Though staffing remains the top challenge for the home-based care industry, providers agree that there isn’t one universal panacea.
Instead, there are various approaches that have yielded results for different agencies across the country.
One of these approaches is making sure that potential clinicians and caregivers know about the job opportunities that exist within home-based care, Mandy Tilton, chief nursing officer at Bayada Home Health Care, said during a panel discussion at Home Health Care News’ Staffing Summit Tuesday.
“We’re spending a lot of time educating the general public and potential future employees on the home health care space as a place to work,” she said. “I hear from so many others, and it’s my own personal experience, that this is not an area where there’s a bunch of time spent on educating [people in] nursing school, or other types of training programs. Oftentimes, people aren’t even aware of the opportunity to work in this amazing space.”
Tilton noted that Bayada is partnering with a number of different organizations in an effort to “spread the word.”
Moorestown, New Jersey-based Bayada offers home health, personal care and hospice services through 237 locations in 23 states, as well as seven other countries. The company employs over 26,000 nurses, home health aides, therapists and social workers.
On the retention side, Bayada recently held a national giveaway for its nurses, as part of the organization’s larger National Nurses Week celebration, which included a handful of company-wide events.
“Any nurse could enter into a drawing to win a package to be used towards a vacation, which right now, that’s a super important thing, taking care of oneself in health care,” Tilton said.
On its end, Homewatch CareGivers has created a workforce strategy committee made up of the company’s franchise owners.
“We share the most pressing issues, new ideas and best practices,” Jennifer Ramona, vice president of strategy and innovation at Homewatch CareGivers, said during the panel discussion. “Through them, as well as our franchise advisory council, we identify the best means for getting this information out to our franchise owners, so they’re able to put this into practice, whether that is doing it via town halls, our biweekly newsletter, or regional meetings.”
Denver-based Homewatch CareGivers is a home care franchise company that operates in over 30 states and seven countries. The franchiser employs over 4,500 caregivers at its estimated 230 total locations.
The company is also focused on how “ghosting” has become common during the recruitment and onboarding process, and is working to tackle this.
“We are identifying means of how you address that,” Ramona said. “How do you ensure that your person is going to show up, because that’s a lot of time and effort expended to have somebody not show up at various processes. It can happen at the interview, at the orientation or that first shift, where suddenly they don’t show.”
Anecdotally, providers across the country have noticed this phenomenon. They are hoping that it is a temporary, COVID-related trend. But either way, it’s worth paying attention to, given Ramona’s explanation.
Another strategy Bayada has deployed is making sure that the lines of communication are open. The company has created a number of channels — including employee experience surveys and forums — to ensure this.
Bayada has also implemented training and educational sessions with its leaders who are the direct managers of the company’s home-based care staff. The training ranges in topics — from time management to self-care.
The company has also leaned on internal referrals as a way to recruit new workers, according to Tilton.
“We are working really hard with our own employees to have them refer their friends,” she said. “Being able to generate internal referrals is so important in health care. People who are referred by friends often score really well on annual performance reviews. They generally will stay longer.”
In fact, Ramona and Tilton agreed that if there was a panacea, it’s increased referrals from current staff.
For Homewatch CareGivers, it’s also been important to recognize that employee benefits can be a powerful recruiting and retention tool.
“It isn’t just about health and dental, but also what are those things that can … make your life easier based on where you are,” Ramona said. “It might be memberships to things like Costco or those types of items — making sure that we identify those resources.”
Identifying new talent pools has also been key for the company, according to Ramona.
“People who may have aptitudes in our space, but have not necessarily considered caregiving because maybe they thought there was a degree required,” she said. “That’s one of the benefits for us. In many states – not all states — we can help train somebody to be a caregiver, as long as they have those talent aptitudes related to the soft skills, the compassion, the reliability.”
With that in mind, the company has conducted research through U.S. Department of Labor resources that has allowed it to identify particular professions or interests that correlate with people who might be interested in a caregiving type job.
“We have the persona of the people, how to attract them and then also how to train them,” Ramona said.
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