For several years now we’ve been hearing the same warning echoed throughout every corner of home care recruitment: “There aren't enough Caregivers and CNAs to go around.” Agencies are aware of this fact, and now they’re looking for ways to work through it. As we talked about in our previous post Caregiver Recruitment - Could Your Market be Bigger Than You Think?, opening your current market can be a way to instantly make more Caregiver hires. The 2018 research continues to support this. For example, only 44% of Caregivers report having an active CPR certificate, yet it’s still one of the most commonly listed job requirements used when recruiting in home care today.
We see many agencies slashing their market by more than half by requiring Caregivers to have an active CPR certificate in hand before interviewing. The best practice in these situations is “assist; don’t eliminate.” Agencies who help Caregivers get their certifications and keep them up-to-date are winning the Caregiver recruitment battle, while those who don’t have a process in place to assist candidates continue to struggle to make enough hires to staff their cases.
Take a look at your agency’s current requirements when recruiting Caregivers. Which of them is being used to eliminate potential candidates, and how could you work instead to assist Caregivers to meet those requirements? Perhaps that means offering the required medical testing in-office as part of the interview process. Or maybe it means helping a Caregiver obtain their first aide certification before beginning work. These are common examples of ways agencies look to help candidates meet their requirements, and in turn saw a boost in their Caregiver and CNA recruitment without lowering the quality their clients are accustomed to.
In order to stay competitive as the market gets tighter, agencies are having to find new ways to be more accommodating to potential candidates. Our latest white paper: It’s Time To Compete covers the latest data on job seekers and outlines what you can do to stay competitive in the coming months. It’s available for free download below.
Download 2018 White Paper: It's Time To Compete
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