By Stephen Tweed

This past two weeks, we have been having some very interesting discussions among the members of our Home Care CEO Mastermind Groups.  The topic came from a survey of most important topics for caregiver recruiting and retention.

Developing Your Office Team to Improve Caregiver Retention

The topic that came up number 1 in our survey of Mastermind Members was “90-Day Retention.”  We’ve been doing a lot of research on that topic and have rolled out new strategies and insights in our Caregiver Quality Assurance Program.

The second most important topic is “Developing Your Office Team.”  We’ve discussed this topic in all for CEO Mastermind Groups, and there have been some significant insights.  Perhaps the one that is most intriguing is Crafting Your Company Culture.

The Way We Do Things Around Here

Your company culture is influenced by four factors: 

1. The leadership style of the CEO
2. The Core Values that guide your decisions and actions
3. The Behavior you Expect
4. The Behavior you Permit

We’ve been working with home care companies on crafting their culture for a decade, and in my book, Conquering the Crisis I devoted seven chapters to various aspects of company culture.  We have also build an entire course in our Caregiver Quality Assurance Program on the Caregiver Quality Company Culture.

Company Culture Shapes Caregiver Retention

We have seen some significant and measurable impacts of company culture on Caregiver Retention. One large home company we worked with for a year was able to track improvement in retention each month for twelve months. In March of 2019, their turnover was 10.5%. It went down each month, and in February 2020 it was down to 2.5%.  Do the math and you can see the value of that effort.  We learned from this example that when members of the office admin team roll out the company values, discuss the behavior that is expected, and hold caregivers accountable, the best people stay and the ones who are not a good fit for the culture may not.

Why Do Best Caregivers Stay?

We have learned that “People who want to work, want to work with people who want to work.”  When you are clear about what you expect, and you treat your caregivers with respect, they will stay with you.

Our survey of Best Caregivers shows that they stay with a company for seven key reasons: 

1. Doing Important Work
2. Feeling Valued by Clients
3. Feeling Valued by my Supervisor
4. Flexible Schedule
5. Education and Training
6. Feeling Valued by the Owner
7. Feeling Fairly Paid

Notice that pay is number 7 of 7 items.  People don’t leave because of pay. They start looking for other jobs if the first six items aren’t being met.  These are all elements of the company culture and the core values that guide your actions.  This is based on a survey of best caregivers from ten companies in our Home Care CEO Mastermind Groups, and 184 caregivers who were selected as “Best Caregivers” based on reliability and client satisfaction.

If you would like to have regular discussions with other home care company owners and leaders on the factors to improve caregiver recruiting and retention, you may want to explore becoming a member of our Caregiver Quality Mastermind Group.

If you would like to have regular discussions with other home care company owners about ways to scale your business, you may want to explore becoming a member a Home Care CEO Mastermind Group. There are four groups of companies organized by size, and no one in any group competes with anyone else in the group.  The member companies range in size from $1.5 million in annual revenue to $38 million.