Ep:41: How Queen City Home Care Uses Keywords from Survey Feedback to Hire More Caregivers

Miriam Allred (00:08):

Welcome to Vision | The Care Leaders’ Podcast. I’m Miriam Allred with Home Care Pulse. My guest today is Aaron Stapleton, the Rresident of Queen City Come Care in Cincinnati, Ohio. Aaron, welcome to the show!

Aaron Stapleton (00:20):

Thank you so much, Miriam. I really appreciate being asked to be on here. Like I have told you before, this is an honor. I, you know, have gotten a lot of education and information from this podcast and being able to be on here is an honor. Thank you!

Miriam Allred (00:39):

Likewise, the feeling is mutual. You are a leader in the state of Ohio and leading the charge in home care. As a recent member of the national board with the HCAOA, you know, clearly, you know what you’re talking about and you’re seeing the results of high quality care. And what we’re going to talk about today is right up that alley. You know, just a few months ago, you started surveying your caregivers through Home Care Pulse, and have seen some tremendous insights. And that’s what we really want to break into today. So to just kind of give our audience a heads up of what this conversation is going to look like. Tell me a little bit about your previous internal survey process as an organization and the switch you made a couple of months ago to have, you know, a third party surveying your caregivers.

Aaron Stapleton (01:25):

Yeah, so we started our surveys probably, I mean, years ago I wouldn’t say right whenever we started, but it was pretty pretty close into it. And, and I would say our internal surveys were always important to us because we wanted our caregivers to know that we cared about their voice and you know, really that their thoughts on the company is those thoughts are what we’re going to help us grow. Right. but as we continued to get larger, the internal model didn’t really work very well with us because we were trying to have, you know, people like our schedulers and our nurses do these internal surveys and, and they were just getting busy with the work that they were currently doing. So it made a lot of sense for us to you know, to look outside and to have a third party do the the survey for a couple of reasons, number one, to open up our office staff to other things, but also to get as candid information as we could from our, from our employees.

Aaron Stapleton (02:31):

Right. I think that if you go to a restaurant and the chef comes out and says, how did I do, you’re going to say, Hey, it was great. Right? but if you leave and the next day you get a survey you’re probably going to be a little more candid and that’s going to give the chef the, the company in our case, the company, the caregivers the, the all of us as a whole, the ability to continue to. And so that’s why we really thought that it made a lot of sense for us to transition to home care pulse and to, and to use a third party to to do our surveys.

Miriam Allred (03:10):

Yeah. I love the example of the chef or the restaurant, you know, that feels really relevant and hits home probably for a lot of us, there are things that we’re willing to say to someone in person versus, you know, maybe type on our, on our phone or, you know, right on our computers, you know, there, there’s just authenticity that comes with maybe not that face-to-face interaction. And it sounds like you all have, have figured that out and experienced that. So let’s, let’s talk about what, what you’re finding from these surveys. You know, you’re getting these transparent, honest feedback directly from your caregivers and what, what are some of the trends? What are your caregivers saying that have influenced you all at the business level?

Aaron Stapleton (03:49):

Yeah, we, you know, we’ve seen some, some really good things. We’ve seen some really good marks and we’ve seen some marks that we’ve been able to to say, okay, here here’s some growth opportunities for us, right. We’ve actually kind of separated these into, into two separate buckets which we call growth statements and affirming statements. Right. And so the growth statements are typically the ones that we see opportunities for growth, things that we can do better. And then the affirming statements are the ones that we have done well, and we need to figure out how we can vocalize that out to, you know the community. So our goal is to really go into let’s say like Jessica one of our caregivers said, okay, the office staff should improve on their communication. Our goal is then, okay, what does that mean to Jessica?

Aaron Stapleton (04:43):

Right. how do we go into depth on what communication looks like to her? So we can really look at how we can better ourselves as a company and, and putting those in those two buckets. A lot of times they’re going to be set up based on the score that we’re given, right? Most of our affirming statements are going to be your nines and tens. Most of our growth statements are going to be your sevens or eights, or, you know, maybe even below that. So and not all the times, there are some times where you can have a growth statement or a growth number. That’s a six, right. And they’ve said something good. And, and we might take that one statement and put it in the in the affirming statement, but then the other parts we’ll, we’ll throw into the growth statement and try and figure out, okay, how can we better ourselves?

Miriam Allred (05:37):

Yeah. Which, which is really a great point here. I want to bring up a little bit about NPS or net promoter score which may be a new concept to some of our listeners may not be, but exactly what you’re saying. There’s kind of buckets of, of feedback. You know, there’s what are kind of detractors those zero to sixes that aren’t necessarily happy. You know, it’s the, they’re not happy with, you know, the clients that they’re given or something at the agency level. Then you’re kind of talking about the passive, those seven to eight that you’re categorizing is kind of the growth feedback. And then the promoters are those affirmatives that you’re talking about on the nines or tens that are loyal and happy and giving all this great feedback, but I love, I love what you’re saying. It’s, you’ve got to receive this feedback and then categorize it and then decide what to do with it. So let’s talk a little bit about that before we get actually into what you do with it. What has been maybe your personal reaction or from some of your office staff or the people that are viewing these surveys? What have been your reactions to receiving this transparent feedback?

Aaron Stapleton (06:42):

Yeah, I, you know, I think sometimes the first, what we’ll call a knee jerk reaction is, is a little bit of defensiveness, right. If, for instance whenever Jessica says, Hey, the office staff and improve on communication. A lot of times, whenever we sit down and we look at that the first, the first thing that you want to say is, well, we communicate all the time. Right. we do this. And, and so it’s, it’s very intentional for us that we slow down and we say, okay, what did she mean by this? And sometimes that means that we need to contact the, the caregiver, or sometimes it might mean if we see that multiple people are saying, okay, there’s a communication issue. Then we need to have a larger meeting with, you know, all of our staff or, or a group of our staff and say, in, in what ways can we better support you?

Aaron Stapleton (07:39):

Because that’s what communication is to our field staff is, is it’s all about support. And if they’re not feeling supported, then they’re not feeling that we are communicating to them and helping them in their job. So I think our job is to you know, you, you can’t stop from having that initial reaction of defensiveness. Like I do my job. I, you know, I am trying to take care of you. I am trying to communicate, but then looking at it and sometimes digging deep to figure out what does that person trying to tell me and how can I better help them do their job? And that’s really what we work at is slowing down and, and not just coming to a quick reaction, but trying to, to almost be empathetic and putting ourselves in their shoes to, to understand what they’re trying to say.

Miriam Allred (08:32):

Yeah. Great, great examples. And that knee jerk response, it’s not a bad thing. You know, we all have that impulse of, you know, defensiveness of, you know, what I’m doing is right. And what I’m doing is good, but, but I love what you’re saying. And just slowing down, you know, home care is there’s a lot going on and it’s fast paced. There’s always someone that needs something from us, but just taking the time to slow down and then read into the feedback and follow up with it. So let’s talk about that. What, what are some actions or some changes that you’ve taken as an agency to, you know, act on that feedback and make sure that caregivers are being heard and that you’re doing something about it?

Aaron Stapleton (09:12):

Well, like I said, I, I think especially if somebody is willing to give their you know, their name on their feedback, being able to reach out to them and number one, let them know that they’re not just doing this to do it, that we’re going through the information, we’re trying to figure out how we can better support them. And, and again, especially in this instance, right, it would be bad if we didn’t communicate back to her whenever she said that she wants, she wants better communication. Right. but there are some times where people would like it to be anonymous. And, you know, sometimes that can be the most Frank feedback that you get. And, and so if that’s the case, or if we are starting to see that there is a trend, then we want to involve more people. As far as our field staff goes to figure out, is this really something that is that is a continuous issue?

Aaron Stapleton (10:15):

Or is it maybe specific to one client or is it specific to one facility or, you know, and so really diving into it is, is really important. And then, and then communicating back to them, how you’re planning on fixing it. And sometimes some of the requests, you’re just not going to be able to fix. Right. We, we had somebody a couple months ago who said that they would really like to be paid for mileage to get to and from work. And unfortunately, that’s just not something that we as a company do. We’ll pay you for mileage to go in between shifts or to take your clients somewhere. But doing mileage from, to and from work is just not something that we’re willing to do. Now. We could’ve just said, Oh, that’s not an appropriate answer and put it off to the side, but we feel that, okay, it’s our job to now communicate back to that person that while they can’t have this we are doing these other things to help you with the reimbursement of, of mileage and, and whether that’s a higher pay rates or something else that we do as a company to better serve our employees.

Aaron Stapleton (11:30):

So I think the communication piece is really key and not just saying, okay, we have the information let’s put it off to the side or put it in a spreadsheet. Right. You have to make it work for you.

Miriam Allred (11:44):

Yeah. Like you use the word trends as well. That’s one of the keys of, of serving is it’s ongoing and consistent. Then if you do that, you’ll be able to see the trends. You know, a lot of the feedback may be similar about office staff, communication or transportation, like you mentioned, but then there may be these one-off items of feedback that you need to address, you know, individually, but, but one of the beauties of ongoing serving is that you can kind of see the trends, but also get the one-off feedback and address both accordingly. I’d like to dive into, you know, using surveys as, as a tool for retention a but then also recruitment. You want to talk a little bit about that concept?

Aaron Stapleton (12:32):

Yeah. So, you know, we, we talked earlier about growth statements and affirming statements. And really what we’ve found is that if we are looking at at the affirming statements, our employees are telling us what their counterparts, who aren’t working for us, what they’re looking for in a company. Right. And so it’s our job to then hear them and say, okay, are we using these keywords in our job postings and our job boards? Because I think whenever we are listening to our employees, they are trying to help us hire people like them because they have a vested interest in our company. They want to make sure that we’re hiring the right people because that’s now reflecting on them. And so it, you know, this could be subconscious, it could be something that they are trying to do, and they just don’t know it.

Aaron Stapleton (13:25):

But they are giving us information on how we can get more employees like them. So really that’s what we’re, we’re trying to do is we’re trying to get that information from them and then work with our recruiting coordinator to say, are we using these key words, right? Are we using you know, specific words like family-atmosphere, support, flexibility, even PPE supplies, which is something that our company just kind of felt like we were supposed to help our employees with. Whenever we saw a lot of people saying that they appreciated the fact that we were giving them PPE supplies and we started looking into it realized that there were other companies who weren’t supplying their you know, their, their employees with PPE. Then we were able to say, okay, this needs to be on our job board. We need to make sure that people know that we’re keeping them safe, and this is how we’re doing it. And, and sometimes as a company, you can almost get too used to the things that you do that you almost don’t realize that it’s a differentiator, right? So whenever your employees tell you, Hey, this is what we really like. What they’re saying is this is a differentiator that you do versus other jobs that I’ve been at before.

Miriam Allred (14:44):

I love these concepts. We are huge promoters of using the voice, the voice of your clients and your customer marketing, but then also what you’re saying, using the voices of your actual caregivers to attract more caregivers is, is genius. You know, and it’s a simple concept, but I do wonder and worry that some agencies aren’t doing that, you know, their job ads may be a copy and paste from maybe even a competitor or from, you know, an ad that they’ve seen. But, but what you’re saying, and what you’re doing is using the voice of your specific caregivers to be the voice of your brand, you know, of your recruitment brand, that is so powerful. And I love the examples that you gave you know, the specific words that you’re getting in the feedback and putting those in your job ads. It’s just great. It’s, it’s simple, but it’s, it’s impactful. I know you kind of,

Aaron Stapleton (15:39):

I, you know, I just, I just want to make sure that everybody listening understands this, we didn’t go into using Home Care Pulse with the idea of, Hey, we’re going to use this information to help with our job postings. Like, this is something that as a team, because we are going through all this information this is something that we learned about, right? And so I’m hoping that somebody listening to this podcast is, is going to have a leg up by, by going into using Home Care Pulse and their survey information with the idea of, you know, what this is going to help us recruit, because our initial thought was, this is a retaining product, right? This is how we retain our employees. We show them that we care and we’re listening to them. And it wasn’t until, you know, I would say four to six weeks in that we were like, Oh, this is a way for us to help recruit too!

Miriam Allred (16:37):

Yeah. That, that’s fantastic. And I’m glad that you mentioned that it’s, you’re spot on, you know, there’s so much that you can do with the feedback that you’re getting from both your caregivers and your clients, and it can be repurposed, you know, you can use everything that you’re getting and repurpose it for, for your own good and your own market. I want to kind of put you on the spot, you know, you’ve used some specific examples. You know, we see a lot of similar trends in the surveys about, you know, communication and pay and kind of the hot topics. Are there any pieces of feedback that you’ve gotten that have been very specific that maybe surprised you, or you had to take, you know, additional measures and all that feedback?

Aaron Stapleton (17:22):

So, yeah, I, you know, I mean, we have gotten some, some very specific things and, and not all of it has been caregiver you know, specific it’s been from our clients as well. But I would say, you know, the one that’s kind of coming to mind is we had one caregiver who was specifically giving us feedback on issues that she was having with family members on, you know, and how to deal with them. Right. and, and honestly, I kind of felt like it was a it was a little lucky that we had her on the on the, the survey at that time, because we had just started this client and we didn’t realize that there was, you know, there, there were some issues going on kind of under the surface with family members and coming in and expecting this caregiver to you know, kind of wait on them and not just the client.

Aaron Stapleton (18:31):

And, and so that really helped us to, again, you know, we talk about support that really helped us to best support her and have a conversation where with the, with the family where she wasn’t the bad guy, but right. And, and then we were supporting her and helping her through the process. So that’s one that kind of comes to mind as far as a, a very specific it, it really had to do with one specific caregiver and a client issue that they kind of had. And it, it, wasn’t an overarching issue with a lot of caregivers, but I feel that now that caregiver is one of our bigger supporters and, and she, you know, really kind of talks about us pretty you know, pretty well in the facility that she’s, that she’s currently in. So she, she has kind of become a recruiter for us almost

Miriam Allred (19:36):

And a promoter. And that’s exactly what we’re looking to accomplish. Really great example. I know we’re kind of short on time here, but maybe this is what we can close with. We didn’t anticipate talking about this, but, but the importance of serving both the clients and the caregivers to get the full picture of what’s happening, you know, if you hear an experience from the client, you know, you’re getting that one-sided opinion, which is valuable, but it’s good to get, you know, the opinion of the caregiver as well, so that you get the full picture of what really happened. You know, where are you guys are serving both your clients and your caregivers. Can you speak to the value of just having the full picture start to finish of the care that’s taking place?

Aaron Stapleton (20:15):

Oh, it’s you know, it’s key and, and I guess the way that I would look at it, right, is if you’re reading a book it, it is imperative that you read the entire book from start to finish, right? You’re not just going to read the even chapters or just read the first two lines or the, the first two pages and the last two pages and understand what that author is trying to tell you. If you’re able to get all of that information from the clients and the caregivers, again, in these surveys, you’re typically not getting a lot of information. So you’re going to have to, as a, as a you know, manager or business owner whoever is in charge of this they’re going to have to dive into what this looks like, right? And, and what this person is trying to tell you.

Aaron Stapleton (21:10):

And so whenever you talk to a caregiver, you’re probably going to have to, you know lead them during this conversation to get more information in the same way with the client. So you can get the full picture of how you as a business can best support your caregiver to give the best care to the clients. And so I think that it is extremely important that you get as much information as possible. And for us, we get as much information as possible by number one, utilizing both the caregiver and the client satisfaction surveys. But then also whenever we get that on a monthly basis, we sit down and we look at what, number one, what the promoter score is. But number two, what’s that person trying to tell us and their one or two sentences. And then what are some of the key words that we need to look at and dive into?

Aaron Stapleton (22:08):

What does this person mean by better communication? What does this person mean by better consistency, right. If a client says, okay I need better consistency. And we talked to the caregiver and they say, you know, I’m, I’m sorry. I had a bad week. You know, I was late a few times, then we can go back again and communicate that to the client. So, you know, they’re, they’re trying to tell you something, and it’s extremely important that you see this as a communication tool, not just information to dump into a spreadsheet, right? This is an opportunity for you to open lines of communication, to learn more. And that’s really what we’ve done to you know, to, to utilize the surveys as best as possible.

Miriam Allred (22:56):

Aaron, thank you. There have been so many nuggets in this conversation that are relevant to people that are serving internally, people that are using, you know, our care poll surveys to people that aren’t surveying yet. You know, I think you’ve given a lot of insights as to the benefit of surveying and the power that it gives and the voice that it gives to your caregivers, to your clients. So I just want to say thank you for everything that you’ve shared. It’s been so spot on and, and really beneficial to our listeners today. So thank you so much for joining me

Aaron Stapleton (23:26):

Miriam, you’re more than welcome. And again, I really appreciate the opportunity and, and I, yeah, it’s, it’s been an honor.

Miriam Allred (23:36):

Thanks for listening to this episode of Vision with Aaron Stapleton. If you’d like to learn more about surveying your clients or caregivers, visit our website homecarepulse.com/surveys. Thanks again and we’ll see you next time!