By Stephen Tweed
I’m sitting in the airport heading back home from a two day strategy session with a large, home health agency affiliated private duty company. We’ve had an excellent session, and I’m confident they will put their strategy into action and grow their business.
As I reflect on our conversation today, and their decision to focus on Caregiver Quality as their primary source of competitive advantage, I am reminded how important this concept is in home care. According to the 2014 Private Duty Benchmarking Study from Home Care Pulse, the Number 1 way that home care providers set their agency apart from their competitors is “High Quality Caregivers.”
But what does that mean to home care company owners. Every owner believes they have high quality caregivers. Just like every owner believes they give better service than their competitors. But how do you really know?
Caregiver Quality is a Process
Our research over the past 8 years verifies that the companies that have the best caregivers have a process in place to constantly recruit, select, train, and retain caregivers. They put a special emphasis on making sure this process is working, and measuring the results. In our eBook, “Get the Best”, we describe a nine step process you can use. The process begins with proven techniques to find high quality applicants. Then you have to have a focused selection process that looks at the candidates knowledge, skills, and attitudes. We’ve found that attitudes and behaviors are the best predictors of future performance.
In all of my workshops and consulting engagements, I show the Recruiting Funnel. I hear people 
talking about having a broad funnel where you capture large numbers of applicants. To the contrary, we believe in having a more narrow funnel where you capture smaller numbers of higher quality applicants. That way you save time and money when you don’t have to screen out large numbers of unqualified people.
Once you have a funnel full of high quality applicants, using an online assessment tool and finely crafted behavior interviews are the best ways to separate the best candidates from all the rest. Our data show that when you are more selective in your hiring process, and only hire the best candidates your client satisfaction goes up, your caregiver satisfaction goes up, your turnover goes down, and you make more money.
Free Trial Of The Caregiver Quality Pre-employment Assessment
If you have been considering a pre-employment assessment for your caregiver recruiting process, now is the time to take a new look. Brand new from Caregiver Quality Assurance in 2015 is the FREE 30-day trial. We have made arrangements with the experts who developed the assessment to let you try it for a month to see if it works for you. Then you can decide to become a member of the Caregiver Quality Assurance program.
To learn more about how this system of recruiting, selection, and retention can make your life easier, get you more clients, and make you more money, take a look at the CQA website. Then call Diane West at 502-339-2132 and ask for a FREE 30-day trial.
P.S. The 2015 Private Duty Benchmarking Survey has just opened. Take a few minutes to download the benchmarking worksheet. Then gather your data and complete the survey. We use this benchmarking data every day to help home care companies make decisions about how to grow their business and get ready for the future.
