By Jill Scott, Manager of Member Services for The Academy for Private Duty Home Care

This week I’ve been reading the last issue of Inc. Magazine and came across a couple short, but great, articles in the “Build” section at the end of the magazine.  Interestingly, the Build section focuses on “Management insights for leaders of high-growth companies” and specifically how to recruit, reward and retain top talent. Fits right in with Leading Home Care and Caregiver Quality Assurance, huh!?

The first article that caught my eye was “What motivates employees to perform at their best? Rewards, yes, but perhaps not the kind you’d expect.”  From our research and also the results of the 2013 Private Duty Benchmarking Study by Home Care Pulse, appreciation and recognition are the top ways to retain caregivers. This article indicates that companies are moving away from cash rewards and are offering travel incentives; however, they offer this caveat:

“Recent studies show that employees respond better to non-cash rewards and other incentives than they do to an extra injection of moolah. It is, however, a fine line. According to the Journal of Economic Psychology, employees do choose cash over non-cash rewards when given the choice in the abstract. But they change their minds when presented with a specific non-cash reward. More important, other research suggests that non-cash incentives produce a greater measurable boost in productivity than cash does.”

Not only is it interesting to see that companies are offering different methods of reward and recognition to employees who earn it, but the research is showing that the employees that do earn these rewards in turn are more loyal to their employer and are more productive on the job.

Now, we understand that travel incentives and time off may not be realistic for your company at this point, especially considering cost alone, but there are ways that you could offer specific non-cash rewards that fit your budget that will still have a positive effect on your turnover rate and employee loyalty.  For example, you could offer gift cards to a local upscale restaurant so a caregiver can have a nice evening out on the town (and maybe even arrange for childcare, if they have children at home).  Or, if you have caregivers that travel long distances, offer gift cards for gas.  There are lots of ways you can offer non-cash rewards and recognition to employees that don’t have to cost as much as a vacation to the Bahamas. Just make sure you carefully define how and why a caregiver can earn such rewards, so you aren’t necessarily handing them out to everyone or alternatively, no one is able to earn them.

What are some ways that you reward and recognize your caregivers and office staff?

Do you find that it encourages loyalty and increases productivity?

I’ll pass along interesting articles and information that I find in Inc. and on The Build Network, but I encourage you to take a look at the information they have available, too.