Homecare recruitment is a growing challenge. Not only is there a labor shortage but also it is a market where only 22% of caregivers report actually wanting to work for a homecare agency, it takes a well-trained leadership team to recruit & train top talent. Here we discuss a few tips that can help with the difficulties of recruiting talent in this very competitive industry.
A Better Way to Recruit
Recruitment is often not managed or measured properly. As stated above, the percent of caregivers wanting to work for a homecare agency is very low and they are receiving more than three calls a week from competing agencies for work opportunities. You need to put together the best team possible to recruit and retain top talent that includes the owner, the recruiter and your partners all working together. Owners must engage in the recruitment process, develop deep and meaningful partnerships and above all, measure everything.
Know Your Cost Per Hire
This is a critical metric to scale recruitment, it is equally important for evaluating recruitment partners and to drive smart spending habits. More than 80% of homecare agencies do not know their cost per hire and if it is not measured that means it is not managed. Measuring, managing and monitoring your cost per hire is imperative in order to evaluate your recruitment process.
A Better Way to Increase Retention
Engagement in staff is the single easiest way to ensure that your caregivers know you are invested in them, want them to be successful and want them to stay with you for the long term. Two simple strategies for staff engagement and increased retention are mentor programs and frequent reviews. Recently 43%of caregivers indicated that they don’t have a mentor and would value one. By providing a mentor for your caregivers, you create deeper organizational relationships and the ability to have more in-depth knowledge of team dynamics. Second strategy, hold more frequent reviews. Caregivers evaluated in a 2019 caregiver trend report unanimously agreed that they would value more frequent reviews than their employer currently provides. In fact, 22% of agencies lack a formal review schedule all together and simply hold reviews on an as needed basis.
Homecare agencies are losing talent to all different markets, from fast food to gig jobs like Uber or lyft. In order to stay viable it is important for agencies to understand where they sit competitively in their local market and to teach their recruitment team how to sell around where your agency’s offering is strong and at the same time work with owners to improve those areas within the organization that may be areas of weakness to prospective talent.
