Building a High Performance Private Duty Team

Issue # 92 -- Building a High Performance Private Duty Team

Hire People with Specific Positions in Mind

May 16, 2007

In This Issue

Recruit and Hire Office Staff

Combining Positions for Smaller Companies

Kathy's Corner

Upcoming Events

Private Duty Today

Welcome to Private Duty Today, the bi-weekly electronic newsletter for Private Duty Home Care Leaders from Leading Home Care ...a Tweed Jeffries company. In this issue, we bring you ideas, information, and insights to help you grow your Private Duty Home Care business.

Private Duty Today is a permission-based newsletter. It is only sent to our recent customers and those individuals who have requested it, or who have given permission for their address to be included on our list of subscribers.

I'm Jason Tweed, Director of Business Development for Leading Home Care, and Editor of Private Duty Today.

Private Duty Today is published every other Wednesday, and currently goes to over 6000 subscribers.

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Private Duty Today

Leading Home Care

Home Care Sales Manager Interactive

Welcome,

Many of our readers, and in fact a huge number of private duty companies, are very small organizations with a handful of office staff. As they grow, one of the challenges they will face is dividing labor and responsibility.

There are two common mistakes we CEOs make, particularly when the CEO is also the owner.

First, the owner started the business and is doing everything. Because of that they understand each job. On the one hand this is a positive, because a good CEO will have an understanding of every job in every skill set. However, no one can be a Jack-or-Jill-of-all-trades. As your business grows you need to delegate responsibility and tasks effectively, and relinquish some of the authority that you have.

The second most common mistake is hiring people you like and trust but don't necessarily have the skills or behavioral styles to fit the job that needs to be done. Unfortunately, you're most likely to enjoy the company of and have a trust for people exactly like you. While we all want to clone ourselves from time to time, the reality is business demands individuals with varied skills. You need to find individuals that have complementary skill sets, and hopefully trust, respect and admiration will develop over time. Start with skills and talents and build your team from there. This doesn't mean you can't hire friends and family, just be sure you assign them to jobs that use their skills rather than to positions based on your respect and admiration for them.

Hire people with specific positions in mind. In reality, your hires may wear multiple hats for a time, but as your company grows make sure your team members develop into very specific job descriptions. In this issue we will take a look at the administrative and support staff you'll need to run your business when it has grown to maturity.

Recruit and Hire Office Staff

Your administrative and support staff will become a tightly knit team that will act as the heart of your business. Finding the right mix of talents and personalities is critical to long-term success.

Here's a list of team members you will need eventually. Like big corporations today, we're giving them the "chief" title to reflect their function.

CEO - Your Chief Executive Officer is the executive in charge. The primary role of the CEO is strategic decision making. Business is not a democratic society. Your CEO should be a true leader.

The CEO is frequently the owner by default. We encourage owners who recognize that they don't possess the leadership skills and decision making capabilities to either develop these over time, or hire a president. If you are an owner who enjoys sales and marketing, or is fascinated by data and statistical analysis, you may want to consider giving yourself a different title and hiring a decision maker and leader for your company. This doesn't mean you don't have influence, it simply means that you have a person with a specific skill set to lead your executive strategy team.

COO - Your Chief Operating Officer pays attention to the business of business. This needs to be a details oriented person with strengths in analysis. Your operations manager needs to make sure that above all, the daily operations of the business are efficient and profitable. The COO can either report to the CEO, or with some organizations the two have equal stature and act as partners and adversaries.

CPO - The Chief People Officer, or Human Resources Director, is responsible for recruitment and retention of field staff. Your field staff is your inventory, and your Human Resources Director is responsible for acquiring quality people and keeping them as long as possible. Human Resources is often confused with benefits administration, but the Director of Human Resources should focus on recruitment and retention. They may have responsibilities toward benefits administration and other areas of H.R., but to grow your company you'll need to hire someone that is a team leader and a strategic thinker. The HR Director frequently reports to the CEO.

CMO - Your Chief Marketing Officer is critical to the growth of your company. The marketing officer is not a sales person; the marketing officer is a decision maker and strategic thinker. The responsibilities of your marketing officer include; creating a marketing plan and budget, implementing the plan, and evaluating the success.

CIO - Your Chief Information Officer. Home care is rapidly becoming an information based business. As your home care company grows you will be collecting more and more data and needing to communicate that information to a growing number of people. You'll want someone who understands your computers and your software, and can help you collect, store and report the data and information you collect.

CCO - The Chief Clinical Officer is the individual is in charge of client care. Not only should this person act as an advocate for your clients, but they should be focused on constant quality improvement. This client liaison should be the bridge between your customers and your executive team. The Clinical Director usually reports to the CEO.

Sales Representatives - These individuals are talented at developing relationships and presenting your organization in a positive light to referral sources. These should be the troops under the command of your CMO. When you find a great sales person, clone them. Ideally, you want individuals who have terrific personalities, high levels of integrity and are able to implement the Seven Step Relationship Selling Process.

Intake Coordinator - Your Intake Coordinator is the individual who processes the admission of new clients. Typically this is an individual who spends part of their time in the office, and part of their time in client homes. Frequently this individual is the first person your clients meet, and could be a critical sales person if your agency relies heavily on private pay clients. The Intake Coordinator should be friendly and compassionate by nature. They need to have strong listening skills and attention to detail. Excellent customer service starts with the very first visit. Your Intake Coordinator should communicate with your Clinical Director.

Scheduler - Your scheduler needs to be an expert communicator and also detail oriented and efficient. Your scheduler will create the master schedule between your clients and your caregivers. As your company grows, this can become a mammoth task. Your scheduler needs to be able to juggle the needs of your clients with the capabilities of your caregivers, and attempt to keep them all happy. When it isn't possible to keep them all happy, your scheduler also needs to be assertive to make sure things run smoothly. A top quality scheduler will pay their own salary by improving profit margins and overall operating efficiency. Your scheduler should report to your COO, HR Director or Clinical Director.

Accounts Manager - Your Accounts Manager has two primary tasks. First, they need to make sure your caregivers get paid, and second they need to make sure you get paid. The accounts manager makes certain that your payors are billed appropriately and service has been delivered for all invoices sent. You may use third party payroll companies or even third party billing companies, but your accounts manager needs to make sure everything is in balance. Your Accounts Manager will also have to constantly monitor accounts receivable for improved cash flow. This person reports to your COO.

On-Call Coordinator - Your business is a 24/7/365 business. Your On-Call Coordinator is your chief firefighter. When problems arise the On-Call Coordinator helps. Most companies find a team approach works best to covering after hours issues. The key is that your On-Call Coordinator must communicate effectively with your Scheduler and Clinical Director. This person reports to the Clinical Director.

Clinical Managers - Large organizations will need a team of clinical managers that act as liaisons with current clients. They make periodic visits to assess client care. These people must act as a supervisory team for caregivers, client service representatives, and even as salespeople to a degree. Clinical Managers report to the Clinical Director.

Receptionist - This is the person who answers the phone. There is one critical criteria; this person must be "charming."

One of our colleagues, Rick Morey, has a saying we love. "You can't train charming." Rick says you can teach people almost any task, but you can't teach people to be charming. You should have someone who is charming answering your telephone and greeting your guests. For most businesses this individual has other responsibilities as well. Look at your team and figure out who is most charming, and ask them to answer the telephone. Your telephone is your store window. Most of your first impressions are made by telephone.

It doesn't matter so much what you call these positions. It matters that you have the talented people who can perform these functions as your company grows.

Combining Positions for Smaller Companies

As a private duty home care owner you'll find that early in your career you wear many of the hats above and will have many titles. The key is that as you grow you divide responsibilities and identify talented people to take over these roles. It's common to hire one individual and give them multiple roles. Here are some of the roles that work well together when your company is small.

Your receptionist can be anyone. Choose your most charming, even if it's the CEO. The most important position for growing your company is the person who answers the telephone.

Your Clinical Director may act as On-Call Coordinator or Clinical Manager and may even do intake.

Your Scheduler is an early hire, but frequently performs tasks of other functions. Schedulers' time is often fragmented, because they are busier first thing in the morning and on different days of the week.

Many people hire a Marketing Director to act as a sales person. These are different skill sets but one person can do both jobs for small organizations.

Finally, the CEO can do everything... but only for a limited time. When you launch your company, try to identify what area you are best at, and as you grow, hire people with skills to do the tasks that you don't like to do, or are not good at.

Tips for Conducting Reference Checks

By Kathy Clater

Reference checks are basic due diligence required of any selection process. However, checking references takes time and is not always easy. The good news is - there are some things you can do to improve the effectiveness of reference checks.

The most important idea is, just like with interviewing, you want to leave the land of the generic and hypothetical and move to the more fruitful land of behavioral specifics. Ask for specific information from the interview and assessments.

Start with asking the reference to confirm information the applicant gave you in the interview, such as specific examples of accomplishments, problems solved, recognition, etc. Next, move to any specific behavioral traits that were identified by the assessments as areas of concern. You should have specific examples of situations from the follow up behavioral questions that you can ask about. You can also ask the supervisor flat out if he/she observed that type of behavior in the applicant, for example, being overly direct with clients or co-workers, not following policy or protocol, being overly anxious or aggressive, etc.

Here are some additional tips:

1. Obtain written release from the applicant

Make sure that your release has strong immunity language and is written broadly, so that it allows your company to contact not only those references mentioned explicitly by the applicant, but all pertinent people.

2. Inform the reference of applicable immunity statutes

Many states have enacted reference checking immunity laws protecting employers from liability when giving references in good faith. Unfortunately, many employers are unaware of these laws. If your state has such a statute (check with your attorney), be sure to inform the reference of that fact.

3. Conduct references by phone

Forms rarely uncover negative information.

4. Talk to the applicant's former Supervisor

Every company I ever worked for had a "no reference" policy. However, Supervisors gave references every day anyway, especially for a good employee.

5. Talk to people who left the company where the applicant worked

I've never failed to get good information from these types of references. There's something about no longer being a part of a company that encourages people to share information openly.

6. Don't jump in when there's a pause in the conversation

Just as in the interview, silence can be a very effective technique in conducting reference checks. Often when the reference pauses, he/she is considering whether to tell you something.

7. Develop a network of contacts

The best reference is a person known to the reference checker. Personal relationships always make a difference.

For more information on reference checks, behavioral interviewing or pre-employment assessments, or if you would like to participate in one of our free phone in assessment training calls, contact me, Kathy Clater: email Kathy@leadinghomecare.com or phone (502) 339-0653.

Upcoming Events

The Leading Home Care team members are going to have a busy summer. Here's a short list of programs coming up in the next 30 days. Click on the links to find out how you can register.

Sales Training Boot Camp - Richmond, VA - May 23, 2007. Join Michael G. for this one day sales training intensive. Sponsored by the Virginia Association for Home Care.
Sales Training Boot Camp - Columbia, MD - June 14, 2007. Michael G. will be the "Drill Instructor" for this one day intensive sales training program. Sponsored by the Maryland National Capital Home Care Association
AHHIF Annual Conference - Orlando, FL - June 20, 2007. Stephen Tweed will present the opening keynote - "Grow Your Business, Get Ready for the Future." He'll also be speaking on "Finding and Keeping Non-Medical Caregivers." Then on June 21st Michael G. will present "How to Build your Sales Team From the Ground Up."