How to Hire Caregivers

Hiring caregivers – a topic that causes concern for many

To run a successful senior home care business, you have to hire quality caregivers. So it’s no surprise that every single 2nd Family franchise candidate asks the big question: “how do I hire caregivers?” This question comes up early too. Sometimes it’s the only question someone has before moving forward in the franchise process.

When we started 2nd Family over ten years ago, we knew that how we hired our caregivers needed to be efficient, thorough, and repeatable. We established the 2nd Family “Grandma Guarantee” which is our promise to never to hire a caregiver that we wouldn’t send to care for our own grandmother. Our “Grandma Guarantee” in tandem with our unique process which includes technology, virtual onboarding, and a specialized caregiver orientation class has allowed us to continuously hire licensed caregivers even during the most brutal months of the pandemic.

So how will you hire caregivers?

First, you will only hire licensed caregivers. This is integral to the hiring process. Every one of your caregivers will be licensed with your state’s Board of Nursing. This means they have successfully completed a Certified Nursing Assistant or Geriatric Nursing Assistant program through an accredited institution. A lot of nursing students get their CNA license as they work towards their RN degree and are excited and eager to get some hands-on experience and make some extra money during their college years. After you become a 2nd Family franchisee, you will also have access to a national database listing all eligible caregivers in your area. This database is one of the big ways you will hire caregivers. You will be able to continuously pull qualified applicants from the database and quickly screen each one based on your criteria.

When we began shaping our hiring process, we made sure to incorporate user-friendly technology which helped streamline the entire system. We utilize Artificial Intelligence as an application screener. The bot filters out candidates that do not meet all of our hiring criteria. It also automatically schedules a quality candidate’s first interview with an available HR staff member. An online application is sent to the candidate to complete and once submitted, all of the information is pushed to our Applicant Tracking System (ATS) software. Our ATS software creates automated tasks to alert the HR team of new interviews and follow ups. This portion of the hiring process being totally automated eliminates an incredible amount of lean waste and increases the HR department’s productivity. A member of the HR team will then conduct a virtual interview, asking targeted questions. This ensures the caregiver has the right skills, personality, mentality, and experience to provide quality hands on care to our senior clients.

This is how you will hire caregivers.

Once the HR staff decides to move forward with a candidate, we provide all of the onboarding paperwork and schedule them for orientation. Instructions are sent to the candidate on how to download the 2nd Family app where they are able to upload all their employment documents. Orientation is the time to verify all new hire employment documentation and provide general training, as well as focused training on 2nd Family procedures. Orientation traditionally has been in-person but easily transitioned into a virtual session for pandemic protocols. Once the caregiver has completed orientation, they can begin picking up and working shifts.

One of the great things about franchising is changing the question from “how do I hire caregivers?” to “how do we hire caregivers?” The best thing about franchising is that a successful hiring system is already in place. All you have to do is follow it. Obviously, this is a summarized overview of our hiring process. We can’t give away all our secrets!

For more details, follow the link below and schedule some time on our calendar to learn more about how we hire and retain quality caregivers.