With the competition for home health workers fierce, companies are always trying to get an edge in hiring. Moorestown, New Jersey-based Bayada Home Health Care, one of the 10 largest providers in the nation, is hoping to gain such an edge through a new pilot utilizing the popular ride-hailing application Uber.
Now, when job seekers access the webpages of local Bayada offices through a mobile device, they encounter a “Get a Ride with Uber” link. Clicking on this link opens the Uber app, with the exact coordinates of the Bayada office pre-loaded.
Once in the rider is in the vehicle, the Uber app continues to display Bayada branding and makes relevant content available, such as an interview preparation guide that the company created. Local office staff also can create an office Uber account to share promo codes with job candidates.
“There’s such a home health care caregiver shortage right now that if we find someone who’s the right fit and there’s any obstacle, we’ll go above and beyond to get them in,” Eric Welsh, Bayada’s director of digital sales and marketing, told Home Health Care News. “That’s why we felt so great about this initiative.”
The Uber integration came about through Bayada’s partnership with Yext. The New York-based company helps its clients manage their business listings across various channels and platforms, including social networks and through search engines such as Google. In late September, Yext announced its integration with Uber, intended to help clients such as Bayada bring customers “from their websites to their doorsteps.”
Yext made the feature available at no cost to its pilot client base, including Bayada, as well as companies such as Guitar Center and Cole Haan.
“For us, it’s a very low-risk addition that can potentially have a high reward outcome for our potential caregivers,” said Welsh.
While Bayada is not yet picking up the tab on the Uber rides booked through this new integration, covering those costs is not out of the question, according to Welsh. Speed can be the name of the game when a sought-after job applicant is on the market, so getting him or her into an office quickly and easily can be a differentiator.
Given that the capability is so new, Bayada does not yet have a clear sense of how many people are using the ride-booking feature, but leaders at the company feel that the potential is “huge,” Welsh said.
“It has inspired a thought process,” he said. “What can we do next to use this service to get teams together and aligned quickly?”
In other words, the company now is looking to more formally integrate services like Uber, which it has been using more on an ad-hoc basis already. For example, when Pope Francis visited Philadelphia in 2015, it seriously affected traffic in the “epicenter” of Bayada’s business. It was not realistic for staff to drive into and out of the “locked-in zone” where the Pope would be spending his time, and public transportation also was disrupted. Uber proved to be invaluable, as its drivers in the zone could shuttle caregivers from one house to the next.
So, ride-hailing services may be yet another valuable weapon in the arsenal of home health agencies trying to maximize the efficiency of their operations. And when it comes to recruiting, features such as “Get a Ride with Uber” may seem simple but they can have a profound effect on potential hires, Welsh believes. It also has been embraced by current employees, such as Jill Pusak, director of the Lower Bucks, Pennsylvania adult nursing office.
In a description of the program that was circulated internally, Pusak wrote, “This is amazing and so out of the box.”
Written by Tim Mullaney
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