The 3 P’s of Home Care in 2023
The success of a home care agency can be attributed the planning and execution of the 3 P’s: the processes in place, the quality of the product and the right people doing the work.
At a home care agency, examples of processes are: how easy it is for a new client to start and continue services, the ease with which a new caregiver employee may join the team and the communication and scheduling processes between the agency, client and caregiver.
The product of a home care agency is the skill, reliability and experience of their management and caregiving team.
And the people of note are the caregivers, recruiters, schedulers and marketers that are responsible for building, maintaining and improving your processes.
In this post, we’ll cover how the three components work together in a home care agency and the trends that make 2023 the year of process in home care.
Introduction
The concept of the ‘3 Ps’ in business is not new, but rather has become a tried and tested framework for considering building or changing your business. In the chart below, we have a visual presentation of how the three components work together (or not, in some cases).
For example, when you have people collaborating and interacting only with the product (without any processes), your team feels chaotic and uncertain because they lack standardized processes to lean on. Imagine for a moment, if you hired a caregiver and sent them to a client’s home without training them or even telling them what their job was. It would be sheer chaos and confusion. That’s an exaggerated example of how important process is in a home care agency.
This being said, when I talk with home care agency operators and recruiters, they sometimes discount the value of their processes. And, they typically assume that if there's a ‘fire’ that they’re putting out, it’s because of people or the product, not their processes.
Because of this observation, we have some predictions for 2023. Processes in home care will become the growth lever this year. Here’s why:
The Caregiver Shortage.
The shortage is real and happening across the county. For many agencies that we’ve spoken with, the issue is that it seems the quality of applications is lower than in previous years. Agencies are reporting that there are plenty of caregivers, but not enough of the right ones and high no-show rates to interviews and first shifts among other indicators. This indicates two areas of focus needed by operators: 1. How do you attract new entrants to the field and; 2. How do you think about the quality of existing candidates already applying to your jobs.
Caregiver Certification and Training Processes.
One solution that has been long-discussed, though not executed at scale yet, is a clear national educational pathway to bring new entrants to the field and prepare them appropriately for this work. There are great online training programs for caregivers and local school or community college partnerships exist at the local level to help train people who show an interest in this work. Savvy home care operators are taking advantage of these options to some degree already. However, without a strong national framework to address the macro-level shortage of caregivers, most agencies must now plan and iterate on more robust training and mentoring programs to attract and keep new entrants to the field.
Recruitment Channels.
Due to the seemingly high-volume, but low quality of applications, home care operators must consider their own recruitment channels, standards and processes to keep up with the demand. In 2023, you’ll need to know your applicant to hire rate metrics for each recruitment channel like the back of your hand. You’ll need to try, and retry, each of your recruitment channels, track your results and make tough decisions to double-down on what works and throw out what doesn’t produce results. If you’re not familiar with analyzing your recruitment process or funnel metrics, I wrote a previous article about that here that you can check out for some basic tips.
The Year of the Recruitment Process Review.
As you consider your applicant to hire rate and metrics for each recruitment channels, you’ll need to think through your overall recruitment processes. Examining your recruitment processes means getting down to the level of analyzing how your recruiter goes about their daily work. Does your recruiter wait a couple days for applications to stack up, then sort through them and then make a decision about whether or not to contact them? If so, you’ve probably already lost out on some good candidates by the time the application is reviewed. Ask your recruiter: when you contact an applicant, do they remember which job they applied for? No surprise here: the applicant doesn’t remember because they applied to 5-10 jobs and they’re received texts and calls from all of them in the 3-5 days following their application. Consider software like Augusta to auto-qualify and auto-schedule interviews with the best applicants so you’re the first to interview with them.
Career Ladders are Now a Must-Have.
Wages are rising across the board. With the vast changes in our lives and economy post COVID pandemic, the typical caregiver’s wage and schedule expectations have changed. But, with the implementation of wage increases it also begs for the consideration of your employee performance. If you’re not doing it already, we predict this will be the year of the wage/career ladder. A wage ladder or career ladder means a plan implemented throughout the organization by which the caregiver has a clear, achievable pathway showing what they need to do to earn more and be in good standing with your agency.
Performance Review Process.
With higher wages, it’s reasonable to put further processes in place which help you manage the performance of your team, providing both feedback and further rewards for outstanding work. If your agency doesn’t have consistent performance reviews (which can come with monetary rewards), now is the time to get that in place. It’s a process that will allow you to keep your client rates (and therefore wages) at the top of your market. It keeps your best caregivers engaged and continuing to believe your agency is the right one for them. And, perhaps most importantly, it’s a signal to new potential caregivers about whether or not this is the right company for them to begin with. It says you’re reliable, hard-working and compassionate, so they should be as well. Here’s a nice article on performance review management for home care agencies, if you need some more information and ideas about how to implement and manage that.
By investing in processes, product and people, a home care agency can set itself up for success, and provide the highest level of care to its clients. Whether you're starting a new home care agency, or looking to improve the performance of an existing one, focusing on these three key factors can help you to achieve your business goals and provide the best possible care to your clients.
Here’s to a strong 2023!
