The Secrets To Caregiver Retention in 2022 with Special Guest Aaron Osgood from impowered

Caregiver Retention Secrets REVEALED!!

Today, we welcome back special guest Aaron Osgood from impowered to share his insider strategies to increasing your caregiver retention rate.

To learn more about how impowered can help your agency - click here

In the previous post, we discussed recruitment and its importance when it comes to the home care industry.

But the other side of this is retention.

It’s imperative to know how we can retain more of our caregivers.

Today, Aaron Osgood, the founder of Impowered will discuss the key retention techniques and strategies that are working in today's industry.

1. Have tools that bring caregivers together and help them feel more connected.

One key area a lot of people talk about is caregiver isolation.

Part of it is knowing how you can bring caregivers together and help them feel more connected. 

Be aware of what tools you have to bring them together and have them communicate with each other.

2. Leverage mentorship

Mentorship is another area to be considered when it comes to retention. Leverage a part of the mentorship to be able to mentor other caregivers, in informal or even a formal capacity.

3. Provide more ability and flexibility for them to be able to customize their schedule

Once they're hired, how can you provide more ability and flexibility for them to be able to customize their schedule?

Well, flexibility doesn't mean for them to be able to change their schedule every week.

Of course, we can agree that that's probably not a great business model.

So, how can you provide that initial flexibility and that initial customization of a schedule?

It starts by being transparent with the shifts that you have available.

• What time of day? Is it Monday, Wednesday, or Friday?
• Eight to noon on Fridays, or eight to one?
• Is it a male or female client?
• What ADLs, IADLs do they need help with?
• What special skills is it?
• Do they need help with catheter care, bottle program, nail care?

You name it!

4. Be transparent with the shifts that you have available.

Being transparent upfront with exactly what you have available so then they can apply for those specific shifts.

You can approve them to work those shifts.

And you can have more confidence that if they applied for that shift, knowing all the details of those shifts, they're going to work with that client. 

You're going to train them with your nurse  or other caregivers with that client.

And when they work with them, you can have more confidence that a week later they're not going to come back to you and say,

“I didn't know what I was getting into, you weren't transparent with me.”

So you're going to be more confident that they're going to continue to work with that client because they applied and said, “I want to work that shift.”

You can also be the company that you go to all your care core members and case managers, who can say,

“Hey, bring me everything and anything you have because I have a way.”

You can use Impowered by the way, to post all of these in a HIPAA compliant way to provide more transparency and more selection for caregivers. 

You will be a company that has everything available, at full transparency.

You can be a company where caregivers can apply for every shift, or any shift that they want.

You can be the company that gives me the ability to build their own schedule.

So you're reversing it, rather than telling the schedule they're going to work, you're giving them the ability to apply.

Because, let's face it, we can tell them what they're going to work all the time, but at the end of the day, they're more likely just turnover.

So would we rather say, “You know what, let's just give it to you, here it is,and you have the ability to come in and customize that schedule.”

See how amazing that is?

5. Compensation

The next thing goes again back into the compensation, the mentorship, and giving the ability to caregivers to mentor, build their own team.

When you have some compensation tied to caregivers working for your company, they're going to mentor them to say, “Hey, keep working here!”

They will share that you have upward mobility, as well as incentives.

They can build their own team because they can get paid more by doing this as well and have more impact.

And since your caregivers are making a little bit more money because they built a team, they’re not going to stop working for your company because this is the best opportunity out there.

For a better result, they should also encourage the other caregivers that are on their team to provide quality, compassionate care, and maybe build their own team as well.

This goes back to the second tier referral we have discussed in the previous segment. 

6. Internal Incentive Program

Another thing is an incentive - an internal incentive program-  that is attached to their desired behavior.

So we have a badge system built into Impowered, where if you do so many filling shifts, you earn a bronze badge, or a silver badge.

That means, the more filling shifts you do, the more badges you earn.

If you earn this badge and this badge for this desired behavior, you move to category Caregiver Two or Caregiver Three.

And for every time you move up to that next level to Caregiver Five,  you're getting paid $2 more, or $3 more.

We reward their behaviors and we're giving you an opportunity for more advancement, as well as more upward mobility. There's the purpose and we're tying the monetization to it as well of their pay.

So that's how you create more retention for your company.

Final Thoughts

The next step is putting together the plan and actually taking bold and deliberate action.

To learn more about how you can empower your caregivers to build their team, how to create more retention and bring more caregivers into your organization, all you got to do is visit impoweredteam.com

Learn more and see what we're doing. Contact us right through our website and let’s start making your caregivers feel empowered.

So that's why it's spelt empowered with an I.

So it's impoweredteam.com with an I.

I'm powered to grow.

I'm powered to have an impact.

I'm powered to make a difference.

I'm powered to have more purpose.

That's what we want each and every one of your caregivers to feel like, when they're joining your organization and they're using Impowered.

To learn more about how impowered can help your agency - click here