By Stephen Tweed
It’s nearly unanimous! The members of our Home Care CEO Mastermind Groups see The Caregiver Recruiting and Retention Crisis as the biggest barrier to growing their businesses.
The message is clear. If you want to grow your business in 2020, you’ll need to conquer the crisis. You need to take a fresh new look at how you and your team members are approaching the process of finding high quality caregivers.
To help you conquer the crisis and grow your business in 2020, we’ll be bringing you new information to help you build a solid foundation for recruiting and retention. We begin with the Rule of Three.
Develop a Three-Pronged Approach To Recruiting
Our study of the industry shows that digital recruiting has created lazy recruiters. The ease of putting job ads online and the quantity of applicants you attract causes home care recruiters to use only online recruiting and abandon other proven methods. Going back to our 2015 Caregiver Recruiting and Retention Study, we learned the importance of having a three-pronged approach to recruiting.
Prong 1 – Employee Referrals
All of our data show that the most effective form of finding high quality caregivers is asking your current caregivers to refer a friend. Most home care companies say they have an ERP – Employee Referral Program, but many companies say they don’t get good results. There are two reasons for that: they don’t actively market the program to their employees, and they don’t offer a significant incentive for employees to refer a friend.
Our friend, Neil Eastwood at Sticky People in Cornwall, England has done significant research into the quality of caregivers found through employee referral programs. In a recent study, 295 home care managers were asked to pick their highest performing care workers and identify the recruitment source that found them. Neil discovered that 39% of high performing caregivers came from employee referrals, 14% from word of mouth, 11% from online job boards, and 9% from local advertising. In another study, Neil looked at one year retention rates for caregivers, and discovered that significantly more caregivers who were still working after one year came from employee referrals as compared to online job boards.
Prong 2 – Digital Recruiting
According to the 2019 Home Care Benchmarking Report from Home Care Pulse, the number one online recruiting source is Indeed.com. 33.7% of respondents listed Indeed in their top two recruiting methods. Here’s the top ten list:
- Indeed.com – 39%
- Employee Referrals – 17.4%
- Craigslist.org – 12.8%
- Word of Mouth – 10.5%
- Your web site – 7.0%
- MyCNAjobs.com – 3.5%
- Reactivation of Previously Employed Caregivers – 2.3%
- Social Media – 1.2%
- Hireology – 1.2%
- Zip Recruiter – 1.2%
Having a clearly focused online recruiting strategy is critical to keeping a steady flow of new applicants.
Prong 3 – Face to Face Recruiting
The ease of using online job boards has, unfortunately, kept many home care recruiters at their desks instead of out on the street talking with key influencers who can refer new caregivers. Our research shows that feet-on-the-street face-to-face recruiting is a critical third prong of your strategy. But it’s hard work, and online is easier.
We have found that the most effective recruiting sources for high quality caregivers. This list below shows the method, and the effectiveness score on a scale of 1 to 5.
- Four Year Schools of Nursing – 3.74
- Faith-based Recruiting – 3.58
- CNA and Home Health Aid Schools – 3.55
- Internet Recruiting – 3.55
- Training your own CNA’s – 3.50
- Direct Mail – 3.38
- Clients and Families – 3.38
- Community Colleges – 3.30
For more information and details on developing a highly effective recruiting and retention strategy, Order a copy of my newest book, Conquering the Crisis: Proven Solutions for Caregiver Recruiting and Retention from Amazon Prime.
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