When Home Care Pulse published their 2016 Benchmark Study — the result of responses from representatives of more than 600 home care providers— perhaps nothing stood out quite so much as what the study revealed about turnover in the industry. The 2015 median rate of turnover for caregivers receiving more than eight (the median) training hours was still a massive 63.8 percent!
In addition, concern about caregiver turnover continued to rise. While just 13.4 percent of respondents listed turnover as a primary concern in the 2014 report, the number was 22.4 in 2016. (Shortages remain the top — and also growing — concern.
The takeaway? Too many caregivers leave, and too many providers are (rightly so!) facing anxiety about caregiver turnover. Fortunately, lots of companies are ready to help you tackle this issue by providing extensive resources on employee satisfaction, industry standards and improving retention overall.
We've gathered 22 of the best resources to help you improve retention and keep your business — and your clients — healthy.
Reduce turnover with this list of the best resources available
This list isn't exhaustive, but it is comprehensive, and the resources will most certainly help you and your team reassess caregiver turnover and implement positive changes. Let's jump in.
From Dee Armstrong at Home Care Pulse, LLC:
1. 2017 Home Care Benchmarking Study
The Study has an entire section with lots of data on recruitment and retention. This section includes information on the impact of training, wage increases and recruitment sources on caregiver turnover along with historical caregiver turnover rates and percentile rankings. The turnover rates are also broken down by geographical region, revenue ranges and years in business.
2. Caregiver Mentor Program Guidesheet
Outlines how to structure a caregiver mentoring program that helps reduce turnover.
3. Caregiver Mentor Program Structure Flowchart
This tool outlines the structure of the caregiver mentoring program in an easy to understand flowchart. It also shows responsibilities of mentor leads and caregiver mentors.
4. Mentoring: The Often Ignored Key To Significantly Reducing Caregiver Turnover
In this webinar replay, Home Care Pulse CEO Aaron Marcum discusses the reasons a mentoring program can boost retention, the main components of an effective mentoring program and how to create and implement a mentoring program.
5. Improving Caregiver Retention By Understanding Caregiver Satisfaction
In this webinar replay, Home Care Pulse COO Erik Madsen shows how to increase retention by focusing on understanding your caregivers. Erik shares a list of suggested items to know about your caregivers, and discusses how knowing each of these can give you the direction you need to lower your turnover and improve your quality of care.
6. Caregiver Recognition Certificate Template
Use this template to create unique certificates to recognize your caregivers and help increase caregiver retention.
7. Increasing Caregiver Retention Through Caregiver Recognition
In this brief 30-minute webinar, Home Care Pulse COO Erik Madsen discusses one particularly impactful strategy for reducing caregiver turnover: recognition. Erik provides a framework, as well as context and examples of a proper caregiver recognition program, and how it can be done regardless of the financial position your business may be in.
8. Why Employee Recognition Matters in Your Home Care Business
This white paper offers suggestions for ways caregivers prefer to be recognized, taken from Home Care Pulse’s caregiver satisfaction interview results published in the 2014 Private Duty Benchmarking Study. Hint: a pay raise isn’t necessarily what your caregivers are looking for.
9. Growing Your Home Care Business by Reducing Caregiver Turnover
A webinar replay with Home Care Pulse CEO, Aaron Marcum.
10. Increase Your Caregiver Training to Decrease Your Caregiver Turnover
11. Tips for Retaining Your A+ Caregivers
From Merrily Orsini at Corecubed:
12. Recruitment and Retention webinar
13. Manual on the basics of private duty recruitment and retention
This manual is an extensive resource for home care agencies everywhere.
From Marc Reed at the Institute for Professional Care Education®:
Webinars:
14. Reducing Employee Turnover
Part 1 of 2. In this webinar, IPCED presents seven low-cost retention strategies providers can begin implementing immediately.
15. Reducing Employee Turnover
Part 2 of 2.
16. Recruiting, Retention, Referrals
17. Recruitment in an Age of Shortage
Part 1 of 2. This webinar offers a step-by-step process for recruiting as well as some interesting perspectives from home care providers.
18. Recruitment in an Age of Shortage
Part 2 of 2.
Blog Posts:
19. Three Benefits of Online Training During Orientation and Onboarding
20. Strengthening the Senior Care Workforce: Mission Critical
21. Training and Employee Engagement
22. This Could Be the Most Important Employee Retention Tool
This blog post covers both engagement and retention.
