Do you run a home healthcare business and you need to hire caregivers? If YES, here are 5 best places to recruit caregivers for your home healthcare business.
We can wholly agree that when a loved one is sick or in need of round-the-clock home care, family members within the household shoulder the responsibility. But, anytime long-term care is needed, such an arrangement can induce strain on family relationships. Note that this type of stress and strain may not be a factor if the care was being provided by a paid professional.
It simply means that finding the right caregiver for your loved one can make a major difference in your quality of life. A well-qualified caregiver can give you peace of mind that your loved one’s needs are being met on a regular basis while allowing you more time to deal with work, social, and personal tasks. Also, choosing the right person for the job allows your loved one to receive aspects of care you may not be able to provide personally.
Even if it’s not for personal care but for your home healthcare business, the right caregiver makes life and business easier. The more reason why it’s very crucial you understand the basis of finding the right caregiver for your needs. Luckily, finding the right caregiver only requires a few simple steps. Read on as we explain the best places to find good caregivers and how to go about it.
5 Best Places to Recruit Caregivers for your Home Healthcare
According to industry reports, caregiver turnover is growing rapidly, and anyone in this business will understand the constant struggle to find and retain quality caregivers for your home care agency. Note that to improve your retention, you need to start by finding quality candidates through diverse and regular recruitment methods.
1. Open House
In your quest to land qualified and trustworthy caregivers, you can make them come to you by hosting an open house. You can either host one large event for a couple of hours or make it an ongoing event by posting a “Now Hiring: Apply Inside” sign outside your building. These events allow you to see the candidates in person and find out how they act in a group setting.
2. Video
Innovation is becoming the order of the day. Thinking outside the box when it comes to advertising will go a long way in helping you fulfill your needs. If your regular methods aren’t turning out results, you may want to try making a fun video that shows off your company culture.
Note that videos provide an engaging way to show potential applicants what they can expect from working with you. It’s a perfect way to highlight what you’re all about and to emphasize your Employer of Choice award and other distinctions.
3. Career Fairs
You can find suitable caregivers by contacting local universities and nursing schools and asking about upcoming career fairs. Note that these are wonderful places to scout out individuals who need jobs and are seeking first-hand experience. If there aren’t any career fairs on the horizon, you can also ask about presenting during a class or providing a lecture on home care to make contacts and interest potential applicants.
4. Online
Also note that posting online in this age is without doubt the simplest and fastest way to recruit applicants. Report has it that leveraging online job ads was the top-rated recruitment source for both leading providers and the industry as a whole. When you post, start with your own website and social media pages, and then branch out to the most common job sites (e.g. craigslist, Monster, indeed).
Once you’ve posted on these generic sites you can then look for community social media pages and more healthcare-specific job pages (e.g. myCNAjobs, Care.com, Nurse.com). By posting on these sites you can bring in a large quantity of applicants that you can sort through later.
5. Word of Mouth
This is probably the oldest form of advertising. In this business, once you meet someone in any job (e.g. waiters, cashiers, store clerks) with a personality that fits your agency, ask them to apply. Have it in mind that you don’t have to be in a professional setting to look for candidates and to see characteristics that fit your needs.
Always keep your eye out for potential applicants wherever you are, and don’t be shy about asking people to apply. Make sure to let them know that their personality is a great fit for caregiving, and tell them how to apply.
Everyone likes to be wanted, and even if they don’t apply, they may recommend you to friends. Don’t forget to encourage your caregivers to also stay alert to potential hires, and reward your caregivers when they find someone. You can find quality candidates in the most unexpected places.
How to Go About It Recruiting Caregivers for your Home Healthcare
It’s very important to state that hard working and loyal caregivers set your home care business apart, leading to a solid reputation and an increase in referrals. So when hiring, be sure to consider the following steps.
- Arrange yourself and be Organized
First, it’s very crucial for Home Health Care providers to have accurate and detailed documentation to manage the recruitment process. This begins with creating compelling job descriptions for positions you hope to fill. Having your applicants information stored electronically can help with the management process as well, both from a compliance standpoint, but also due to the ability to create solid candidate database pools for future consideration.
- Run background Checks and Assessments
Due to the lower barrier to entry and high degree of turnover, selecting candidates that fit with the desired personality traits you hope to fill is very necessary. Finding out the key characteristics, and employing effective assessment tools to measure these traits is critical. Equally important is to ensure that potential employees will not present a danger to those that you are entrusting them to care for.
- Create an effective job advertising strategy
Coupled with compelling job descriptions, you will need to be able to formulate an effective strategy for advertising positions.
- Begin with a solid applicant management platform to help you organize the process.
- Find niche job boards specifically geared to the healthcare industry – healthjobsusa.com, careervitals.com, and healthcarejobboardnetwork.com are all great examples of targeted job boards.
- Leverage local sites that are effective in bringing in quality talent (Craigslist) and also take advantage of free job boards (Indeed.com, Simplyhired.com, and Directemployers.com).
- Search for local events and job fairs to meet directly with potential applicants.
- Make use of social media to reach out to potential applicants
- Establish a cohesive strategy across all of your external sources that reflects the brand image you want your organization to display to job candidates.
Follow up and monitor results
Always make sure you have effective procedures that will let you know how your recruitment strategy is working. You will want to make sure you are effectively monitoring the following reporting criteria:
- External recruitment sources to see where you are getting your best applicants
- Cost per hire
- Time to hire
- Job post response over time
Create a Corporate identity
Especially, due to the highly competitive market for care providers, you need to make your organization stand out from the competition by effectively marketing your company as a place that values the needs of your work staff. Just like your job advertising strategy, you will want to establish a campaign that captures the values of your organization, and makes it attractive to potential employees.
- Create, Analyse, Modify
Creating a recruitment strategy isn’t the end of your journey, it is just the beginning of the process that will help improve future results. Monitor the process and be open and flexible to changes in the strategy to improve overall effectiveness.
- In Conclusion
Caregiver recruitment is one of the biggest challenges faced by the home care industry. As more and more baby boomers turn 65 every day, the need for caregivers is rising rapidly. Statistics have it that caregiver shortages is one of the top three threats to the home care agency.
The data is clear, and home care providers need to plan for what’s to come. But despite the increase in concern, there is a methodological approach to decreasing caregiver turnover that any home care business owner can implement, and it addresses both recruitment and retention. Always note that having top quality, compassionate caregivers will ensure happy clients.
Happy clients refer their friends, family, and people in their community, and the more referrals you receive, the faster your company’s growth will be. It simply means that your caregivers are the backbone of your success, and putting forth the effort to obtain and retain suitable caregivers is the best investment you can make for your home Healthcare business.