Home Care U - Why You Should Care About Cheer Home Care's Caregiver Tier System (Gabrielle Pumpian and Brooke Martindale)

Episode Date: December 10, 2023

Why are some of Cheer Home Care's caregivers required to have bachelors degrees? Where is Cheer finding these caregivers? And how does the system they've invented impact the idea of caregiving as a true career? These are all questions we're excited to dig into in this episode. Enjoying the show? Send me a text and let me know!Learn more about Careswitch at: careswitch.comConnect with the host on LinkedIn: Miriam Allred This episode was produced by parkerkane.co

Hey, welcome to Home Care U, a podcast made by the team at Care Switch. Nobody went to school to learn how to run a home care agency, so we're bringing the education to you. Join our live audience by going to careswitch.com slash homecareu or listen on your own time wherever you get your podcasts. Home Care U is hosted by myself, Miriam Allred, and Connor Koons of Care Switch. Enjoy the session. Welcome to Home Care U is hosted by myself, Miriam Allred, and Connor Koons of CareSwitch. Enjoy the session. Welcome to Home Care U.

We're excited for today's conversation with some of the leadership team from Cheer Home Care. They have made what they're referring to as a caregiver tier system to make it easier to provide advancement opportunities and higher pay rates to their caregivers. So we have the CEO of Cheer Home Care, Brooke Martindale, and then we also have returning for week two with us, the Chief Development Officer at Cheer, Gabrielle Pumpian. So Brooke and Gabrielle, welcome to the show. Our pleasure. Thank you. Thanks, Connor. It's good to be back. For those who haven't listened to last week's episode, we took a really good deep dive into

advanced referral marketing and how they do it at Cheer, what they've learned from having done marketing at several agencies before this and with lots of experience and innovative thinking. I highly recommend going and listening to that one. Today's will be a little bit different. Like I mentioned, we'll be talking about their pricing structure, how they've adapted from the typical structure that agencies use, and what that means both for their growth, but also how they're able to offer advancement and career options for their caregivers. So to get started here, I guess if you just both want to kind of briefly introduce yourselves and your background and Brooke, especially if you'll kind of talk about what led you to starting CHEER Home Care. So let's start with you, Gabrielle,

and then we'll go to Brooke. Yeah, thanks. I am Chief Development Officer. I have had the great fortune of meeting and working with Brooke for the last six months and starting CHEER Home Care in La Jolla, California, where we serve seniors and their families around San Diego County. I have 15 years in home care experience here in my local market and have just a true passion for really creating a better care infrastructure around for our country and for our clients and our seniors. Great. And I'm Brooke Martindale. I actually started my first home care company in Boston when I was 27. I was lucky enough to grow that for 11 years and then I sold it. And

what I learned over that time, which is kind of what created these caregiver tiers, was that we worked with many, many referral sources. And they just kept asking for higher level caregivers. And they said that the clients were comfortable to be charged more in order to get higher level college educated, which is what they meant by that. People that were more like their children or their grandchild's best friend who would have more education, therefore be expecting a higher wage. So after years of hearing about it, I implemented it. And it was so successful that when I told myself I'd never start a home care company again, and then when I moved to San Diego and just knew how badly there was a need for a strong home care company in the area. And when I met Gabby and just thought she was and I were so perfectly aligned, I knew that if I was creating a 2.0 for myself, although the first one was a success, I wanted this one just to be the best that it possibly could be. And thus the name CHEER to bring CHEER into not only our clients' lives, but our caregivers' lives, my office staff's lives that I knew that

we needed to have this different tier caregiver system included here as well. Starting a home care agency is not for the faint of heart. Starting a second home care agency is really not for the faint of heart. Starting a second home care agency is really not for the faint of heart. What made you want to do that? You know, to me, it's all about the team, the need. I mean, there's always a need, sadly, no matter the economy, no matter what's going on in the world. People are getting sick. People are being diagnosed with Alzheimer's and dementia. We just can't control our luck in those things. And I want to make sure that people who have to have those experiences at the end of

their life or midlife have the best one possible. And where I mentioned, I didn't think I could do it again. Gabby's wealth of knowledge and her relationships within this community are just so, so strong. And isn't from a lack of a lot of hard work, honesty, commitment, do what you say you're gonna do. And when I met her and then I met a couple other members, again, you have to have the team to be able to do this. We'll get more into detail later. You have to be surrounded by people who just want quality

and to provide what they would only, to only offer what we would all provide our own family members. And once you can create a team like that, then you can offer these types of services and the best care imaginable. Completely agree. Thanks for sharing that. Let's get into the tier system. In as much detail as you'd like to share, how does it work? Great question. It basically is three different tiers. So we start with our traditional, amazing caregivers, you know, that is what's known in the industry, we try to go even a level above and just recruit one to 2% of those that apply.

So caregivers, as we all know, are the most loving, giving individuals in the world. The work that they do is so hard, challenging, both physically, but also mentally when they've lost so many people that they love time after time. So that's our first tier. And then, as I mentioned, I had care managers who were asking for higher level caregivers that were like our clients.

So my clients were CEOs, professors, doctors. They wanted children who they had provided someone like their child who had a higher level of education, either a bachelor's, a four-year accredited bachelor's degree, or a master's degree so that they could have these higher level of conversations. They were often diagnosed with ALS or Parkinson's, something that wasn't cognitively impacting them. And once we started recruiting, we ended up getting just incredible women who were in master's degrees for social work

or Gabby will touch on some of the other things in the future. So, you know, it's all about offering that level of care to people who could really benefit from it and, you know, it's all about offering that level of care to people who could really benefit from it and, you know, who can afford it because why tell someone about something that they can't afford to have that's out there, you know, and then, you know, we do have college companions and a lot of people are lonely in this world and they're reluctant and they don't necessarily believe that they want or deserve help, but they're willing to give help.

So, you know, when we also mentioned that that's a lot like their mentoring, which is true. They have so much knowledge and we forget how much knowledge the aging population has shows, playing Scrabble with them, you name it, playing instruments together. And they both get, you know, extra set of hands and a lot of life lessons. So three tiers, we kind of start with, I mean, I don't want to say like the basic tier because that's not what we're going for. The traditional tier. Yeah, thank you. That's a better way of saying it. Then the second tier, which is kind of above that. And then like the third tier, which you talk about like this is- Executive care professional. Executive care professional tier. Do you mind kind of sharing, I guess, like the kind of general,

maybe differences in pay scale, if I'm assuming there are those for these different tiers, and then like what the differences in qualifications and responsibilities might look like for each of those tiers? Absolutely. Our traditional caregiver is, you know, the least expensive, and then our college companion, and then our executive level professional, because they can do everything. And they're the most expensive. The traditional caregiver does what you imagine, the activities of daily living, bathing, toileting, transferring, positioning. And then our college companionship does a lot of

exactly what the word is, companionship, chatting, games, activities, intellectual conversations. And then our highest tier of caregiver, and I know Gabby will speak to it more, they can do everything. And not that our traditional caregiver can't do anything because they are so bright. Many of them have degrees from other countries. But like many positions, your income is based on your level of education. And that's kind of how it breaks it down and how it's favorable. We do this very, very fairly. We have a very detailed grid because a lot of

home care companies, they need a caregiver, so they pay that caregiver more or that caregiver is really good at negotiating. So they get paid three more dollars, five more dollars than another caregiver on the same exact case. And I don't find that fair just because someone's a good salesperson does not mean that they're a better caregiver and that's not what they're getting paid to do. So we have very specific guidelines based on their levels of experience, their certifications, their knowledge and their degrees that break them down into a pay scale that's very fair and transparent for them. Awesome. Thank you. So let's kind of hand

things off for a minute to Gabrielle here. First off, is there anything you would add to the descriptions of the tiers? And then second, I'd like to hear you kind of talk about as the person who sells the home care services, what are the benefits of doing it this way? Yeah, I think Brooke explained the tiers very well. She's the pro. I just want to back up and say that when we first started talking and meeting each other and figuring out what made sense if we were going to come into this partnership, I was a little nervous about this tier system because it's never been done. As far as I know in this market, this is a very innovative approach to a home care business. So, you know, just like with anything, I took the time.

She and I have had a lot of conversations. Our team is constantly having conversations around how we talk about this. Because not only do we need to sell the service to the client and make sure it's a good fit for what their needs are and expectations are, but it's also how do we recruit professionals to become staff of ours and then we offer them the right cases. So I think that, like Brooke said,

there's a lot of inequity in the pay for caregivers. There's really no standardized pay model or scale except that it's minimum wage. We are very proud at CHEER to kind of disrupt that and offer our caregivers better wages so that they can make a living for their own family as well as really be reliable and retained by us as employees. I think most people in the home care space know that caregivers work for multiple agencies. There's not a lot of loyalty unless they find a client and a team that they're willing to invest in. And so we take our time. Like Brooke said, we don't hire anyone that we all haven't met and that we all wouldn't

feel comfortable placing in the home of our own loved ones. And I think that that's a huge change from most home care companies are just on this kind of hamster wheel of hiring. But we're all about quality. Yeah, from a sales perspective, this is one of our biggest differentiators. This gives me the greatest tool to go out into my community and sell and offer cheer home care as an innovative and really special choice for home care for our clients and our referral partners. It allows us, like Brooke said, to meet the expectations of our clients better. So as she said, here in San Diego, we have a lot of universities. We have a lot of big corporations

that have been founded here, Qualcomm, General Dynamics, a lot of people who have very high educated backgrounds and they're aging and they are finding that they're going through a lot of different companies to find the great fit of caregiver where we can come in and really fine tune our options for them and give them more choice and give them really a lot more, you know, kind of say in their experience as well as hiring and not just being told who's coming over to care for them. Thanks for that. There's kind of several

things you said that I want to highlight for those who listened to this episode. The first is I like that you put your focus on the fact that at the end of the day, this needs to benefit caregivers. And this needs to be something that provides an increased mobility and increased pay opportunities for caregivers. Second to that, you kind of hinted at the retention and also the recruitment benefits of this. We didn't really have those on our outline to talk about today, but if you both are good with it, I do kind of want to come back to those at the end after we've talked about some of the questions we'd planned

because I think that's both very important to talk about and there's like several things that will just kind of be fun to like unpack here. And then I think just third, like one thing that I'm gathering from this that is an important takeaway here is just the fact that like what this essentially is among several different things is really good marketing because you just simply identified like what is unique in our market that creates a percentage or like a group within the market who has needs that aren't being served to the level that they can be and then like how do we position ourselves to be more adept at like serving that like specific group and that's you know there are

lots of agencies I talk to who are in markets like yours or that at least just have something that is as unique about their market as yours is and haven't taken this level of steps to adapt to it the way that you have. So I think that is worth mentioning here. To kind of continue on this,

have you encountered any problems with implementing this? Yeah. I mean, I think that there's challenges, right? One, it's getting the team used to and comfortable with the system, the new offerings, right? Our team is lucky. A lot of us have worked together and we're kind of veterans in our field. So this is something new. It's exciting. And Brooke has really instilled like this works. Let's all work together to make a difference and make an impact in our clients' lives by

finding opportunities where we can offer this when it makes sense. So for example, we've had clients who one was a CEO of a big engineering firm, he had very high expectations, we knew we couldn't just send in a traditional person to be successful. And so we went in confidently and said, this is this level, this executive caregiver team is going to be the best fit for you and your needs. Yes, it does come at a little higher price point, but we believe this will provide you the best fit for you and your needs. Yes, it does come at a little higher price point, but we believe this will provide you the best value. And he was very happy and had many months of 24-hour care with an executive care level team until he recovered

and felt better and didn't need as much care. So it's also just taking the time with the clients. I think a lot of home care salespeople, the way that they think they're going to land or close a case is by offering the best deal for the client. That's not our strategy at Cheer. We want to serve our clients in the best way possible. And often that could be offering them actually a more expensive option, but it's going to provide the best value for their unique situation. And taking the time to really get to know them and their unique situation, and usually

it works out in the best way possible. I think the challenge is anything new people are skeptical of. But I think honest transparency, explaining it clearly, and not offering people services they don't need. You have someone with advanced stage dementia. You shouldn't be offering them. I mean, again, it's different if there's a high level of reporting and other medical challenges and things along those lines.

But, you know, if just because I have a lead call of someone who has unlimited funds does not mean I'm even going to mention it or bring it forward. I mean, depending on the situation and people know about all the levels of services, but you just really, it goes back to what are the client's needs? What's their condition? What needs to be reported? What needs to be checked? And who in our mind, I mean, we know our caregivers very well. So who is free? Who would be the best match for this client? And every caregiver has a different scale. If I had a loved one who was sick, it doesn't mean that I would give them the executive level care professional. What's their condition? What are

their needs? Who do I know that's the most compassionate, empathetic at that point in time? That might be what they need. They might need a caregiver who's just happy to have the same question asked over and is able to redirect it better than anyone else. That doesn't mean that that's our executive care professional. That could be our traditional caregiver who just is in a tier in and of themselves. And one thing we haven't mentioned is we also very clearly in our literature state that we promote our traditional caregivers. So if we have a traditional caregiver whose quality and skill set is so much above almost every other caregiver out there, and I would only want them with my mother in time when they prove themselves, we up them and we up their pay and their rate. So we want those caregivers who, because of life circumstance, can't afford college to have the ability to earn just as much as the other caregivers if they show that their

quality and their skill set is at a level that is above and beyond. So we have promoted caregivers. And I think it's really, really important. And it's a great discussion point with the caregivers as well. Okay, I love hearing this. And I want to ask some questions about that, if that's okay. So if I'm hearing this right, I mean, there are kind of general hard qualifications around education and things for these different tiers. But at the same time, because of the desire to ensure mobility and room for progression for your caregivers, there is room for flexibility here around different ways for them to demonstrate

their quality or ability or qualifications aside from just the formal educational requirements so that they can move up these tiers. Is that correct? Absolutely. I mean, we have a client who told us, the client's son, I've never seen my mother like this. I didn't know how much she needed. This caregiver went into the home. She had the client journaling. She had the client doing exercises. I mean, she's not a PT, OT specialist, anything, but just exercises and walking with her, you know, things that anyone could do. And this client changed overnight. And this caregiver has the ability to just go into a room, read it. And suddenly the client becomes, as you say, someone that just has so much life in them, and no one's approached them in the correct way. So that is a caregiver that suddenly, you know, when the ability becomes, we thank them and we acknowledge that skill set. So few people, I mean, you know, when you go to a doctor's office, and suddenly,

you just feel seen and heard, you know, when you suddenly go to a bank and someone's explaining things and laying in terms and doing things that you can follow. You know, there are certain people in this world who just have an ability to make you feel at home and calm and peaceful and can, again, have that intellectual level of knowledge and communication without all the education. In that situation, we do promote those people. Thanks for sharing that. My understanding from prior conversations with your team about this is that someone who is working at especially like the executive tier is likely going to be earning a lot more than like the typical caregiver in the US. And that it will be much more in like what we might consider being

like the ballpark of a typical career versus the pay level that a lot of caregivers are often struggling at long term. Are there any more details you can share around that that would make sense to share that kind of give color to the ways that this is providing more of a career and financial stability to caregivers? I can answer that a little bit and then Brooke, I'll let you weigh in. So from my perspective, we have to attract more people to become professional caregivers. A lot of young people who are maybe interested in a healthcare path, but maybe don't want to go to med school, or maybe they've recently graduated from college and they have a lot of student loan debt and really are struggling to find a new job or a

career, we want to give them opportunities. So they could have a degree in biochemistry or psychology or music, and we have a job for them. So we can specifically cater our, my marketing and sales to my referral sources once we hire people with certain backgrounds, which is another really unique proposition to referral sources. So as Brooke said, in Boston, she got a lot of business from really prominent geriatric care management firms who would come to her with a client that they had and said, okay, you know, my client loved to go to the opera, but now she's immobile due to her ALS diagnosis. Do you have any caregivers who can sing?

And Brooke would have someone from like Juilliard or one of these- Or a school of music. A school of music who had been hired, who could come in with that talent and bring cheer and life to this client who's now, you know, more isolated and stuck in the home, instead of just watching a YouTube, an opera, which is wonderful too.

But why not bring a live... The feeling you get from music, even if you don't have anything wrong with you, is very moving, creates a lot of hormone stimulation, a lot of great things that we need in our bodies to feel good. So that's one example. And I think that what we're doing is we're attracting, we're putting ads out, we're meeting with these people, young, old, who have the desire to work with seniors and maybe not really know how it applies to their education.

So it's really a twofold. And as far as like the pricing and the pay, you know, we're not gonna share specifics. People are welcome to call us and talk to us, but you would go up in about 15 to $20 an hour in pay if you qualified for the executive level caregiver position. And we know that in California, like a lot of people are living at or below the poverty line who work for home care agencies. This gives

them a lot more upward mobility, again, to have a sustainable life, future, a healthy life and future for their own families, for themselves, and build a career, you know, with us. So yeah, there's a lot to say about this model. And again, also our traditional caregivers are compensated significantly above minimum wage. We all know there's been much research. No one can live off of minimum wage. Unfortunately, caregivers work for many companies. They work way over. And California is one of the kindest states as far as overtime laws. So caregivers in California make a lot more money than in other states because after eight hours or after 40 hours

a week, they get compensated at time and a half. But these kinds of opportunities and abilities that you can make, I mean, we have a shortage in this country of caregivers and we're going to have to get really, really, really creative as we're doing in how to bring on higher level and more caregivers and encourage people to go after this profession. And I think so many people have a love and passion for older adults, and it's not recognized and there's few abilities to act on it. So we want to give them another area of work that they can do besides nursing and social work. And I think that if more agencies will start to adopt and build on systems like this, we probably would see fewer caregiver shortages. So are there ways that you have like thought about expanding on the caregiver tier system at CHEER or like ways that you're open to in the future?

I mean, I think we're always thinking, you know, if not, you know, what fun would life be? And we're always listening. I mean, that's the biggest thing. You can never do anything perfectly. So what do people want? What do they need? And how can we get creative and get there? And how can we be open-minded? And I think, you know, you'll only learn more and more about what we're doing over time if we keep practicing those skills. And just to add to that really quick, Connor, sorry to interrupt, but our referral sources, our community in San Diego, they love this and families love this. Whether or not they hire the highest level or the medium level or just continue with the traditional caregiving, They like having options and they see the value

of what this can do for their clients to remain home and carry out their aging goals. Some of our best referral sources who have given us great feedback have been geriatric care managers and concierge physicians. Because again, they have these populations of clients and patients who have certain levels of expectation. Those expectations haven't been met, you know, in a very positive way

or consistent way by other agencies. And so they're coming to us now to say, you know, this might, your agency stands out to me because of your, you know, tier system and what it may offer my client. Would you like to, you know, go meet with them? Could you please like offer these solutions? So it's been really exciting. I have yet to have anyone say, I don't see this being a, you know, a value, or I don't think this is going to work very well. It's actually the opposite. A lot of our clients have long-term care insurance and, you know, you have a daily limit and a lot of people don't need as many hours, but if they have this, they can hit the daily amount. So it's

a great way to get insured into home care as well. You know, you, you know, there's different, we don't need to go into long-term care system today, but you know, there's different ways to afford this care and to start with the number of hours or introduce home care to a loved one. And it just gives people another opportunity. Love to hear all this. The system at CHEER is kind of built with like the needs of a specific demographic in mind, which is kind of like the professors and other executives kind of in the area where you operate.

How might this system look different or be adapted in a different market that maybe has its own set of opportunities or a different group who can be served somehow? What I have learned is, you know, the caregiver population varies. It's very different here than it is in Boston because it depends on a lot of where the caregivers come from originally and things along those lines. So I think, again, you've got to talk to your community. You have to see what to your community. You have to see what the need is. You have to see what your clients want. What's the demographic? What are the big companies in the area? Are there a lot of professors? Or what is the demographic and what could they benefit from? And then I think no matter where you are, I mean, music is,

again, you might not have a music school, but we've learned so much about dementia and clients' abilities to come and relate to music and having someone that can go in and play an instrument with you or just play the violin or sing. It has such a calming effect for individuals. So I think the biggest thing is just research your community, ask questions, get creative, and make sure that everyone's on board because it's not an easy thing to do. The company that acquired us, I believe, stopped offering it. And I don't know of another company that's still offering it in Boston. So it takes a lot of hard work and thought, but it really can give the individuals, both the clients and the caregivers in a community, some wonderful opportunity and bring a lot of joy to their lives.

And just to add to that, I think it takes a really great leader like Brooke to create a team and an operating model that is actively recruiting and staffing caregivers. So something we haven't quite mentioned is when we have an applicant who qualifies to be an executive care professional, when we're interviewing them and meeting them, we also ask, you know, would you be willing to work as a traditional caregiver as well? So giving caregivers choice, just as much as we give our clients choice and the type of work that they want. You know, in home care, you can't guarantee work. We hire people per diem. Obviously, we want to give everyone 40 hours a week, but that's not something that we can

ever guarantee. And so we kind of have these short lists running of caregivers who maybe only want to work in executive caregiver capacity. So when we get a client, we call them first, and they're usually right there to show up and dive right in. Or we have caregivers who qualify for multiple tiers. And based on the client that we need to staff, we reach out to them and offer the job. And then they have the choice of whether or not they want

to take it at a certain level. So it's meeting caregivers where they're at and it's working relationships with referral sources that are willing to talk about this offering and offer cheer as an option for their client. So I think, like Brooke said, you got to know your market. I took a lot of time my first couple months here to really learn from my referral sources if this would be something that they would be willing to offer. And like I said earlier, no one has said no. And schedules.

I mean, our traditional caregivers availability and schedules is very different than our executive. You know, if someone's in college currently enrolled, availability, flexibility, you just have to know your client and caregiver really, really well. Something that we've kind of touched on, but I want to make sure we discuss directly. And I'd like to hear thoughts from both of you on this. We can start with you, Brooke, is what considerations are important for implementing a system like this to make sure that it's ultimately beneficial to care recipients and caregivers at all educational and income levels?

Thoughtfulness intact. Gabby was very concerned in the beginning about this and offering it that it would be offensive to a traditional caregiver. And I understand that. We are not saying the traditional caregiver is any less amazing and wonderful. I want to make that as clear as humanly possible. We are just listening to clients' requests and trying to give them what they're asking for. Really being honest and transparent with our pay grid, why we're pricing. Not tell the caregivers that there's this other level. They see the job posting, they're asking, and to present the different levels and let them see the grids and explain it to them because it's not about who they are as a person. It is about what clients are requesting. We all know we live in a world

where it pays more based on your education, based on things along those lines, and that that is the reason for it. And also recognize because of this, the level of clients and leads we have are amazing. So we're able to offer them, every caregiver, offer them work, keep them in work, things along those lines, and then have the ability to promote them in time if we can. So I think, you know, that is just something to consider, to be as honest, transparent, don't hide anything from anyone, make it very clear how the systems are working, how people are promoted, what you need from people, have constant reviews, communication,

and ways to track and illustrate what individuals are doing differently. Thanks for sharing. Yeah, I would add that, like I said earlier, there's a lot of inequality in pay. And our goal is to offer transparency in pay to our caregivers from the moment that they're hired. When we first started hiring and Brooke rolled out the pay grid, I was blown away. I mean, in 15 years doing home care, I always heard caregivers are paid based on the client's rate and the margin of the business. And that is the standard of the industry from what I'm aware of. That's not going to work long-term. Caregivers are not going to stay loyal. They're going to bounce around. And so for us to be able to offer transparency in their pay and pretty much say, when we call you, you know what you're getting paid.

And it's based on who you are, your education, your certifications, your years of caregiving, your excellent feedback that you've gotten from clients. Once you start working with us, you know, the opportunity to be promoted. Caregivers love that. Why wouldn't they? Like, I wouldn't take a job if I didn't know what I was going to get paid. So I think we have to shift the narrative for caregivers around how they're being treated as employees.

And this is one way to do that. And then secondly, businesses have to get creative. Like we are rolling into a new era in caregiving and home care where the baby boomer generation is aging and is needing care. And they have very high expectations and, and, you know, um, and they're going to be able to pay for it. A lot of them, a lot of them aren't, but we need to be able to offer the right solutions for them. And that is just not like the status quo. It's getting creative, whether that's with your technology, whether that's with your staff, whether that's how you communicate. And so I feel like agencies are going to have to really start changing the way that they differentiate themselves from everyone else to be able to meet the needs of this next, what I call a silver tsunami, like all these people who are turning 65 every single day and needing and wanting to stay home, you know, and they're not being all these assisted living options for them or rooms available, memory care,

because all those places are already full. So how are we going to create better solutions for them to remain at home long-term and then support the adult child who is often a sandwich generation caregiver, who's caring for their own family and working full-time and also needing to help their own parents. I completely agree with everything you said. Thanks for sharing that. Let's talk briefly about the recruitment retention side of this for a minute here. Brooke, there was something you said right at the beginning of this interview that I could hear our future listeners' ears perk up. You mentioned basically trying to only be hiring like one to 2% of applicants if I heard that correctly. So I guess like first off, did I hear that

correctly? And second of all, like, how are you doing that? Like, having the volume of good applicants to make that happen is not something that very many agencies are doing. So like, what's going on there? A lot of work and patience. No, we do very, very detailed application processes from multiple choice tests to writing samples, you know, writing samples. Wow. Yeah. We, you know, we have very detailed notes our clients have to take. We go many steps above. So you have to just have a team that believes in the best. You're not just bringing in one body. That's not what we're doing. We're not just filling a spot. We are bringing in who we would want for our parents, who we would want for our sister, who would we want to see on our worst day. And that's who we're recruiting. So unless the whole team gets treated with respect and courtesy from a caregiver who comes into the room, you know, it's funny.

Someone might treat me very differently than they treat the person who answers our phone. And that becomes apparent very, very quickly. So just because we brought someone through when we think, you know, when we're paying them for orientation, if they treat someone in the room disrespectfully, even another caregiver, when we're doing scenarios, and they kind of snicker if someone doesn't know an answer, or they talk over someone, that's not who we're bringing in. That's not who we're placing in our home, in someone's home. So it is very, very thoughtful process. From the first time we look at at a resume to speaking with someone on the phone, to bringing them into interviewing, to bringing them in for their orientation, to how they respond after their first shift. I mean, we spend a lot of money to bring a caregiver through. But, you know, what we want to provide the same level of trend. We keep talking about what we're providing to our caregivers.

We're providing that to our clients, too. They have a very detailed pay rate structure. We don't just charge clients more because they can afford to pay more. We have a very clear rate that we share with everyone. And that's different than a lot of companies as well. So we want to make sure that our caregivers match what we are promising. You know, I think no matter what, you're working with people and people make mistakes. So, you know, we have to work with and respect those, but we need to do everything that we

can in order to prevent that and to provide the quality to clients that we know we can. And that if a mistake happens, it was 100% a mistake and it can be fixed and we're going to be honest and transparent with it. So home care is one of the hardest industries. I think you said a question early on, why would you even do this once, nevermind twice? The number of times I've had people say that to me in my life is just unbelievable. So how can we do it twice, we're going to make sure that we just do it the best that we can create as much joy, and keep things as lighthearted and happy as possible. Because, you know, people are trusting us during their most vulnerable, difficult times in life. As I say to my team, sometimes the only happy thing someone hears in a day is your voice answering the phone. So we just have to recruit and do everything we can and know that.

And I think, you know, that helps our caregivers too in the quality that they provide. One of the biggest challenges that I hear from agencies is just to get applicants to show up to interviews and things. And you're talking about having caregiver applicants provide writing samples. I would assume a couple things here and tell me if I'm right. I mean, like the first one is just to get the volume and like the quality and type of applicants we're talking about here. I would assume that the job ad and even the headline on it, whether it's the pay or the whole thing, like probably, like reads and presents very differently than like the typical caregiver job ad so that people so that like, right from the get go, it's attracting a much larger group of people. We try to save to say here,

I think we try. I mean, it's, it's never going to be easy. You've got to get really, really, really creative. You know, you can't always, there are times of the year, there's a lull. That's where our recruiters have to be more creative in getting out there, you know, and then you do good work and you get the caregiver's work that you promise and they tell their friends. I mean, we kind of believe you do right and it can keep going. And, you know, yes. So we try to get creative as possible. And when we're struggling with applicants, we just get more creative. And if we don't have a good caregiver to place, we're 100% honest with our lead source. We're not going to take a client, you know, it's not about

the bottom, you know, because I own 100% of the business in the end, it's not about, you know, the bottom line. So we're not going to take a client if we can't do a good job. And I think that's really important. And my team knows that, you know, if in the end, our goal is to do quality and, and do what we want for our loved ones. I know I keep saying it, but you know, then, then hopefully we get well, then we do get there. One more question on recruitment and retention is just, are there things you can share about the benefits to retention? And like, do those look different among the different tiers at your agency? I think, you know, it's this balance that every

home care agency struggles with, with having enough clients to staff caregivers and getting them consistent work. One of the things that I shared last week was that my approach in looking for clients and working with my referral partners is to find clients that need long hours, mostly full-time work or full-time care so that we can place caregivers so that they can have full-time work and we can retain them. And then also not being a band-aid solution, which is, you know, something that I say in just to mean that it's not just a one-time need. It is going to be consistent support for that client that we can staff consistent caregivers. So it's all about kind of what type of business we're going for and finding it in the right places with the right clients.

Like Brooke mentioned, clients who have long term care insurance, those are wonderful clients for us. We have a super streamlined process to manage those clients and caregivers work on those cases, you know, for a long time. And then I think, you know, recruiting wise there, I'm sure in every market, there's kind of your career caregivers who've worked for multiple agencies and they bounce around quite a bit. And so we are trying to get creative and attracting people who are not in that kind of circle. So we're recruiting, we're building relationships with community colleges and universities and places that have programs for CNAs and places where there are people who are interested in working as a career in caregiving or non-medical support, but maybe don't know where to start. And so building those relationships with the universities has been a great way to kind of get on student job boards and meet people who help place students in certain jobs. That makes sense. Thanks for sharing. I guess my last question, and it's probably for Brooke, is just what would your advice be for agencies that might want to consider

a system like this in the future? I think, again, just be thoughtful, be transparent, make sure that everyone is on board, make sure that everyone understands the concept and recognize it's not going to be easy, but that it's worth it in the end. And whatever we can do to help improve home care across the world, country in the long term, and improve the quality of people's lives and bring cheer and joy, it's well worth it in the end. And if done right, we can have a lot of fun while doing it. Thanks and well said. Are there any final thoughts that either of you would like to make sure are said before we conclude this episode? I would just add to that for the business development person of a home care company, a salesperson, roundtable your referral sources

every few months to annually get your top people together and find out what's worked well, what are they missing? What could they value more for their clients? Just to get an idea, maybe it is, you know, gosh, all these clients are so disappointed with these caregivers that aren't, you know, staying on service and it's just a revolving door. Well, why do you think that is? And really just get curious to come up with a solution and then working with your operator as a team, bringing that sales and operations bridge together to create a model that works for your market and solve some of those challenges. Because no one should be complacent

in home care. This is such an evolutionary business. These are humans, like Brooke said. We've got to continually challenge the system and come up with ways that provide the support for everyone, not only the workers to build, like I said, a care infrastructure, but then also for the clients to meet their goals at home. Thank you. Thank you. Well said. Okay. Well, thank you so much for sharing. I know that going on a podcast and sharing your secret sauce a little bit, so to speak, is not something that everyone wants to do. But I think this was an important conversation. I think this is really useful to agencies. that can help lead to figuring out ways to make caregiving more equitable for more people and a more lasting and livable career for more people. So we appreciate, you know,

not just you talking about this, but your willingness to take the lead and help figuring out how we solve some of these problems. And I hope, you know, we can all continue to like build on that and, and figure out more things. So thanks again. For those who are listening, just a quick reminder that Home Care U is both a live class and a podcast. You can register for the live class and ask your questions by going to careswitch.com slash homecareu.

That's U as in university. And then you can listen to the podcasts wherever you get your podcasts as Home Care U. We publish them every week. So thanks again for listening. Thanks to you two for joining. And we'll see you all next week. Perfect. Thank you.

It was great. Thanks, Connor. That's a wrap. This podcast was made by the team at CareSwitch, the first AI-powered management software for home care agencies. If you want to automate away the menial of your day-to-day with

AI so that you and your team can focus on giving great care, check us out at careswitch.com.