practice, adapted to the specific context of each organization
- Ensuring coherence between comprehensive assessments, personalized care tools, and the quality and continuity of support provided
- Prioritizing conditions that enable excellence in care delivery—especially in coordination, organization, and communication across teams
- Maintaining relational continuity with individuals and their families
- Supporting professional autonomy and responsible decision-making, including flexibility in applying protocols and managing care pathways
- Designing and optimizing training pathways aligned with professional development and career progression
Supporting this model also requires:
- Redesigning job roles
- Reducing unproductive workloads
- Introducing useful technology and ensuring teams are trained to use it
- Establishing intermediate leadership roles (temporary or permanent)
- Professionalizing supervision and linking information systems to agile, evidence-based decision-making
Moving towards this professional model
The European Care Strategy has already identified improved working conditions as a key lever for attracting talent to the sector. Beyond these baseline improvements, we believe that the meaning and structure of daily work also play a crucial role in shaping job quality.
The proposals outlined here—and in our previous article—point towards a model that inherently enhances the professional experience and, therefore, working conditions.
To move forward, we propose rethinking both initial and specialized training to better match real-world needs. The OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) has already highlighted that healthcare and care systems will increasingly require professionals with transversal, digital, and collaborative skills.
We advocate for a comprehensive training approach, with a strong focus on relational, digital, and decision-making skills—without neglecting essential technical competencies.
Training pathways should be truly personalized: content and learning methods must adapt to the diverse profiles within organizations, offering flexibility while allowing modular combinations aligned with each professional’s development needs and practical responsibilities.
In short, enhancing professional flexibility requires equally flexible training pathways.
We also believe it is essential to reorganize work with the support of meaningful technology. Today, professionals often spend a disproportionate amount of time on documentation tasks, with systems that encourage duplication and fragmented data.
Well-designed digitalization does not replace care—it frees up time, improves traceability, and strengthens decision-making.
At Connect Group, we support organizations through technology, training, and guidance to transition towards care models that truly enable personalized support.