Recruiting and retention remain one of the most difficult challenges in the home-based care industry, but providers are finding that some of the most effective strategies involve making employees feel heard and recognized.

Across home-based care organizations, leaders pointed to feedback loops, employee recognition, cross-department collaboration and community partnerships as practical ways to improve retention and recruitment.

For Jason Growe, founder and chief development officer of LiveWell Partners, the most surprisingly effective retention and recruitment tactic involved surveys and open comment meetings. LiveWell’s leadership solicits feedback through these avenues and can then respond to branch leaders’ comments.

“Responding to those has helped us really maintain strong retention rates, and so we’re really happy with where our retention is right now,” Growe told HHCN. “I know there are all sorts of tools in the market, and they all have their value. At the end of the day, a lot of listening to your teammates is going to do a lot.”

St. Louis, Missouri-based LiveWell Partners provides home health care services across Illinois, Kansas, Ohio, Michigan and Missouri.

Recognition and team support

Solenvia leadership created an employee award designed to make recognition public and unexpected. Called the Shine Award, a company committee selects caregivers who went above and beyond in their work to give a large company-branded check and balloons to reward them for their services.

“We surprise them, we give them recognition and tell them what a great job that they’re doing caring for their clients and what an asset they are,” Dylewski told HHCN. “I have found that recognition really goes a long way in creating a team and fostering a team environment.”

Solenvia, based in Middletown, Connecticut, offers home care and non-medical transportation across Massachusetts and Connecticut.

For Innovive Health, a Medford, Massachusetts-based home health provider, fostering a team environment means letting clinicians focus on the work they were hired to do.

“A really great retention and recruitment tactic that has been prevalent [in] hiring physical therapists and occupational therapists at Innovive Health is the level of collaboration that Innovive Health provides,” Kimberly Greenberg, director of rehabilitation and home health aide (HHA) services at Innovive Health, told HHCN

Innovive offers home health services for patients with complex mental health needs across Massachusetts, Colorado and Iowa.

Creating a great reputation also goes a long way, according to Monica Cutia, vice president of clinical operations at HealthView. At HealthView, a strong company identity and early exposure to home-based care work in tandem to support recruitment.

Cutia also said that HealthView started working with nursing schools to aid its recruitment pipeline. Nursing students can do rotations or volunteer hours at HealthView, allowing them to learn about post-acute care.

“As nurses, we’re always taught [that] you’re going to go to the hospital, you’re going to go to the SNF, but home health hospice is very, very much overlooked,” Cutia noted. “So we utilize that platform to recruit and to educate them that there is another part of nursing — home health and hospice and palliative care.”

Los Angeles-based HealthView provides home health, hospice and palliative care services in Southern California’s Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties.