Readers offer tips to recruit staff
Incentives, training, and recognition get results
Everyone is looking for the magic paraprofessional recruitment and retention wand, but no one seems to have found it. With a continuing strong economy, low unemployment, and growing senior population, it may never happen. However, several Private Duty Homecare subscribers recently shared various activities they believe strengthened their respective hiring and retention records.
About a year and a half ago, Napa, CA-based Your Home Nursing Services started a monthly CNA inservice program. For $1, CNAs from throughout the Napa community attend state-approved continuing education seminars. Although she does not formally track the sessions’ impact on Your Home’s recruitment efforts, director Camie Bianchi is certain they help.
"The room is packed. Usually about 35 to 40 people attend, and only one-third are employees. And I’m wheeling-dealing and romancing them," she reports.
In addition to the low cost, good program content, and engaging speakers draw consistently large audiences, according to Bianchi. "I always pick energetic speakers and topics cover anything that enhances the CAN’s basic skills," she says. For example, an otolaryngologist recently spoke on swallowing and salivating, and how both change in stroke patients.
Helpful seminar subjects
Current patient care and service issues also become seminar subjects. For example, Bianchi learned that six caregivers could not go to a patient’s home because they did not know how to use a Hoyer lift. So she rented a lift and hospital bed, and had a physical therapist demonstrate proper technique on herself acting as the patient. End-of-service client surveys that revealed dissatisfaction with caregivers’ meal selection and preparation skills lead to nutrition and cooking presentations.
"There’s all kinds of ways to find out what’s going on in the community, who we take care of, and draw on that," Bianchi explains.
The programs cost very little. Speakers appear free of charge, so staff preparation time is the only expense. To obtain state continuing education certification, Bianchi submitted 12 lesson plans and accompanying post-tests and goals and objectives in advance, along with the resumes of the first 3 speakers and the program coordinator.
Sessions now take place from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. on weekday afternoons, but Bianchi is considering changing them to weekday evenings from 6 to 9 p.m., or weekend days.
Bianchi also recruits at local CNA and LVN training programs. LVN students in particular are good targets. "They need extra money and will work as CNAs on weekends," Bianchi notes.
Despite all Bianchi’s efforts, Your Home still needs more staff. "I could hire 10 more full-time, and I have five that would work immediately if they could work days Monday through Friday," she reports. "Some people have the mentality that they want to go to the same place everyday. Most people are not black and white in their problem solving, but you have to think for them to help them see how they can make a different schedule work out. I just told my scheduler to think in rainbow."
Finding good help
Carolyn Shrader, administrator of West Illinois Managed Home Services, in Galesburg, hopes to find more staff through a new collaboration with the local unemployment office.
"Most of our caregivers are middle-aged, so we’re targeting a younger population just graduating from high school. They may have no skills and no career goals," she explains. The alliance is just now forming, so Shrader does not yet have results.
West Illinois also recently created a homemaker career ladder with specialized training for each skill level. The company established four homemaker grades:
• Homemaker — for new workers on probation.
• Homemaker I — for those with established competency on all basic skills.
• Homemaker II — for those trained in personal care.
• Homemaker III — for caregivers with specialized Alzheimer’s disease training.
The new system has elicited "good feedback from field staff and slowed turnover a little," Shrader reports.
Located in a bedroom community of Philadelphia, Valley Forge, PA-based Professional Nursing Services (PNS) only advertises in small suburban newspapers, not the much larger-circulated Philadelphia publications, according to Nancy Turner, president. The emphasis on local staff not only draws good people from the community in which PNS operates, but also leads to quality word of mouth referrals, she says.
PNS also finds quality applicants through recruitment open houses. Five or six times a year, the company offers lunch and gifts to those who attend the 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. receptions. "We come up with some real good people that way. We give them an application and talk about the company, and ask them to call back for an interview. We only want the ones who come back," Turner notes.
A sense of self-worth
Referral and performance bonuses have improved both recruitment and retention for Middlesex Home Health Services of Middlefield, CT, according to Mary Milardo, director. The company pays a $25 bonus to employees when they refer others who are subsequently hired and successfully complete their 90-day probationary period. "It’s brought in quite a few word-of-mouth referrals," Milardo says.
Building on the success of the referral bonus program, Milardo introduced a performance bonus system about seven months ago. It pays caregivers a bonus of as much as $12.50 per week based on their performance in these areas:
• attendance;
• cooperation with co-workers and families;
• appearance;
• attitude and motivation;
• adherence to company policies and procedures;
• correct and on-time documentation;
• care given;
• "above and beyond" performance.
Co-workers, including the company scheduler, document coordinator, and client care coordinators, rate caregivers on a four-point, super-good-satisfactory or unsatisfactory scale for each performance factor.
The program is a smashing success, according to Milardo. She estimates that retention has increased a whopping 30% since it started. "It’s done a great job. People started here part-time and then stayed with us and became full-time because at the other places, they had no raises, no employee recognition, and here, they feel they’re part of a team. And the staff love it. It pays their gas money and it gives them a self worth," she says.
Also, the performance program saves an expensive across-the-board increase and improves service. "If they don’t meet everything, we don’t pay, so it makes them think about what they’re doing and go the extra mile. You’d be surprised how much easier it is to do paperwork when you get a bonus for it. These are everyday parts of a job, but for paraprofessionals, it’s not something that comes easily," Milardo adds.
Middlesex also recognizes employees of the month and year. Monthly winners receive a gift certificate for dinner; the yearly awards include a bonus, gift certificates, and recognition at a ceremony.
Reward good work
Like other round table participants, Milardo finds that despite the sterling success of certain recruitment efforts, Middlesex still does not have enough caregivers. And like Bianchi, she is chagrined at recent pay increases of local employment competitors like group homes and long-term care facilities. "They can pay more, so it has to be the recognition. We have to make the employees feel they’re part of a team," she notes.
Gail Scott, president of Meadowbrook, PA-based Gail Scott and Associates, agrees. "The top two reasons people leave their jobs are not feeling appreciated and having a bad boss. Retention is all about loving employees and giving them recognition. You also have to do a lot of self-esteem work, and help them see their value and worth. If you don’t care about yourself, you can’t give to anyone else. That’s especially important in home care where you have some hard clients who are old and sick, and they may not give immediate feedback."
While rewarding individual employees is one way to raise the paraprofessional employment pool, so too is a broader societal recognition of what home care involves, according to Judy Clinco, president of Tucson, AZ-based Catalina In-home Services.
"Our ability to grow as an industry is dependent on raising community awareness of what we do. Everybody’s going into these telemarketing positions where they’re paid $7 an hour and are told when they can drink a soda and go to the bathroom and they get rejected on the phone all day. It’s awful! But what we offer is meaningful, good work."
Editor’s note: If you would like to share successful recruitment and retention ideas, please contact us at (301) 589-1974. We plan to print more readers’ round tables in upcoming issues.
Sources
• Camie Bianchi, Director, Your Home Nursing Services, 3188 Jefferson St., Napa, CA 94558-4924. Telephone: (707) 224-7780.
• Judy Clinco, President, Catalina In-Home Services, 1602 E. Fort Lowell Road, Tucson, AZ 85719. Telephone: (520) 327-6351.
• Mary Milardo, Director, Middlesex Home Health Services of Middlefield, 222 Baileyville Road, Middlefield, CT 06455. Telephone: (860) 349-0077.
• Gail Scott, President, Gail Scott & Associates, 1431 Mill Road, Meadowbrook, PA 19046-2531. Telephone: (215) 887-1021.
• Carolyn Shrader, RN, Administrator, West Illinois Managed Home Services, 1197 N. Henderson St., Suite 1, Galesburg, IL 61401-2500. Telephone: (800) 515-9647.
• Nancy Turner, RN, President, Professional Nursing Services, P.O. Box 911, Valley Forge, PA 19482. Telephone: (610) 933-9483.
You have reached your article limit for the month. Subscribe now to access this article plus other member-only content.
- Award-winning Medical Content
- Latest Advances & Development in Medicine
- Unbiased Content