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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.
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 7000 subscribers.
Private Duty Today is
a permission-based newsletter.
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 Faith Based Recruiting is a non-traditional strategy for
finding quality caregivers and office staff. It has been
successfully implemented by both medical and non-medical home care
companies across the country.
We believe this non-traditional method is going to become even
more important in the future as the need for home care services
outpaces the supply of qualified caregivers over the next two
decades. Several publications and studies have estimated the need
for nursing care will outpace nursing graduates from now until
2030. While this effect will be less critical in non-medical home
care, we will continue to experience a shortage of caregivers for the
foreseeable future.
Why Faith Based
Recruiting?
We've worked with clients across the country and helped them to develop
a profile of their ideal caregivers. By taking the best of your
caregivers and analyzing demographic information, you can create a
profile and focus recruiting efforts to find more people that fit that
profile.
Many of our clients have identified "people who worship
regularly" as a commonality among their most dedicated and highest
work ethic employees.
Getting Started
with Faith-Based Recruiting
Recruiting people who worship regularly is a unique process. You
don't expect to see commercials during the sermon, advertisements on
the walls, and flyers stuck under your windshield wiper when you go to
church. Faith-based recruiting needs to be more subtle.
The easiest way to recruit in churches, synagogues and mosques is to
approach people while attending services on a regular basis.
Chances are that a number of your employees and executives participate
in a spiritual congregation. Encourage these employees to talk
openly about your organization and let people know that you are
searching constantly for quality caregivers and team members.
Word-of-mouth is the primary mode of advertising within faith-based
organizations. Particularly in uncertain economic times, people
of faith will communicate their uneasiness about their job security
with other members of their congregation. They may be asking for
prayers, but what they really need is a secure job. By simply
spreading the word that your organization is hiring good people, you
can expect applicants to find you.
There are some acceptable ways to traditionally market your services
and recruit employees. Many churches have newspapers or
newsletters that accept paid advertising. Even for those who
don't, often you can ask to be mentioned in the bulletin when
recruiting. It's not uncommon to make a donation to the
organization for special consideration.
Next, make appointments with pastors, rabbis, priests and other opinion
leaders in the congregations. Talk to them about the services you
offer, but keep the attention focused on helping members of the
congregation who need quality employment.
Some very large churches have social service organizations attached to
them. Reach out to these organizations and let them know that
you're constantly on the lookout for quality people.
Is Faith-Based
Recruiting Discriminatory?
Absolutely not. I'm frequently asked this question because people
are concerned around the legal issues of discriminatory hiring
practices.
It's never discriminatory to recruit a specific type of
individual. It is, however, discriminatory to eliminate an
individual because of faith. You may not eliminate applicants
because of their faith, or lack thereof. Furthermore, you must
put the applicants you find through faith-based recruiting through the
same quality assurance protocol you use for all employees. For
example, you may not waive a negative background check because an
individual attends religious services each week.
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Three Benefits of
Pre-employment Assessment
In early 2007 we started promoting our online assessments
for non-medical caregivers. Our primary motivation was to improve
the overall quality of caregivers nationwide, and provide owners of
companies a better method of evaluating caregivers prior to hire.
This system has been revolutionary to the companies who've used the
system to its maximum capability.
It's been a learning process for us as well. In the beginning we
saw the obvious benefits to selecting quality caregivers, but soon we
realized there were actually three benefits to using the system.
The three
benefits are:
Risk Management
-- By improving the quality of your selection, you improve the quality
of your overall caregiving staff and reduce your risk of serious legal
issues. I refer to this as the "heartburn
factor". From time to time every home care CEO gets
heartburn. Often that heartburn is caused by a caregiver doing
something inappropriate, unethical, or illegal. Preventing even
one of these serious situations annually more than pays for the cost of
the assessment system.
Improved
Caregiver/Client Matching -- Parts of the assessment
system focus on personality traits. A benefit we didn't expect is
that schedulers and owners are able to use what they learn about their
employees to make better placement decisions. Particularly in
private pay situations, you cannot afford to make a placement where
personalities will conflict. By learning more about your clients
and their families you can identify caregivers that are a good
mix. Your most successful cases will be situations where the
caregivers almost become part of the family. There are many
benefits to quality caregiver/client matching including longer
caregiver retention, better client health, increased customer
satisfaction, fewer scheduling conflicts and greater word-of-mouth
marketing.
Competitive
Advantage -- If you're lucky enough to have an
abundance of quality caregivers, your primary focus is on getting more
clients. The assessment system can put you at a clear competitive
advantage in the minds of your potential customers and referral
sources. All of your competitors do criminal background
checks. Many of your competitors do reference checks, drug
testing and other background screening. The only way to establish
competitive advantage is to prove that you are different than your
competition. Using a third-party pre-employment assessment system
for improved screening, selection, and client matching clearly
differentiates you from the competition.
Reaping any of these three benefits justifies the cost of the program,
and the personal attention and coaching from Leading Home Care will
help you maximize the value you'll receive.
If you're ready for less heartburn, happier customers, and clear
competitive advantage call Diane West today and ask her to send you our
free white paper and set up a demo! Diane can be reached at
1-866-209-5101 or by e-mail at Diane@leadinghomecare.com.
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Congratulations to
President-Elect, Barack Obama
 Last night was an historic event for our country. We
chose as our next leader the Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama.
Each generation has events that become a permanent part of our personal
history. Those "what were you doing the day ..."
events.
My grandfather's generation knew where they were the day Pearl Harbor
was bombed.
My father's generation remembers what they were doing the day John
Kennedy was assassinated, and the day Richard Nixon resigned.
My generation remembers the Space Shuttle Columbia explosion, the O.J.
Simpson verdict, and the day passenger jets were flown into the twin
towers.
I believe years from now we will remember last night in that
context. We will remember what we were doing the day Americans
chose an American born of African ancestry to lead our nation.
I feel great personal pride, not because we finally elected a black man
to our highest office, because frankly that's taken too long. I
feel great personal pride because my six-year-old twins won't remember
yesterday. They won't remember a time in our history when it was
unusual to have African-Americans, Latinos, and women campaigning for
the presidency and other leadership roles.
Regardless of your personal politics, regardless of the vote you cast,
or failed to cast, yesterday. Today America is a different place
for all Americans. The world has changed, ever so slightly.
It's my belief that this change is overdue and extremely positive.
Congratulations to Senator Barack Obama. I will be proud to call
you President Obama in January.
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Private Duty Academy Coming
to Tennessee
Don't miss Stephen
Tweed's Private Duty Academy being presented in
Gatlinburg, Tennessee on November 10, 2008.
This full day program focuses on the 'Nuts & Bolts' of private duty
(non-medical) home care. Based on significant research that began
in 2003, this program is designed for CEOs and owners, administrators,
sales & marketing staff, financial & personnel officers and
other senior staff of Private Duty Home Care companies.
Whether you've been in business for two months or two
decades, Stephen will demonstrate the best practices used by home care
companies across the country.
Stephen Tweed's Private Duty Academy is being presented by The Tennessee Association for
Home Care as part of their annual conference. Conference
attendees will be able to participate at no additional charge.
The conference is open to everyone, and Tennessee Association members
receive a substantial discount on registration.
To download the
conference brochure and registration form visit www.tahc-net.org and click
the link that says "TAHC Fall Conference".
Come
meet Stephen in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee!
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