Do you view your caregivers as replaceable commodities or priceless assets?
It’s an exciting time to be in the home care industry. Many good things are happening. Here at Home Care Pulse, we’re excited about the upcoming relaunch of our website BestofHomeCare.com this month. This updated website, featuring agency profiles with awards and verified client reviews powered by our Quality Management Program, will be a useful resource for consumers and a valuable source of exclusive leads for home care agencies.
We’re also excited about the recent release of the 2018 Home Care Benchmarking Study. Thanks to those of you who joined me on my webinar last month as I discussed key findings from the study. For those who missed it, you can watch it here. The data and insights in the study are already helping many home care agency owners make more informed decisions that improve their quality of care, decrease turnover, and grow revenue.

Order the 2018 Home Care Benchmarking Study and measure yourself against the competition.
The Thinking Behind the Recruiting
Many of the key findings from this year’s study relate to caregiver recruitment. This is a critical issue; 79% of home care owners list caregiver shortages as one of their top two threats to their growth.
Successful recruiting often comes down to the thinking behind the recruiting. Because caregiving is typically a lower than average paying job with little education required, it can be tempting to view caregivers as commodities. It is this way of thinking that turns many agencies into revolving doors for caregivers.
Priceless Assets vs. Replaceable Commodity
The value of a caregiver to your agency becomes clearer when placed in a wider business context. While your home care agency may not require the physical capital common to many other types of businesses, your caregivers are the essential human capital that allows your business to operate and grow. Your agency’s revenue is directly determined by the quantity and the quality of your caregivers.
The more caregivers you have, the longer they stay, and the better they are at their job, the more money your agency will make. Turning away a solid applicant, whether through lack of effort in recruiting or through ineffective hiring processes, is potentially the same as throwing away tens of thousands of dollars.
The most successful home care agencies are those who are aware of the substantial value of a caregiver and view recruiting as assembling priceless assets rather than gathering a commodity. Recruiting shouldn’t feel like a reluctant chore; it should be one of your top priorities.
Best Practices Bring Best Results
Adopting the mindset of your caregivers being priceless assets should guide you to use best practices in every aspect of your recruiting. Here are some of the ways this mindset should lead you to conduct your recruiting:

Aaron Marcum
Founder & CEO
Home Care Pulse