Is Your Turnover Rate Stopping You From Being Profitable? You Need To Be The Best Employer In Homecare And Fix The Problem.
October 15, 2021
Top 5 Considerations For Turnover:
When we are in different agencies, regardless the type of home and community-based care, struggling agencies almost always have a link to employee turnover. Ultimately, employees do not want to stay where something seems broken. The problem is whether the issue has been identified and a clear way to fix it has been determined. Here are the top 5 ways we see agencies struggle to keep staff.
- Interview Process/ Employment Expectations: This is where we sell our agencies to the employee every bit as much as they sell themselves to us. However, it is important that employers make expectations clear so employees don't sign on with a romanticized view of working for your agency. You should talk through benefits and expectations for productivity and work flow in both the positive and negative.
- Onboarding: Onboarding can be too short a process just as easily as too long of a process. Agencies need to consider a program that tailors to the learning type of the employee and not have new staff orienting so long that you are 6 months in without the staff member completing a typical day of work independently. You need to have someone tracking progress and working with the employees to move through the new employee checklist.
- Mentoring: Every new employee needs a mentor. This is not always the person in charge of their onboarding. It is someone who is checking with the employee on concerns throughout the first 6 months to a year.
- Multi-generational approach: Right now, your agency may have the Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Zs all working together. It is not an easy task when all of these individuals learn differently and bring different skill sets as well as needs to the table. If you can't communicate the wants, needs and values of each of these generations, you will struggle to put them all together.
- Connection with staff: Employees don't need to be your buddy, but ultimately, they need to know their contributions matter and you know what those contributions are. Consider some team-bonding activities. I am reminded of a time while a was a nurse working in a branch office. The administration showed up to a staff meeting. They pulled out griddles and toasters and made the staff breakfast cooked to order. It was a small gesture, but it meant a lot to staff and opened up dialogue. Connection doesn't have to cost a ton of money to be effective. Don't underestimate the impact of eggs, bacon, and toast! It means something.
Need Help With Your Turnover Strategy?
At Kenyon Homecare Consulting
, we help agencies with all aspects of clinical, financial, and personnel operations. If you need help putting the pieces together, we can help you. Call 206-721-5091 or contact us online.
Results Based Consulting
Did you find value in this blog post? Imagine what we can do for your home care or hospice agency. Fill out the form below to see how we're leading the industry with innovation, affordability, and experience.
Contact Us
Managing compliance in the home care, home health, and hospice world is a challenge. Let's look at what it takes. It is necessary to be methodical and intentional.
Significant reductions is federal Medicaid funding has a huge impact to our nation's healthcare system to the tune of $911 billion over 10 years.
Somewhere in the mix of trying to improve patient care, the patients can get lost. The drive to to move to true patient centered care.
Quality of care issues present a range of challenges related to providing effective and safe care in a patient's home.
Infection Control breaches remain a problem in the home care industry. These are preventable errors for your surveys and in everyday practice.
Recruiting home care staff is challenging and costly, losing and replacing staff is worse. You also must consider lost opportunity costs.
One of the biggest challenges for home care and home health is the recruitment of staff to provide care. The high cost remains an issue for recruitment strategies.
There has been a growing issue with the supply of nurses and home care aides. This is particularly true for home care agencies. With the increased competition from hospitals, skilled nursing homes, Medicare home health and hospices for these workers, it has become increasingly difficult to recruit and hire.
HOPE Question and Answer Repository
Today, this article will look at little different than out typical articles. We all know the costs of losing employees and trying to hire and train new ones. It is exhausting and expensive. So, we think about our wages and benefit packages all the time. What can we do differently that makes people stay? We can’t change the job and we don’t want to keep people that don’t like the work itself. So, how do we acknowledge employees in a way that is valuable to them and that our businesses can afford to do? 5 Things To Consider About Employee Recognition At Your Christmas Party: 1. Years of Service: These can be based on milestone work anniversaries (5, 10, 15 yrs, etc.). If a person has been at your agency 11 years, you pull them up and acknowledge them in the group of employees who have been there at least 10 years up until the time they hit the 15 years landmark. This way longevity is recognized yearly. 2. Special Employee awards: Now, this may be difficult if your staff is very small, but acknowledge the employee who has gone the extra mile in the job they do. Tell the story. The employee needs to know when the employer is proud of the work that has been done. Consider a plaque or certificate. Don’t minimize the value of the employee having them to display. 3. Acknowledge all employees in the mix: Because we are a clinical industry, the administrative staff is often overlooked on day-to-day operations. Ultimately, don’t miss the chance to acknowledge the employee who was able to catch billing errors or collect on a large account. Staff doesn’t like to hear about money, but those types of collections keep Christmas bonuses in place! So, make sure the other staff knows the accomplishments of the finance department or the office manager that every caller loves to speak to. Don't ever forget the IT staff that is on call more than any clinical person in your agency! 4. Letters from the administration: Add a personal note to your staff either collectively or individually depending on the size of your agency. If you are larger, there are employees you don’t often see or get to talk to on a regular basis, so take the time so send a note with that Christmas bonus. 5. Consider the Christmas bonus: Listen, some of you can afford to do substantial monetary bonuses and that is fantastic. However, if you are not in that position, consider something in its place. Maybe small gas cards go with the letter from administration. With the cost of groceries, consider something that helps with the costs of daily living for employees. Big box gift cards in your area will always be used. You may do a lot of these things on a yearly basis to employees. All this being said, it doesn’t mean there aren’t reasons for acknowledgement throughout the year. However, your annual Christmas party is a good way to do it collectively. Between your annual party, write the individual cards to employees when you hear a patient interaction worthy of praise. Or, maybe you buy a gas card for the employee who has picked up extra shifts and always shows up on time. Ultimately, employees will feel valued. You will not regret the time, effort, and energy put into these efforts. Merry Christmas! If you want help with recruitment and retention strategies for your agency, please call Kenyon Homecare Consulting at 206-721-5091 or contact us online today.