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6 ways to create a culture of belonging to improve employee retention in home-based care
Keeping great employees is a challenge for every industry, and home-based care providers have their own unique obstacles. One way to ensure team members feel appreciated is by making the workplace somewhere that includes them in its growth and opportunities.
An effective way to put this into action is by collecting caregiver and staff feedback. When this feedback is acted upon, it creates a positive feedback loop and lets teams know what they think really matters.
So, what can home-based care organizations do if they want to implement this tactic but don’t know where to start?
These steps are simple enough for companies of all sizes to explore and make their own.
Many in the home-based care industry do the work because they want to impact clients’ lives and the larger community positively. To be seen as an organization that values this type of commitment, it’s best to share your mission around a service-based culture with your employees and live that mission every day.
However, there’s often a gap that can occur between what employees want in the workplace and what they see. Having them share concerns via employee feedback can be an effective way to get your organization back on its mission.
Consider collecting and using feedback not only to keep employees happy but as a sort of informal quality assurance method that helps you know which concerns to address first.
1. Plan proactively for addressing employee feedback
Before you ever ask for feedback, know how you will handle it as it comes in. This can include a system for recording feedback, grouping it by like concerns, and prioritizing it. Will you follow up with employees who share feedback directly? How will your research be concerned? What department or manager will be the point person for new feedback cases? Figure out the details early on so you can focus on the feedback when you get it.
2. Collect feedback promptly and regularly
Personnel reviews and employee surveys are two common sources of feedback, but they don’t offer a real-time feedback loop for you to respond to. Look into both ongoing anonymous feedback opportunities, like digital comment cards or response forms employees can fill out at any time. Pair these with “calls for feedback” to all employees a few times during the year.
Why ‘Net Promoter Scores’ are important for home-based care organizations
NPS can serve as a benchmark of success. It can deliver a bird’s eye glimpse of how employees are feeling so that an agency can better manage the nagging issue of churn.
3. Make it safe to share
What would an employee do with a serious concern that could jeopardize their job or the job of others? Give each employee a way to anonymize feedback, if needed, to encourage getting that information right away. Communicate that it can be hard to make changes based on anonymous feedback alone, but don’t discount what you can learn when employees feel protected.
4. Give it time
Feedback can take months or even years to implement, so don’t expect big changes right away. The important thing is to share with your teams that you hear what they are saying and that the feedback is being used to improve the workplace. If you know that you’ll be using feedback to do a long-term fix, say so. Keeping them in the loop helps cultivate that culture of connection.
You may also consider making only one big change at a time, so you can accurately measure how each change affects your workplace. When measuring data (explained further in the next step), you’ll want to know which is responsible for a higher employee retention rate.
5. Check your work
It’s easy to think that using feedback to make a few changes will have a significant impact on the workplace. So, what happens if you don’t see anything change?
It may be that the culture shift is incremental. It may also only affect a handful of your employees on a day-to-day basis. Before deciding that feedback is or isn’t making a difference, look at the numbers. Your employee satisfaction numbers, and other markers of a healthy workplace can tell you more than your gut feelings can.
Use that technology to back up your hunches and to show ROI for the most significant changes.
Home-based care software offers a good look at employee churn and the potential for future churn. Monitor the data as you put the feedback into action. It can tell you if you are choosing the right projects to focus on and if the feedback really represents the top concerns.
Employee retention dashboards track key metrics to help spot the warning signs of churn. The satisfaction score model predicts which employees are at risk of churning.
6. Give employees a way to share before day one
With your feedback system in place, it’s time to make it available for more situations. Don’t discount the value of feedback in the hiring and onboarding process, as this helps set the tone for your working relationship.
Share with new hires how they can provide feedback on the onboarding process and why it’s important for a healthy company culture. Then, put that hiring feedback into action so that the next cohort of new hires can benefit.
Here from our experts! 3 tips from top executives to help with retention and recruitment
