Solving one of home care’s greatest challenges — recruiting and retaining quality staff members — requires a focus on caregivers’ frequently overlooked needs. That’s according to a panel of home care workforce experts, who shared tactics for attracting high-quality care workers and keeping them onboard in the long term during a recent McKnight’s webinar.
“Get their feedback; hear back from them,” Nikki Holles, vice president of people strategy at home care franchiser Right at Home, said during the Sept. 26 webinar. “It’s about listening to them and letting them see that you will take their feedback and put some action to it and try to meet them where they are.”
Listening to and being aware of caregivers’ scheduling needs is especially crucial for retention, Holles noted. Some caregivers may prefer shorter shifts, or working in clients’ homes that are closer to their own. Working around these scheduling needs will keep caregivers satisfied at work and more likely to stick around, the panelists said. This is true even during the onboarding stage.
“Right off the bat, giving them a schedule they know they can count on is key for retention so that they don’t feel like they have to go fill their time somewhere else,” Nicole Wilson, director of franchise platform support at SYNERGY HomeCare, said. “Give them the schedule that they’re asking for. … The office needs aren’t always exactly the same as the caregiver needs when it comes to scheduling, but give the caregivers what they’re asking for and don’t give them what they’re not.”
Tailoring the right matches between caregivers and clients will also promote job satisfaction and improve retention, the experts noted. Poor caregiver-client matches typically harm workers’ job satisfaction, which can negatively affect retention, they said.
“Just because the hours might make sense, if the match isn’t there from a personality or acuity-to-skill level, it can be detrimental and it’s going to draw that caregiver back,” Holles explained. “It’s going to create this sense of uneasiness and you’re gonna see an increased lack of availability and an increase in no-show call offs.”
