In the arms race for caregivers, one major home care franchisor is beefing up its arsenal with new technology to streamline the recruiting process.
Philadelphia-based Griswold Home Care is rolling out a predictive analytics tool that will help assess caregivers that may be the best fit for the company, as its franchisees continue to grow and expand. Griswold has more than 200 locations in 32 states and offers private duty home care services.
The tool, ServiceFit Healthcare, is administered in the application process to candidates, and assesses whether candidates are likely a good fit for the franchise by asking a series of questions and measuring the responses against national benchmarks. ServiceFit is by Select International, a company that developed employee assessments and hiring systems across several sectors.
Griswold is just one company jumping on this trend; several large senior living providers, such as Waltham, Massachusetts-based Benchmark Senior Living and McLean, Virginia-based Sunrise Senior Living, are harnessing predictive analytics to cut down turnover and boost recruiting.
Adoption of the tool came out from Griswold’s caregiver steering committee work group, which seeks out resources to attract and retain the best caregivers, according to Mike Magid, COO of Griswold. The work group was also responsible for creating the five pillars of recruiting across the franchise network—sourcing, assessing, on-boarding, training and recognition of workers.
“[The group] helps our business owners operate to attract the best caregivers and retain them,” Magid told Home Health Care News.
Assessment benchmarks
Candidates interviewing with Griswold use the tool by taking an online test sent to them by the business owners. The test takes about 15 to 20 minutes to complete, goes through a series of questions and scores six or seven different competencies to look at probably performance on the job, including preferences by the candidate.
The results, sent in real time, can help a franchise owner “make a better judgement on the candidates,” Magid said.
Currently, only between 5% and 10% of candidates who apply for a job at Griswold end up getting hired as a caregiver, Magid said. The results can help determine if the nature of the work of a caregiver is right for a candidate.
“And if it’s not, it doesn’t meant the person is knocked out for the position,” Magid explained.
Instead, owners may learn valuable information about that candidate’s preferences and how a mentor already working for them might help.
However, Magid does’t see the tool as a means to cut down on turnover, one of the industry’s biggest challenges. Instead, it will help streamline the recruiting process, he said.
“It will make our businesses more efficient at processing caregivers, but processing the right ones,” Magid said. “It saves you time to vet out caregivers based on a tool you didn’t have before. This test will save time and money.”
Griswold has already leveraged technology to help fill care gaps by equipping caregivers with virtual checklists to help direct visits and identify clients’ lapses in compliance with care plans.
Technology will also play a key role as the intersection of private duty and skilled care becomes closer, Magid predicts.
“I think technology is going to be critical in terms of the future of caregiving,” Magid said. “The technology that supports how you track a client’s progress through a case, how their health conditions change—that we already have today—is critical for how you interact on the non-medical side with the skilled side. [Insurers and managed care providers] are looking for the right partners to decrease their costs…non-medical care is a less expensive way than putting medical practitioners in the home to reduce readmissions.”
In order to work toward those goals, home care providers like Griswold will need to ensure they have the staff they need, amid a growing caregiver shortage across the industry.
The assessment tool is currently available to all franchise businesses within Griswold after the company completed a pilot test.
Written by Amy Baxter
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