By Stephen Tweed
What role does pay play in caregiver recruiting?
This is the question of the week in private pay home care. I just got off a plane at midnight last night from New Orleans where we hosted our first Private Duty Field Trip of 2017. This afternoon I hosted a live web conference for Leading Age, IL, the post-acute care association representing not-for-profit senior living and long term care companies. Then, I had a phone conversation with one of the founding members of our Top 5% Mastermind Group.
All three conversation got around to the question; “What role does pay play in caregiver recruiting?”
The answer: A lot these days.
My research into employee satisfaction and retention in home care and hospice over the past three decades helped me to identify the Seven Sources of Employee Satisfaction. There are factors that come into play in finding and keeping top talent. We’ve tested them with nurses, therapists, home health aides, and personal care aides. The data are all similar.
Seven Sources of Employee Satisfaction
- Appreciation and recognition – employees feel valued and appreciated by their clients, their supervisor, and their company leaders
- Meaningful work – employees are able to do what they consider to be meaningful work with a low hassle factor
- Servant Leadership – employees work for an owner, CEO, or leadership team that puts service before self
- Relationships – all things being equal, people would rather work with a friend
- Career opportunity – employees want to work for an employee that opportunities for personal and professional development
- Flexibility – employees want the flexibility to choose when and where they work
- Pay and benefits – employees want to feel like they are fairly paid for the work they do, and in comparison to other workers
Several years ago I was in Seattle, WA presenting a keynote speech for the Washington State Association for Home Care and Hospice. After the keynote, I did a breakout on employee retention. One of my clients, the CEO of a large home health agency, was in the audience and he looked at the list above. He said to the group, “I think it is the three things on the bottom of the list that attract caregivers to our agency, and it is the three things on the top of the list that keep them there.”
Putting Pay in your Ads Attracts Attention
In my conversation today with the Mastermind Member, he told me of an idea he got from our last mastermind meeting that he took back and applied.
“I used to focus my ads on the things the keep caregivers; appreciation, mission, leadership. After the mastermind meeting, I shifted gears and started advertising the things that attract caregivers; pay, flexible hours, health insurance, and overtime pay. I’ve seen a significant increase in the number of job applicants.”
Put Ideas Into Action with a Mastermind Group
If you would like more information to help you attract and retain more and better caregivers, I’d like to suggest that you link up with other like-minded, non-competing home care companies to share ideas, solve caregiver problems, and support one another. You can do that beginning this month by becoming a member of a Caregiver Quality Mastermind Group. There are three groups forming through the Home Care CEO Forum.
- One group is for independent private pay agencies,
- a second group is for home care franchise companies, and
- the third group is for Medicare Certified Home Health Agencies who want to collaborate.
There’s a limit of 25 companies per group, and no one in the group can compete with anyone else in the group. Act quickly if you don’t want to miss out on this opportunity. The first group will hold their introductory online membership meeting on January 26, 2017 at 4:00 pm eastern time.
Here’s what Members are Saying About the Mastermind Concept
There’s no greater way to get the insight you need to grow your business that by connecting with other owners of similar sized home care companies that do not compete with you. Here are some insights from two member of our very first mastermind group.
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Now, we want to apply these same principles to helping you conquer the caregiver recruiting and retention crisis by organizing Caregiver Quality Mastermind Groups.
Don’t Delay. Register Today. Only one agency is permitted in each group from a local marketplace, so there will be no competitors. But that means you need to be first to register from your community.
