By Stephen Tweed

That’s the basic premise of Caregiver Quality.  “Get the Best and Avoid the Rest.”  That also happens to be the sub-title of a terrific book by my friend and professional speaking colleague, Cathy Fyock.  Cathy is a nationally known expert on human resources issues and is a frequent speaker for SHRM – The Society of Human Resource Managers.

Cathy’s book is called “The Truth About Hiring the Best:  Get the Best and Avoid the Rest.”  The concept fits well with our ongoing conversation about creating competitive advantage in home care through caregiver quality.  The 2013 Private Duty Benchmarking Study showed that the number one source of differentiation in home care is caregiver quality.

Tips on Hiring the Best

Let’s take a quick tour through Cathy’s book and look at her top tips.

• You are a seller in a buyer’s market – The best people are already happily working for someone else.  It’s far better to attract the folks who are loyal to their employers, have excellent work habits, and love their work.
• Your actions speak louder than words – If you can’t be the employer that keeps workers, you can’t be the employer that attracts top notch applicants.  What’s your turnover rate?  (The average in home care is 52.6%)
• Targeting everybody attracts nobody – Your approach should be to aim very specifically at one narrow niche audience to get the best responses.  If you are dissatisfied with the caliber of candidates, analyze your focus.
• You are a talent scout – If you are going to get the best talent you constantly need to be looking for high performers.
• Use the enthused – Ask your current enthusiastic employees who they know.  Ask new employees who the best and brightest are at their former company.
• Your invitation might be chasing applicants away –  The message, “Help Wanted” is pretty desperate sounding and not likely to draw in lots of wish-list candidates.  Create an invitation that appeals to the kind of employee you want in your company.
• Ask what they WILL do, not what they CAN do – We know that just because a candidate can do the job doesn’t mean they will.

There are 53 Truths in Cathy’s book and many of them will help you think through your recruiting and selection process.  If you’d like a copy, just visit The Truth About Hiring the Best.  

You’ll find this book is a real complement to our best selling home care eBook, “Get the Best: Nine Steps to Hiring High Quality Caregivers and Improving your Bottom Line” by Leigh Davis and Stephen Tweed.