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Home-based care providers that are open to receiving employee and client feedback, and then open to acting upon that feedback, have a natural leg up on competitors that don’t do either.
In fact, providers that collected employee and customer feedback, and acted on it, were able to recruit 90% more employees, according to data from Activated Insights.
But employee recruitment isn’t the only benefit that companies like Tribute Home Care, Pinnacle Home Care and Homewatch CareGivers are seeing from feedback work.
Tribute, for one, takes several approaches to find out what staff and clients are thinking. On the client side, the company sends out a survey after the first three weeks of service. Additionally, the company sends out a more in-depth survey for clients every six months.
On the caregiver side, Tribute conducts an annual “caregiver happiness survey.” The company has also held focus groups over the years.
One of the biggest pieces of feedback that Tribute has received from caregivers was related to wage and volume of hours. The company has also heard about the importance of PTO and 401(k) matching from caregivers.
Caregivers have even voiced their thoughts about the company’s sartorial requirements, leading to improvements when it comes to staff uniforms.
“We have concentrated a lot on making sure the wage is really competitive, and making sure we get good competitive information on that,” Tribute CEO John Sneath told Home Health Care News. “We match our 401(k), and have seen a very big increase in participation. And people really love our uniform.”
Tribute also has someone in place who oversees caregiver excellence. This means that there is a role at the company dedicated to improving conditions based on the needs of these workers.
“That person reports to me and we talk about things, and then we decide the best way forward,” Sneath said. “Often, these problems are pretty complex, and involve more than one department. We typically will put together a group, and have somebody who’s in charge of project management. Then we first make sure we all agree on what the problem is. We’ve learned over the years that defining the problem is absolutely critical.”
Overall, Tribute has seen feedback collection have the biggest impact on the company’s turnover.
“We’re very consistently at 48% to 55% turnover, which is shockingly high, but not in our industry,” Sneath said. “Our characters tend to be very happy with us.”
Tackling caregiver consistency
At Homewatch CareGivers, the No. 1 feedback point the company receives from clients has to do with consistency in their caregivers, and who’s coming into the home, according to Todd Houghton, president of Homewatch CareGivers.
The company uses a third party to conduct these feedback surveys for them.
Plus, individual Homewatch CareGivers franchise locations conduct surveys roughly once per quarter.
To address caregiver consistency, among other things, Homewatch CareGivers rolled out Homewatch Connect, a technology platform that gives clients more access to caregivers.
“It provides consistent access to when their caregiver is not in the home,” Houghton told HHCN. “They have their caregiver coming in for X amount of visits a week, providing service, but they can virtually connect with that caregiver too. It really provides consistency and care for the customer.”
Before implementing this solution, Homewatch CareGivers – like many of their home-based care peers – were navigating client cancellations.
“There’s a high rate of cancellations on the customer client side, which resulted in reduced hours for the caregiver,” Houghton said. “There was frustration amongst caregivers, which resulted in call outs. That affected the consistency of delivery of care, so it kind of walks hand-in-hand. When we heard this, it was an ‘ah ha’ moment. We need to make sure that we have better consistency of care for the client, and the same caregiver coming day after day.”
Connecting a workforce
After receiving feedback from employees, Pinnacle has set its sights on making a workforce that isn’t all in one place feel more connected.
“We’re hiring people outside of our office footprint, creating more opportunities for new talent, which creates more remote-based employees,” Dan Kefgen, chief people officer at Pinnacle, told HHCN. “What comes from that is, as opposed to the staff member that comes into an office every day, and can be part of just different things that happen — whether it’s a potluck or a team lunch — that individual isn’t in the work environment. That feeling of connection and belonging, at times, can be a challenge.”
Similar to industry peers, Pinnacle utilizes surveys to learn more about what clients and employees want.
As a response, Pinnacle introduced an employee engagement app to give employees a vehicle to connect.
“Most times when I say, you have to meet people where they’re at, that’s going to be on their cell phone,” Kefgen said. “We focused on how we can leverage that opportunity to keep people connected, even though they may not be walking through your front door, so to speak.”
While it’s still too soon to determine the impact of Pinnacle’s employee engagement efforts, receiving feedback has been integral to the company overall.
Ultimately, Kefgen stresses the importance of targeted feedback.
“There’s a fine balance, in terms of asking for feedback and asking for too much feedback,” he said. “You have to make sure that it’s purposeful, it’s targeted, and you can make time to do something with it.”
Companies featured in this article:
