Led by Home Care 100 Intelligence Group Lead Consultant Ariana Klitzner, a lot of January's Home Care 100 was dedicated to building the “Workforce of the Future,” focusing specifically on expanding the workforce pool and delivering employee value to address nursing shortages and improve retention. We heard from leaders who are building new programs, re-thinking frontline and leadership roles, and striking innovative partnerships. A common narrative ran throughout the day: BE BOLD. We cannot do more of the same. We must be willing to try new things, fail, and try again.
Key Takeaways & Action Steps
#1: Tapping into New Talent Pools is Mission Critical
There are many people who could be a great fit for home care who don’t even know it is a career option. It’s up to us to change the narrative and share the benefits of working in this sector – including mission alignment, flexibility, and career progression.
Action Step: Identify potential talent pools and the strategies and partners that can help you reach them. Whether that's partnering with local nursing or high schools to reach new grads, re-crafting a role to attract a different talent profile, or tapping into new funding sources for training.
#2: Ask Your Employees What they Need – and Listen
Our employees are not a monolith. They have many different needs, preferences, and life situations. There are multiple opportunities to deliver value – including flexible schedules, new benefits, and re-imagined roles – but we must first understand what our employees really want. Making people feel heard is a critical part of building their trust.
Action Step: Use employee data and feedback to identify what matters most. Elevate the groups of employees where retention is the biggest issue to better understand what they need and want. Mine employee feedback surveys, proactively ask employees to prioritize their preferred benefits, and tap into your frontline managers to share what they are hearing.
#3: Identify Ways to Make Employees' Jobs Easier
Use technology to enable flexible scheduling, reduce administrative burden, and increase productivity. There are also opportunities to re-define responsibilities across roles so everyone is working at top-of-license, or responsibilities are divided in ways that make everyone more efficient – such as remote case management.
Action Step: Based on what your employees share as their needs and biggest pain points, determine which approaches works best for your situation – knowing you can pull the levers of people (role design and skill optimization), process (workflow improvements and technology), and digital (digital tools and automation).
#4: Empower Frontline Leaders to Deliver Employee Value
Those closest to your employees have the biggest impact on their experience. They are the bearers of culture – integral to building trust and making your employees feel respected, valued, and part of the team.
Action Step: Make sure leaders – especially clinical leaders – have the training, support, and latitude they need to make a difference. In particular, make sure they are have the time to regularly focus on building relationships and trust with their team.
What can you do differently? Maybe it’s exploring one of the ideas you heard about on stage. Maybe it’s giving the green light to one of your leaders to pursue their brainchild. Regardless of what it is, we hope you're energized and we are ready to help you make it happen. If you’d like to connect to discuss any of our recommended action items, and how we can help you accelerate them, contact us.