The vast majority of home-based care organizations are dealing with capacity constraints, rising levels of staff burnout, recruitment roadblocks and other operational challenges.
While many of the current hurdles are due to macro-level forces that are largely outside of an operator’s control, some can be cleared with the help of smart scheduling, strategic incentives and impactful training programs.
Improving “speed to schedule” – or how long it takes to get a prospective caregiver in the field, caring for clients – can also make a major difference, according to Allan Levine, senior vice president of growth and revenue for e-training solution Nevvon.
“The faster you can get a caregiver working, I think the better that will be with recruitment and retention,” Levine said Wednesday during a Home Health Care News webinar sponsored by AlayaCare. “There’s a lot of applicant tracking and onboarding solutions that are out there.”
HHCN and AlayaCare recently examined the industry’s biggest pain points and opportunities as part of an online survey of 145 home-based care professionals, conducted from Dec. 15, 2021, to Jan. 10 of this year.
About 75% of respondents reported having to increase the cost of care due to staffing shortages. And because of problems recruiting or retaining in-home care workers, 80% of respondents said their companies were actively turning away referrals.
Additionally, about 40% of the respondents reported having to increase the use of contract labor in 2021 – a trend that has continued into 2022 for many.
To gain an edge in recruiting, home-based care employers should be using data to identify where they’ve most successfully found workers in the past, according to AlayaCare’s Naomi Goldapple, who serves as vice president of the technology company’s AlayaLabs division.
“Look at your data and see what has worked in the past,” Goldapple said, also speaking on Wednesday’s webinar.
Alex Oosterveen, co-founder and CEO of Caribou Rewards, echoed that idea, adding that providers should likewise explore employee-referral programs.
“We really believe in the law of attraction,” Oosterveen said on the webinar. “Your happiest, most reliable staff are going to tend to hang out in circles with similar people. So if you don’t have a referral program today, I’d really encourage you to make that one of your next experiments.”
Meanwhile, on the retention front, employers should further consider technology investments that streamline the more burdensome tasks caregivers and clinicians are saddled with on a daily basis.
“Help to support them,” Goldapple said. “Give them decision-support tools and make everything very easy so that they can have mobile solutions, so that any of the onerous tasks are kind of reduced. Make their job easier.”
Once hired, seamless scheduling is important as well. In the HHCN-AlayaCare survey, 18% of respondents said “inconsistent schedules” was their top reason for caregiver churn.
“Without them having good schedules that give them enough hours or give them the hours that they want, at the time of day and the frequency that they need, they won’t be happy,” Goldapple continued.
Along with scheduling improvements, many home-based care employers hoping to curb staff burnout are investing in training and education opportunities, creating “career ladders” for caregivers to keep them engaged. In the HHCN-AlayaCare survey, 36% of respondents said they were “managing or preventing staff burnout and churn” by “increasing training and development opportunities.”
Prior to the public health emergency, home-based care providers often leaned heavily on in-person training, Levine explained. During the COVID-19 surges, many pivoted to fully virtual methods.
Now, most are sticking to hybrid training opportunities with a mix of in-person and virtual, he said, noting that trend is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.
“Giving them the flexibility in their training to do it on their own time, at their own pace, when they want, where they want, within rules, of course – that really is a trend that we’re seeing going long and far,” Levine explained.
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