How Franchise Companies Are Shaping The Next Generation Of Home Care Leaders

In some ways, the franchise model can be an additional safety net for entrepreneurs looking to become home care agency owners.

But that doesn’t mean there are no roadblocks to said ownership.

However, this is beginning to change, as a number of franchise companies are working to open the door for a variety of owners, including former caregivers.

At Nurse Next Door, opening the door means the “front line to franchisee” program. Essentially, the aim of the program is to make home care business ownership more accessible to caregivers and nurses.

“For those of us who have been in health care — we’ve always known that we have a dedication to those that we serve, a tenacity and great work ethic,” Michelle Greer, agency director at Nurse Next Door of Raleigh, North Carolina, said earlier this month at Home Health Care News’ Franchise Forum event. “Nurse Next Door has recognized that these traits transfer really well to agency owners and to being a great leader.”

The Vancouver, Canada-based Nurse Next Door is a home care franchise system that operates roughly 200 locations across the U.S., Canada and Australia. As an organization, the company provides personal care, companionship care, homemaking services, dementia care and more.

Though Greer wasn’t part of the “front line to franchisee” program, the inspiration behind it was people like her, a former caregiver and nurse.

As part of the program, participants receive a discount on the initial franchise fee. 

“The program helps to support the idea of caregiving as a long-term career by breaking down one of the biggest barriers to ownership, which is startup costs,” Greer said.

Lowering startup costs

Similarly, HomeWell Care Services also recognized that startup costs can be a barrier to entry for many of the people that would make successful owners.

In July, the company announced that it would drop its initial franchise fee for new owners throughout 2022.

The initiative also allowed new owners to reinvest these funds back into their business once their franchise location officially opened.

“This is one of those businesses where you can grow fast or slow, you can do it in a lot of different ways; it is very customizable,” Eli Collier, a HomeWell owner in Hendersonville, Tennessee, said during the panel discussion. “Not having that franchise fee allows people to come in and get started, and do it with a lot less input from the beginning, so that they have time to build on it until they’re making that income.”

HomeWell is a Burkburnett, Texas-based home care franchise that has 50 locations representing over 100 territories across the U.S.

Collier and her husband run the Hendersonville, Tennessee, HomeWell location together. Collier didn’t enter through the company’s current zero franchise fee initiative, but she and her husband often work with new franchise owners to help set them up for success.

Prior to being a franchise owner, Collier worked on the operations side at a test preparation company for 17 years. She’s been working in the home care business for four years.

Caregiver to owner

Lori Henderson, the owner and administrator of FirstLight Home Care of Western Slope, is part of this larger trend of more caregivers becoming franchise owners.

FirstLight Home Care is a franchise with about 150 locations across the country.

For Henderson, it took her direct manager stepping up and advocating for her career advancement.

“I began as a caregiver in October 2015, working about 20 hours a week, and started off making $9.50 an hour,” Henderson said during the panel discussion. “My manager at that time saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself. She pushed for me to better myself. She took me out of the field and threw me into the office. She was a huge blessing to me.”

Once Henderson was out of the field, she worked in many of the office positions at FirstLight. This taught her the ins and outs of the business. She would eventually purchase the FirstLight location where she worked as a caregiver.

“My corporate office was so supportive, and the previous buyer financed it for me, which was amazing,” she said.

While HomeWell and Nurse Next Door set up formal initiatives, and FirstLight has focused on mentorship, most home care franchise companies are already in a strong position to offer the support needed to aid newcomers to ownership status.

“You have a community, and that’s something that we found we really appreciate,” Collier said. “It’s not just the corporate side, we have other franchise owners that we can call and everyone is willing to share and help, and they will all jump in. I like to say that being part of a franchise system helps you not fall in the holes that somebody else already fell in.”