In January, we published the 2026 Future of Home Care Study, conducted by Leading Home Care … a Tweed Jeffries company, and sponsored by AxisCare. This is the third year for this industry-leading research, and we captured some very interesting new data and information.

However, one thing is not new. The biggest pain points for Home Care CEOs for the third year in a row are …

• Caregiver Shortages
• Caregiver Recruiting
• Caregiver Retention

No surprises there, right?

In fact, this industry issue has been going on since 2005, and we launched our very first caregiver recruiting study in 2006. We’ve continued to study the issue and we have helped some of our Home Care CEO Mastermind Members, and some of our Leading Home Care Strategic Advisor clients make measurable improvements in caregiver recruiting and retention.

It’s pretty clear. The Home Care companies that are at the top of the bell curve in revenue and profitability have figured out ways to add more net new caregivers than they lose through turnover.

Mastering The Three-Pronged Recruiting Process

The solution to overcoming these pain points begins with recruiting. You need to find new ways to attract high-quality caregivers who will show up on time as scheduled, and who wills stay with you. And our industry data show that the vast majority of Home Care companies have concentrated their recruiting efforts online with Indeed.com. And our data show that while Indeed is the most widely used recruiting source, it also has the highest turnover of newly hired caregivers.

Our data also show that the recruiting source with the lowest turnover is your Employee Referral Program, and most Home Care companies are not managing a highly effective ERP.

Additional data show that the best caregivers in Home Care are already happily working for another home care company, you won’t attract them with traditional recruiting advertisements. That means getting out and networking in your local community to find out where the best caregivers work, live, shop, and worship.

All of this means that if you really want to grow your business, you need to master the three-pronged caregiver recruiting system.

Mastermind 90-Day Retention

Industry data show that Caregiver turnover in 2024 was 75.2%, and insights from Activated Insights, formerly Home Care Pulse, suggest that 57% of turnover happens in the first 90 days.

At the Home Care CEO Forum, we did a major exploration of the facts and data around 90-day turnover and identified the Big-Three causes. Most 90-day turnover happens because the new hire caregivers was not a good for the the job, for the agency, or for the client. Y’all need to do a much better of job selection in your hiring.

The second big cause in paycheck imbalance. The paycheck at the end of the week does not meet the financial needs of the caregiver. It’s not about the hourly rate of pay. The caregiver agreed to that rate on hiring. It’s the the number of hours as the agreed upon rate, minus deductions that gets you to take-home pay. We’ve worked out a process to help schedulers to have a conversation with caregiver about the number of hours they need to work to get their needed paycheck.

And finally it’s caregiver engagement. We hire caregivers, give them some orientation, and then send them out on their own. For most caregivers, we’ve learned that most turnover is avoidable if agencies would just develop and implement a caregiver care plan to engage caregivers during the first 90 days.

If you can Get the Caregivers, you can Get the Clients

The data are pretty clear from our research. Most agencies who have mastered the art and science of finding and keeping caregivers are able to attract new clients to grow their businesses. Yet most Home Care agency owners are still focused on sales and marketing, and they delegate recruiting and retention to a staff person.

If you are serious about growing your Home Care company, we suggest you sit down with your leadership team, analyze your own data and information, and develop short-term and long-term strategies to attract and retain the high-quality caregivers you need to meet the needs of an aging population.