The average home care agency will spend $136,890 on caregiver turnover costs this year. Hire an office staff member to focus exclusively on hiring instead.

Being a home care agency owner comes with many titles: Business owner. Manager. Accountant. Administrative assistant…and many more. But here’s why “Recruiter” may not need to be in your job description anymore.

The average agency will hire around 81 caregivers this year, but our research shows that 65% of them will quit by the end of the year. At $2,600 per caregiver, that means it will cost your agency approximately $136,890 in annual caregiver turnover costs to replace them!

If you’re like the 4 in 5 home care providers who listed caregiver shortages as their biggest threat in 2021, look for these signs within your agency that hiring a recruiter should be at the top of your to-do list:

  • You’re taking longer than 10 days to respond to candidates

  • Not having a recruiter is costing you money

  • You’re taking on too many tasks that could be delegated

  • Your new hires aren’t making it past the 90-day mark

  • You already have passionate caregivers looking to advance

     

You’re Taking Longer Than 10 Days to Respond to Candidates

How long does it take you to hire a caregiver from application to job offer? If your answer is longer than 10 days, you’re already losing out on your best candidates.

Although the average hiring process takes around 28 days, research found that the top 10% of your best candidates are taken off the marketplace within 10 days. Only 21% of caregiver applicants made it all the way through the hiring process last year. To snap up the best candidates before your competition, you need someone specifically in charge of responding to and onboarding the most qualified applicants.

Agencies who hire a recruiter are proactively solving the first step of a hiring oversight by ensuring that someone is always ready and available to actively interact with the best candidates.

Secure your agency’s top talent by prioritizing responding to candidates as soon as they reply. Hire a recruiter to find, attract, and screen the best fit for your agency to begin hiring only the best long-term applicants for the job.

Not Having a Recruiter is Costing you Money

If you’re like many other agencies, you may have determined that bringing on a recruiter is too expensive. However, it turns out that not having a recruiter may actually be costing you money.

This year, it is expected that the average agency will need to replace 65% of your caregivers due to caregiver turnover, costing you $2,600 each. We estimate that a recruiter could save you at least half of that by filling positions faster (with better candidates) and reducing revenue lost to staff shortages. That’s a lot of saved cash to spend on something other than recruitment, not to mention how much time you’d get back in your work week.

So at what point is it cost effective for you to hire a recruiter? We’ve done the math.

The average recruiter makes around $52,000 annually. If your agency has a minimum of 62 employed caregivers, then the amount of money you’re saving just in turnover costs is equal to the amount of money you would pay a recruiter. If you’re averaging $136,890 in annual turnover costs, the average recruiter would save you $68,445—over $16,000 more than their salary.

This doesn’t take into account other ways recruiters save your agency money, such as recruiting better candidates, which in turn reduces turnover cost further. Perhaps most importantly, they’ll also free up your time to take on other tasks that contribute more to the growth of your agency, which brings us to our next sign:

You’re Taking on Too Many Tasks That Could be Delegated

Whoever said, “If you want something done right, do it yourself,” never owned a home care agency. In fact, this destructive mindset could be holding you back from investing in the people and tools that will make your life easier and your agency successful.

Jessica Nobles, Executive Director of Home Care Ops, conducted a 40-hour focus where she tracked her agency’s productivity for two weeks. She wrote out all the tasks her agency needed to do, then two weeks later put a check mark next to every completed task and circled the tasks that were still in progress.

By the end of those two weeks, she found that there were nearly twice as many circled tasks as completed tasks. To maximize the productivity of each work week, she created the “Oh DEAR” evaluation method.

After conducting your own 40-hour focus, approach each incomplete task by asking yourself:

  • Can I Delegate it?

  • Can I Eliminate it?

  • Can I Automate it?

  • Can I Repeat it?

 

If you’re finding the most incomplete tasks are related to caregiver recruitment and retention, you’re justified in hiring a recruiter to delegate them to.

Work smarter not harder by changing the old saying to, “If you want something done right, delegate it yourself,” and enlist a recruiter to take care of the time-consuming hiring process for you.

Your New Hires Aren’t Making It Past the 90-Day Mark

A recruiter’s job isn’t over once they’ve recruited a new hire. They then need to ensure the employee stays hired.

While 57% of caregiver turnover occurs within the first 3 months of employment, new hires who experience a positive onboarding experience are 70% more likely to continue working for an organization for more than three years.

Explain the importance of checking in on a caregiver’s 90-day experience by encouraging a recruiter to continue building their relationship with a new hire during their big milestones:

  • A caregiver’s first day: According to the 2021 Home Care Benchmarking Study, a caregiver whose onboarding includes 8+ hours of training will bring in over $4,000 more in revenue than one whose orientation includes 3 hours or less. Create a positive orientation experience by equipping new hires with the training they need to succeed and start a new hire’s career with your agency on a high note.

  • Weekly: Have your recruiter set up weekly touchpoints for your caregivers with a mentor or other staff member to address any questions or concerns. As Dawn Spicer, Caregiver Development Manager at Home Instead of Jacksonville Illinois, said on a recent episode of our podcast, We touchpoint each week with [caregivers] to see how things are going so that they have the training they need. After we give them the initial training to build them up and make sure they have everything they need, once they get going, they might hit a little snag…and they might not feel comfortable asking for help. We set ourselves up to be right there to provide that when it’s needed.”

  • Every 30 days: Have your recruiter assign each new caregiver a mentor. Mentors are experienced caregivers who can help a new hire transition into their role. This takes the pressure off your recruiter to know the answer to every question that arises in the field; they can just monitor that your mentorship program is running smoothly.

  • At the 90-day mark: Make sure your recruiter takes note of when a new caregiver’s 90-day milestone is coming up and helps them celebrate it! Equip your recruiter with company swag, gift cards, or other small incentives to show your caregivers that you appreciate and value their contribution to your agency. The 90-day mark is also the perfect time to ask your caregiver to review how they feel about working with your company so far. Collecting great reviews will help build your employer brand and make it easier for your recruiter to hire even more top talent.

 

A recruiter will increase employee retention and ensure a new hire doesn’t fall through the cracks during their first 90 days.

CUSTOMER STORY

How Angels On Call Built a Reputation that Increased Caregiver Applicants 26% Year-Over-Year

You Already Have Passionate Caregivers Looking to Advance

A recruiter knows that sometimes the best candidates are ones you’ve already hired.

As a recruiter cultivates a relationship with your new hires, they come to know your caregivers’ strengths and weaknesses even before you do. Recruiters can spot the underutilized talent within your agency and identify the caregivers who would perform better (and stay with your agency longer) in a more specialized or different position.

Your best recruiter may already be within your company. Look for passionate caregivers looking to advance who are enthusiastic promoters of your agency. They could be the perfect candidate to fill your open recruiter position, because they already know exactly what the job entails, the needs of your clients, and your company culture.

Begin hiring a recruiter by letting your current employees know of the advancement opportunity and see if there is any interest. Who knows? You may just change someone’s life in the process of recruiting and retaining your next best caregivers.

With Recruitment Off Your Plate, You Can Focus on Retention

Sometimes, your best hires may have very little experience in caregiving—don’t write them off just yet!

With recruitment off your to-do list, you’ll have more time and resources to invest in retaining your new expert-approved hires.

Stand out as an employer by offering competitive training. Choose from over 500 RN-developed courses with blended online/in-service training options that are tailored to your state’s complete requirements.

Learn more:

HCP’s Care Intelligence Platform offers RN-developed training, satisfaction surveys, and reputation management tools to help you become the best employer and provider in your area—and make sure everyone knows about it.

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2 Comments

  1. Jeffrey Fry February 7, 2022 at 10:37 pm - Reply

    Great article and thank you for the costing figures.. That in itself is a power datapoint.

    • Julie Redd March 29, 2022 at 6:10 pm - Reply

      Thank you so much for reading, Jeffrey! We are so glad you found this article helpful!

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