Creating a Supportive Work Environment: The Key to Retaining Home Care Talent

Almost half (42%) of employee turnover is preventable, according to research firm Gallup. But the problems that drive workers to leave are often ignored.

Many employers focus on recruitment—bringing in candidates and making their company attractive to new hires—but neglect retention. Retaining employees is not a passive act. Expectations for employers are higher than they’ve ever been, and workers are more than ready to jump ship for a company that will offer them flexibility, work-life balance, recognition, and a supportive work environment.

Home care agencies are in a particularly tough position. The industry has a famously high turnover and often struggles to keep caregivers happy and engaged. The good news is, that surveys have found that the goal for most workers is a stable, long-term position with their employer. Your caregivers want to stay with you—but they need a reason.

Why home care agencies should care about home care talent turnover

The world is experiencing a global talent shortage. No industry is exempt, but some are feeling its effects more acutely than others. Healthcare is one of those industries. This means the need for employers to retain their current workforce remains more pressing than ever.

There are five key reasons employers must be proactive when retaining caregivers.

1. It’s expensive to replace employees—as much as 200% of their annual pay depending on their position, according to one estimate. On the conservative end, the estimate is 42%, figures that can quickly add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars for home care agencies.
2. Caregiver turnover is a burden on your remaining workforce, disrupting operations and offloading responsibilities onto already busy staff.
3. Turnover is a threat to client satisfaction. When you don’t have enough staff to cover their needs, you risk losing loyal clients. High turnover can suggest to clients that the agency is poorly run or unsupportive of its employees.
4. High attrition is a barrier to business growth. Without the staff to support new clients, your agency won’t be able to grow.
5. Unhappy workers can damage your reputation. Workers talk, and high turnover will color the way caregivers view your agency. Clients talk too, and if they’re witness to a revolving door of talent, they’ll say so, jeopardizing trust in your agency.

Signs of attrition

A 2024 Gallup report found that 51% of workers in the U.S. are passively or actively searching for a new job. For employers who watch closely for the signs, not only is this not a surprise, they’re often able to find ways to prevent those workers from leaving.

There are often signals of incoming attrition. The decision to leave one employer for another is the result of a cost-benefit analysis, according to workplace psychometric testing platform Attuned. Workers compare the benefits of working for your agency, plus the cost of their contributions, against making a leap to another. When they estimate the benefits of joining another agency are greater than staying, those employees begin a process known as withdrawal.

What prompts the withdrawal process? First and foremost is job dissatisfaction. When workers are unhappy in their jobs—because they feel undervalued, unappreciated, burnt out, or stunted—they begin to disengage both physically and psychologically.

Signs of employee withdrawal

• Tardiness and absenteeism
• Leaving early or calling out of shifts
• Disengagement from work and relationships with colleagues
• Exerting less effort on daily tasks
• Daydreaming and “presenteeism”

Withdrawal is often a slow and gradual process with damage along the way, but it can be hurried along by “shocks,” or acute events that spur emotional rushes that cause people to quit on the spot or quickly thereafter. A shock could be a major falling out with their manager, denial of a promotion or raise, or seeing their coworkers laid off.

How to reduce caregiver turnover

Don’t focus so heavily on recruiting caregivers that you forget about retention. Simply writing paychecks and providing basic benefits is no longer enough. Expectations of employers are higher than ever, and companies must deliver a best-in-class employee experience to compete.

Retention begins as soon as your new hires arrive for their first day. It’s estimated that more than 30% of workers quit a job within their first year of employment, so there’s no time to waste.

Don’t ignore company culture

Employees need to feel connected to their workplace through the agency’s mission and their colleagues. Whether they do is a matter of company culture. This includes the way managers relate to and support their direct reports, the relationships among coworkers, and whether workers feel rewarded for their work.

To identify culture problems early, take a pulse on employee satisfaction. Pulse surveys, usually delivered monthly or quarterly, can help you spot trends in culture improvement or decline. When your employees identify key problems, make it clear how you plan to address them. If you keep asking why they’re unhappy, but nothing changes, you’ll forfeit their trust.

Provide flexible schedules

Flexible ways of working are now a fixture of professional life, according to Randstad’s 2024 Workmonitor Report. More than one-third of workers say they won’t accept a new job that doesn’t allow working from home, and 41% say they won’t accept a job that doesn’t offer flexible working hours.

Of course, schedule flexibility is easier for some job functions than others, and it’s often very difficult to provide schedule and location flexibility to in-home caregivers, but there are creative ways of structuring shifts. Cleveland Clinic’s guide to flexible shifts for healthcare workers is a helpful resource for those who want to reimagine their caregivers’ workdays.

Reconsider your benefits package

The pandemic also changed the way employers care for their workers. Benefits packages are bigger than ever, and they are designed to encompass more of employees’ lives outside of the workplace.

When designing competitive benefits packages:

• Consider all aspects of employee well-being, like access to mental healthcare and counseling, gym memberships, financial coaching, and family care.
• Keep an eye on market trends which can get the attention of both active and passive job seekers.
• But don’t chase trends. There are plenty of benefits platforms ready to sell you on the latest trend in employee care. But if the benefits aren’t relevant to your workforce, then it will be a waste of money. Rather than shelling out for trendy add-ons, engage your workforce in package design so you know benefits will be well-used.
• Remember low- and no-cost benefits can also be attractive. Perks like PTO, parental leave, sick leave, volunteer time, flexible work arrangements, and employee recognition programs can give you an edge over your competitors.

Guard against employee burnout

Ninety-three of workers say work-life balance is a priority, and, in fact, this balance has lately surpassed career progression as a top priority for workers, according to Randstad, and employees now rank work-life balance as highly as compensation when it comes to what they want at work.

Burnout directly impacts retention rates, and home care agencies can’t afford to ignore this threat to employee well-being. To prevent burnout  among your caregivers:

• Provide ample paid time off: The ability to see the doctor, take care of family members, and pick up kids from school is vital for employees to balance their work and home lives.
• Offer schedule flexibility and the opportunity to perform administrative tasks from home.
• Watch for signs of burnout in your workforce, like depression, distance from colleagues, low productivity, and exhausted employees.

Provide mental health support

A key element of employee retention is access to mental healthcare. According to Mercer, 42% of workers who have mental healthcare benefits are less likely to leave the company, compared to 27% of workers without access.

Regular and easy access to mental health support (beyond traditional EAPs) can help prevent burnout, keep your caregivers engaged at work, and signal to your workforce that you care.

Reward and recognize good work

Caregivers are more likely to stay with agencies where they feel they’re valued, respected, and rewarded for their contributions. A culture that encourages recognition from all points within the organization—caregivers, administration, business leaders, managers, and even clients—will see the benefit in higher retention.

Employee recognition programs can be formal or informal, and many work best as a combination of the two.

Provide career development opportunities

Roughly one-third of workers say they would leave a job that didn’t offer learning and development opportunities. Career growth is beneficial for employees and employers alike. Remember that their new skills become your agency’s new capabilities.

Strong L&D programs often include some combination of:

• Tuition reimbursement and student loan repayment programs
• Access to training programs and licenses
• Opportunities for reach projects and promotable work
• Job swaps and role shadowing
• Clear avenues to promotion

Don’t wait until it’s too late to ask if they’re happy

Many employers wait until an employee has resigned to schedule an “exit interview.” It’s only then that they find out what is driving that person to leave—but by then it’s too late. Some employers make a habit of “stay interviews,” or regular meetings (quarterly or annually, for example) meant to give the employee the opportunity to talk about what’s working, and what’s not, for their employees.

This is your moment to find out what might spur them to leave, and identify how you can get them to stay. Plus, it signals to your staff that you want to keep them improve the work environment.

Retain home care talent for a better business

At Home Care Marketing Pros, we handle recruitment marketing with the same care and expertise that we handle client marketing. Our proprietary recruitment automation platform is designed specifically for home care agencies so you can recruit, hire, and retain top caregiver talent. Book a demo and we’ll show you CareFunnels Recruit in action.