By Stephen Tweed

What have you learned about your business in 2022 that you want to apply in 2023?

As you develop your business growth strategy for the coming year, what are the challenges you face that you need to approach differently?

Over the Thanksgiving long weekend, I had the opportunity to look back over the lessons from 2022 that will be helpful for the members of our Home Care CEO Mastermind Groups going into 2023. We’re getting ready for our mastermind in-person meetings, and all five of our groups are coming to Naples and Marco Island, Florida in February for sun, sand, sharing ideas, and solving problems.

Here are seven lessons we will be applying in the coming year:

1. Build a better company culture
2. Define your best caregivers
3. Attract better applicants
4. Shorten your Speed-to-hire
5. Increase 90-day retention
6. Reward what matters
7. Track your data and refine your systems

Build a Better Company Culture

We define “Culture” as … “The way we do things around here.”  Your culture is influenced by four big factors:

• The leadership style of the CEO
• The core values that drive your decisions and actions
• The behavior you expect
• The behavior you permit

We’ve developed a seven step process for crafting your company culture.  It includes defining your core values, defining the behaviors you expect, communicating with all employees, training your leaders, reinforcing the culture, and engaging your caregivers.  It is clear that the companies that are focused on crafting their culture are better able to attract and retain the talent they need, both in the office and in the field.

Define Your Best Caregivers

To improve your process of recruiting and retaining caregivers, you need to have focus. And that focus should be on finding new caregivers who are like your current best caregivers. You can only do that when you have defined your best caregivers.

Pick your top ten caregivers based on two criteria; client satisfaction and reliability. Then interview them to learn about them as people, and learn about the demographics of them as a group.  Focus your recruiting efforts on finding and hiring others who look, act, and perform like your best.

Several years ago at the Home Care CEO Forum, we conducted a “Best Caregiver Study”. Ten companies who are mastermind members identified their 20 best caregivers.  We asked them to complete a short online survey.  184 of these best caregivers completed the survey, and we learned a great deal about why they do this work, why the picked their current company, and why they stay.  You can learn these same things through conversation with your best caregivers.

More Later

Much of what our members worked on in 2022 was related to people; crafting the way we do things around here, and keeping high quality caregivers.

We’ll have more details on how you can apply these lessons in coming issues of Home Care CEO Report.  In the meantime, consider these questions:

What are your lessons from 2022?
What will you do differently to grow your business in 2023?

Join a Home Care CEO Mastermind Group

If you would like to engage in regular conversations like this with other owners of home care companies of similar size to you, and who do not compete with you, you may want to consider joining a Home Care CEO Mastermind Group. If are are an independent home care company generating between $1.5 million and $25 million in annual revenue, we have a group for you. For more information visit www.homecareCEO.com