Mediastead works with many clients in home healthcare and nonmedical home care that provide home health aides (HHAs) and Certified Nurses’ Aides (CNAs) for aging and disabled clients. The need for in-home caregivers has been growing and is expected to continue to grow for at least another decade.
We realized that recruiting techniques had to parallel marketing techniques to attract good people and try to retain them. You have to be able to sell yourself to new prospects and get them to feel good about the relationship between themselves and your business. Essentially, recruiting has become marketing!
While we don’t want to give away the store, here are a few key points of our 90-Day Recruitment and Retention Playbook that we use with our clients.
Parallels Between Recruiting and Marketing
Some parallels are obvious. Companies with good brand recognition have an advantage. Companies with distinct ties to their community have an advantage. Companies able to create content that effectively conveys the message they want to send will have an advantage.
Better Prospecting Wins
Marketers are always trying to find untapped pools of potential customers. This is true of recruiters as well. Every recruiter knows Indeed.com, so competing here is very difficult. But if you find a pool of potential workers that only three or four companies know, your odds improve dramatically.
Focus on Pain Points
Capture attention by focusing on urgent issues. For the millions of workers who live paycheck to paycheck, changing jobs has to include as little disruption as possible. An easy application process, a small signing bonus, and guaranteeing the availability of hours give you a big advantage.
Listening to the Applicant
Yes, a quick paycheck is important to many, but not all new applicants. Other applicants have the room pain points that shouldn’t be overlooked. Building rapport by active listening will not only make sure you have an advantage when hiring but also improve your chances of retention in the long term.
Peer-to-peer Mentoring
When companies have a high-value client, they assign a sales rep that makes sure they have everything they need at the beginning of the relationship and someone to call when things go awry. New employees can benefit from this as well, however, with one significant difference. New employees tend to favor peer-to-peer mentoring over supervision. Good supervision is necessary, but it doesn’t tend to build relationships nearly as effectively as mentoring. As a bonus, recognizing someone as a mentor, able to contribute to new workers, often gives them an added sense of value which may be critical to retaining both the mentee and the mentor.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Human resources executives have shifted their thinking when it comes to low-wage workers. The focus has shifted from quantity to quality. There is no longer an unlimited supply, particularly when the workers have to pass a variety of eligibility screenings.
Here are the KPIs we’ve identified as most critical for home care agencies.
– Days to first paycheck – The HR department calls this onboarding, but the worker simply wants to know how long it will take to get hired, screened, trained, and paid. You’ll want to monitor each step in your process, but in general, shorten the entire process from application to first assignment.
– 90-day Retention Rate – Improving your 90-day retention rate dramatically reduces overall turnover, regardless of how many applicants you receive. The keys to success are to choose better people and keep them happier!
– Average Length of Service – I am a big advocate of this KPI. Some may disagree with me saying “I hire lots of young people, they are more likely to quit, but are very productive.” Others will say, “I hire lots of experienced people and find they give us the best during the last 5 to 10 years of their career.” Both are good points, but in today’s world nearly impossible to expect someone to come to you at age 18 and work until age 65. Tracking and extending this number over time will be the best indicator of continuity across your organization. For service businesses, continuity is key to long-term success.
Each industry is different, but every HR manager should identify the KPIs that have more meaning than total applicants and total turnover. These are only indicators of the total time and money wasted.
