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Recruitment vs Retention: Why a Robust Retention Plan is Crucial for the Long-Term Success of Your Senior Care Business

Published on October 11, 2024 by Dan Wenger

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In the ever-evolving world of senior care, the delicate balance between talent acquisition and employee retention has become a cornerstone of business success. These two critical HR pillars need to be in perfect equilibrium for a business to thrive and achieve sustainable growth. 

Effective recruitment strategies are unquestionably essential to any organization’s ability to build employer brand awareness, attract top talent, and establish a cohesive workforce. However, the true measure of success lies in a business’s ability to not only attract the right employees but also to cultivate their talents and, ultimately, retain them. 

The fact is that no matter how outstanding your recruitment strategy is, you cannot out-recruit a deficient employee retention plan. If your senior care business has a high staff turnover rate, you’ll find yourself in a frustrating loop of hiring, training, and rehiring that will negatively impact your bottom line.

In this article, we look at why a shift in focus from ‘How to Recruit’ to ‘How to Retain’ can be the key to unlocking your true potential in creating a loyal, motivated, and high-performing workforce – the foundation upon which long-term business success can be built.

Why a robust retention plan is so crucial in senior care

A long-term, proactive approach to employee retention is imperative for every business but is especially critical in sectors that already face severe staff shortages, like senior care.

Senior home care turnover has increased by more than 12% over the past two years. 
The current industry-wide turnover rate is 79.2%.
– Activated Insights’ (formerly Home Care Pulse) 2024 Benchmarking Report

Whatever type of senior care business you’re running, high staff turnover will inevitably result in a plethora of adverse effects. Not only will you be losing time and money in a vicious cycle of recruitment and hiring in an attempt to plug the gaps, but you’ll also see existing employee motivation, morale, and productivity decline over time. 

Maintaining a positive company culture, strong employer brand, and continuity of quality care is practically impossible when staff turnover is high. It will also limit your ability to set reliable long-term goals and effectively stabilize or expand your business.

If you want your senior care business to succeed and thrive – which requires a solid foundation of committed and empowered employees – you have to take charge of your employee experience by embracing robust retention strategies.

The benefits of investing in a robust retention plan

The substantial benefits your senior care business stands to reap by investing in effective retention strategies to keep its talented and skilled employees include:

Reduced costs 

Voluntary employee turnover is a costly affair!

Gallup and Payactiv surveys agree that the cost of replacing one staff member can range from one-half to twice their annual salary. This includes recruitment, hiring, onboarding, and training expenses, as well as hidden costs (for example, disruptions to care continuity, increased workloads for existing staff, a potential loss of clients/residents, and an inability to take on new clients/residents). 

Investing in a robust employee retention plan will save your senior care business a significant amount of money in the long run.

Positive workplace environment and company culture

Team of satisfied, caregiver team members - Caregiver Retention Concept

When care teams are in a constant state of flux, it invariably creates a sense of instability and uncertainty, which can lead to a culture of disengagement and distrust, where employees become less invested in the success of your business.

Higher retention rates will naturally contribute to fostering interpersonal relationships, creating a supportive and stable setting, and building a positive company culture. These not only attract top talent but are also a high-value incentive for existing employees to stick around, perform at their best, and grow within the company.

A recent Harvard Business Review study revealed that companies with a strong and positive company culture experience a 65% lower turnover rate.

Stronger employer brand and positive reputation in the job market

Elevated turnover rates are a major red flag for job seekers (and clients/residents), raising doubts about a company’s management, workplace culture, quality of care, and overall stability – and damaging your reputation. 

Any steps you can take to boost employee retention will help shape how your business is perceived by potential candidates, existing staff, referral partners, and clients/residents – vastly improving your chances of success in a competitive market.

The positive impact of retaining top-performing, skilled employees on your employer brand and reputation cannot be understated. 

Preservation of institutional knowledge and continuity of business operations

When employees leave, they take with them all the company knowledge and insights acquired during their time with you, which can result in over-burdened teams, lower productivity, potential errors, and disruption/delays to daily business operations.

It can take new hires up to two years to reach the same level of expertise as long-standing employees. 

Crafting a robust plan to achieve higher employee retention rates means your business will also achieve higher knowledge retention – and all the additional benefits that can bring.

Increased employee well-being, reduced stress and burnout

High turnover means your existing staff will continually have greater workloads to cover the shortfall, which can cause excessive stress and eventually lead to burnout if not addressed in time.

A strong retention plan will go a long way to protecting your employees’ mental, physical, and emotional well-being, which will, in turn, help avoid further staff losses through sick leave and voluntary resignations.

Higher staff engagement, motivation, and morale

Embracing Generational Diversity - Aaniie

Frequent turnover disrupts team dynamics, making it difficult for employees to build strong working relationships and a sense of belonging. With staff constantly coming and going, it’s virtually impossible to establish trust and camaraderie and keep team morale high – all of which affect individuals’ engagement, motivation, and overall performance.

Effective retention strategies create the opposite effect, as employees will feel secure in their jobs and enjoy a sense of stability and cohesion as a team. Utilizing retention tools, like staff recognition and rewards, leads to increased engagement and motivation, higher morale, and enhanced job satisfaction. 

Improved productivity, including better individual and team performances

Retaining staff through effective retention strategies not only helps create greater team connection, collaboration, and cohesion but also ensures each employee feels secure, valued, and supported in their own right. 

Together, your teams will be more productive, and each individual is more likely to go above and beyond to contribute to the team’s success and, ultimately, the success of your business.

Enhanced client/resident experience and satisfaction

Where care staff are on constant rotation and stretched too thin, seniors will likely experience an inferior quality of service with a lack of continuity and will inevitably become frustrated and dissatisfied.

With a robust retention plan in place, your clients/residents will receive a better continuity of care and have the opportunity to build strong, trusting relationships with a regular care team member. Raising client/resident engagement and satisfaction levels will also boost your business’s reputation, increase client referrals, and positively impact your bottom line.

Greater innovation and revenue growth

Greater innovation and revenue growth - Series of icons showing progress

When your employees feel valued and supported and stay with your business for an extended period, they will naturally be more familiar with processes, systems, clients’/residents’ needs, etc., leading to enhanced efficiency and productivity. They’re also more likely to feel empowered to offer ideas and solutions for any areas they see could be improved on the job – potentially helping to take your business to the next level.

In addition, higher retention rates will mean that many of your staff are freed up from endless recruitment and hiring drives and can, instead, focus on other areas of the business that will drive expansion and growth.

A recent Harvard Business Review revealed that companies with engaged and loyal employees see, on average, 2.5 times more revenue growth compared to those with high turnover rates.

As many senior care businesses often overlook the significance of employee retention strategies and, instead, put all their efforts into recruitment initiatives, a shift in focus to ‘How to Retain’ could give you a significant competitive edge.

First steps to building a robust retention plan in senior care

It’s clear that senior care leaders need to take proactive steps towards improving employee experience and fulfillment, to increase retention rates and stay competitive (and, ultimately, to stay in business). 

But where do you even begin?

Five tried-and-tested retention strategies that will make a significant impact on reducing your employee turnover rate and are an excellent place to start are:

  1. Developing better onboarding and orientation processes
  2. Investing in staff training and development opportunities
  3. Enabling a better performance with the right on-the-job tools
  4. Introducing a loyalty program to recognize and reward outstanding performance
  5. Establishing wellness initiatives to reduce workplace stress and burnout

In addition, it’s crucial to regularly measure and monitor a comprehensive set of workforce analytics and performance metrics to gauge the effectiveness of your recruitment-retention equilibrium. Tracking key KPIs, you’ll be able to make data-driven decisions to optimize your retention plans and drive organizational success. 

Essential metrics to consider include:

  • Employee retention rate
  • Employee retention rate per category (including by job title, performance level, age, gender, etc.)
  • Employee voluntary turnover rate 
  • Employee involuntary turnover rate
  • Employee satisfaction rate
  • Average employee tenure
  • Cost of employee turnover
  • Engagement scores
  • Job satisfaction
  • Flight risk

By developing a retention plan and closely monitoring the right metrics, you can unlock the full potential of your workforce, keep them fully engaged and satisfied, and drive sustainable business success.

How can Aaniie help your senior care business excel in employee retention?

happy caregivers reward system

While it’s possible to develop and implement staff retention plans without the support of technology, it’s eminently sensible to invest in software that will do most of the heavy lifting for you and your team – not to mention highly time- and cost-efficient.

Aaniie’s award-winning caregiver retention toolset offers senior care’s most innovative and effective approach to engaging, motivating, and retaining employees – guaranteeing your business can enjoy all the benefits a committed, high-performing workforce can deliver.

With an integrated Caregiver Rewards program, you too can achieve up to 3X improved caregiver retention over the industry average. With automated points gained for meeting ideal performance criteria, such as clocking in on time or picking up an extra shift, this unique program helps meet the goals of each senior care provider while increasing retention to boot.

“Retaining caregivers is such a challenge today. We’re really pleased to have found Aaniie to help us achieve caregiver retention rates that are over twice as good as other agencies we compete against in our market. Aaniie engagement tools and secure chatting lets us maintain a connection with our remote teams. I don’t know what I would do without Aaniie.”  Adalynn T. 

Integrated KPIs & Reports and business intelligence

Aaniie’s complete software also includes Insights and Business Intelligence (BI) tools, providing real-time, actionable data via customizable KPI dashboards, so you can access all the metrics needed to follow progress and drive employee retention success.

If you’d like to kick-start your employee retention plans confidently and proficiently, please call the Aaniie team or request a no-obligation demo today. Working together, we can make your employee retention dreams become a reality.