Caregiver Recruitment and Retention with Jessica Schultz

Duration: 27m 35s

Description:

Jessica Schultz, Director of Franchise People Strategy at Right at Home, discusses caregiver recruitment and retention strategies with Jen Chaney, Vice President of Franchise Development. Jessica emphasized the importance of new franchisees hiring caregivers before clients and using an applicant tracking system (ATS). She also highlighted the need for intentional recognition programs, such as the Caribou Rewards platform, and the significance of onboarding within the first 90 days. Creating a positive caregiver culture is also very important in retaining quality caregivers. This is one of the reasons Right at Home has developed a Caregiver of the Year program, which receives 120-140 nominations annually.

Caregiver Recruitment and Retention Overview

When a new franchisee is starting their office and getting ready to open, they should definitely start with acquiring a caregiver first. If they don’t have a schedule or a client waiting, you can set them up for success by assigning training, creating the culture, and establishing how you are different from the competition. Before you know it, you will have a client, to assign to that caregiver.

Job Posting and Applicant Tracking System

Right at Home has some amazing tools and resources available for their franchisees, along with a whole team available at corporate to support owners with best practices in what a caregiver is looking for in a job and how Right at Home can become the employer of choice. Jessica recommends that franchisees invest in an applicant tracking system (ATS). An ATS will post your job, and house all of the applicant’s information. Owners can set up workflows and different statuses to bring the applicant through the hiring process, ensuring they have a good experience. It makes it easier to reply to applicants in one place rather than numerous job boards. Right at Home has several ATS vendor partners they can recommend. Concerning job postings, Corporate can help you create your job postings, but ultimately, owners are responsible for creating the posting to ensure you are selling yourself, the culture, and the job to attract the best caregivers.

Caregiver Onboarding and Retention Strategies

There are a lot of best practices that you can implement within the caregiver journey to increase retention rates and caregiver survey scores. Right at Home has been testing the process with specific owners to see if these practices improve retention rates. All Right at Home caregivers are provided training. It is recommended to focus on the first 90 days of employment, because typically if you can keep a caregiver through 90 days, you’re very likely to keep them up to a year. You want to set your caregivers up for success by having regular touch points or investing in a reward/recognition platform to keep them engaged during the onboarding phase.

Support for Franchise Owners

The Franchise People Strategy team can provide support to franchise owners if they have questions or issues dealing with a caregiver. Perhaps you are losing caregivers at 30 days, the corporate team can review your process and help figure out where the gap is happening and resolve the issue.

Measuring Caregiver Satisfaction

Jessica notes that Right at Home uses a vendor, Activated Insights, to send and review pulse check surveys to caregivers to review their satisfaction. Questions are asked if they would refer a friend to Right at Home, how they feel about the recognition they receive, whether they are satisfied with their caregiver match, and office staff communications. The scores can be compared across various industry standards. If lower scores come in, we can use it as a tool to enhance and improve franchisee processes.

Recognition and Incentive Programs

As a franchise owner, caregivers are just as important to your business as your clients. The importance of an intentional recognition platform is to acknowledge caregivers for their efforts. The emotional impact of recognition needs to be meaningful and not just a task. Right at Home partners with Caribou Rewards to create this type of system. Right at Home also has an annual conference where a caregiver is recognized. Nominations are first reviewed by our Stategic Leadership Council who narrow it down to the top 24. Then testimonials are provided to an external committee that narrows it down to 8 regional winners and a national winner. The national winner is celebrated on stage at the annual conference.

Matching Caregivers with Clients

Right at Home uses a software platform called WellSky. It helps operationally schedule caregivers, manage hourly needs, and match skill acuities to clients.

Final Advice for New Franchise Owners

Many owners asked “What is the golden nugget?” It is about getting back to the basics and focusing on your caregivers first. Embrace and understand why you joined this business and search for that in your caregivers, too.

NEXT SCHEDULED TALK

Jan 28, 2-2:30 pm CST

Caregiver Recruitment & Retention with Nikki Holles, VP of People Strategy.  Register here.

Marketing Your Business w/Dawn Drazdys, CMO.   Register here.

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