Ep:30: What Being a 6-Year Leader in Excellence Award Winner Means for Home Helpers, San Mateo

Miriam Allred (00:04):

Hey, this is Miriam Allred and you’re listening to Vision | The Care Leaders’ Podcast by Activated Insights. My guest today is Mitch Williams, the Founder and Owner of home helpers in San Mateo, California. Mitch, welcome to the show!

Mitch Williams (00:19):

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

New Speaker (00:21):

Pleasure to be here with you today. Really excited to have this conversation, as we both know, we’ve just announced the 2021 Best of Home Care Award winners. You’re a six-time Leader in Excellence Award winner in the state of California, and have had some really big successes in your career. So before we get into the meat of the conversation, tell me a little bit about your background. You and Peggy starting the agency there, how you came to home care. Talk to me a little bit about that.

Mitch Williams (00:45):

Sure. So both of us have backgrounds in high-tech. I was in enterprise software companies for about 25 years as a VP of Sales and Business Development. And Peggy had a similar background and so about nine years ago really peg started this. She decided she wanted to try and do something a little bit more meaningful is, you know, career-wise and started doing some research and found the home care industry is one of the fastest growing industries in their own states and did some more research and kind of settled on a couple of different brands. And we went to visit Home Helpers and pick that one and, and bought the franchise that had never been, they didn’t have a location in San Mateo ever. And so we started it from the ground up. And so this goes back over about eight and a half years ago, but we now own two and we’ve had a really successful run and it’s been extremely rewarding. So once again, she was right.

Miriam Allred (01:50):

I love it. I love to hear how people have come to this industry from so many backgrounds. It’s incredible to hear and incredible to have you here to join us. So let’s talk about some of the successes that you’ve had. You know, you like I mentioned, have been a Leader in Excellence Award winner for years which means you’re doing something right. So let’s talk about measuring satisfaction. When did you all start measuring client caregiver satisfaction and why has that been such an integral part of your business?

Mitch Williams (02:20):

Yeah, so we, we started working with Activated Insights in our second year of operation and, you know, reflecting back, we were a little bit nervous in the beginning. We were a little bit nervous about what we were going to hear from our clients and our caregivers. But you know, we were bound and determined to build a really solid reputation in the community. And we realized that in order to do that, we had to face all of that, the good and the bad. And so we’ve learned a lot over the years about our way of doing things and about kind of our approach to our clients and caregivers and the feedback we’ve received has really our operations. And I think it’s, it’s really true that sometimes you don’t even know if you have a problem or an issue until you have a third party, do some research on your operation. And that was certainly the case with us.

Miriam Allred (03:15):

And that being said before you started working with Activated Insights, were you doing any other form of internal surveying or how were you kind of keeping a pulse on your clients and your caregivers before?

Mitch Williams (03:28):

We weren’t really doing any kind of, of surveying because, you know, as you’ve talked to lots and lots of home care owners and people in the business the first couple of years are real firestorm of just trying to figure out which way it’s up. And so we, we really weren’t, but once we started getting the feedback, we realized how valuable it was.

Miriam Allred (03:53):

Yeah. And I like what you said earlier about sometimes you don’t know there’s issues there, obviously there are some prevalent issues that you can see and you’re aware of, but there are issues that are kind of under the surface and you’re not aware of them. And so it’s great to uncover those and resolve them as soon as you can. So I love what you’ve said there, let’s talk about some of the outcomes that you’ve achieved from measuring this, this feedback. So let’s start on the caregiver front. What have been some of the interesting findings you’ve heard, you know, firsthand from your caregivers and what has that resulted in for you in the business operations?

Mitch Williams (04:28):

Yeah, so nearly all of the feedback that we’ve gotten from our caregivers has been positive. We’ve really had tremendous engagement with them and they thought, you know, they’ve offered up some ideas for better communication, you know, different kinds of benefits and you know, other ways for our us to maximize their time with us. You know, it’s really enabled us to evolve, evolve our internal processes. And they’ve been really grateful, honestly, that we’ve asked them. When we first started working with Activated Insights, our turnout, our turnover rate was really quite high turnover rate was really quite high. And we’d managed to pull that down well, below the industry average over the last few years. And I think a lot of that has to do with the engagement we’ve been able to have with our caregivers.

Miriam Allred (05:18):

This is kind of a spin-off question of that we’ve heard across the board that a lot of agencies have caregivers working for multiple agencies. Is that the case with your staff?

Mitch Williams (05:30):

Some of them do, yes. Particularly some of the newer ones, I, I don’t know what the magic number is, but there’s a, a time period where they cross into the land of only working for us. But I think there’s a, a group of them that are newer, that will often work for multiple agencies.

Miriam Allred (05:51):

Yeah. And yeah, I guess my comment there is it’s kind of a differentiator they may see and feel like, wow, this agency is, you know, measuring asking me these questions and it might create this bond to that specific agency, maybe over the others that probably may or may not be tracking satisfaction. So it, so it, has it, have you seen it be kind of a differentiator with your caregivers?

Mitch Williams (06:14):

I think so. The, the fact of the matter is that not all agencies are, are equal and are the same. I think initially caregivers and even office staff may think that, but over time they realized that the way they’re treated as simply different we like to think better.

Miriam Allred (06:34):

Yeah. That’s great to hear you mentioned caregiver turnover, being able to reduce that number, any other specific outcomes or experiences, you know, maybe a piece of feedback that stood out to you that you remember receiving and thinking, wow, we’ve really got to change this or that. Any other examples you could share?

Mitch Williams (06:52):

Well, I think an example is one of the most difficult things to do in any business is to separate yourself from clients that maybe are not a good fit. And so, you know, like a lot of agencies we’ve had to do that from time to time. Thankfully, not that often, but whenever we do that, the caregivers are really grateful because it mostly has to do with the fact that they’re not being treated well by that particular client. And when that, when they see that we put them in front of the revenue that our client generates that goes along with it.

Miriam Allred (07:29):

Absolutely. That’s one of the best parts about measuring both the caregiver and the client feedback. You get the whole perspective, you know, if you’re just hearing it firsthand from the caregiver, you may not know if it’s the full picture, the full perspective, but then you get to hear the client’s side and, you know, kind of compare what’s being, what’s being talked about. So let’s talk about the client feedback. What are some of the outcomes you’ve been able to drive on the client side?

Mitch Williams (07:54):

Well, I, I feel like this is one of the things that we’ve done really well. And that is, we tackle the difficult or negative reviews head on, you know, I think in any business, again, there are going to be some people who are just not happy either. You didn’t have the right fit or we didn’t handle something properly. And we always go out of our way to contact them directly and talk to them about how we could have improved and how we could have done better. And, you know, we may not be able to rescue this specific situation and help them to continue care. But what it does for us is identify issues that we can then correct internally and use it as a training opportunity. You know, with our staff, we have been able to identify caregivers who are not performing up to our standards of content through client feedback.

Mitch Williams (08:51):

And we’ve then taken that situation and, and identified internal processes that perhaps were, were broken and we were able to fix them. We’ve also been able to identify office staff who are not handling situations in a, in a in a way that we, you know, is up to our standard. I mean, we’re in the customer service business and we have to do an outstanding job of that at all the time and not everybody’s up to that. So this, this feedback that we’ve gotten is really helped us coaching our staff and improving our internal processes so that the experience that our clients have is, is what meets our goal, which is to provide the highest quality care in the market.

Miriam Allred (09:37):

Wonderful! Maybe at a high level, talk to me about how you use the feedback. So most of our listeners are probably familiar with kind of how our surveys work. But talk to me how you at Home Helpers use the feedback in your agency, you know, with the reports and how frequently you’re getting the feedback. What does it look like—how you use that feedback?

Mitch Williams (09:59):

Yeah. So two, two ways we use it. Well, we use it in a lot of ways, but to two specific ways, one with referral sources. So referral sources tend to be tired of hearing the same story over and over and over again from every agency, you know, every marketer that says the same thing, we have the best caregivers, they’re heart motivated. So when you can provide them with third party feedback, particularly that goes back over in our case now six, seven, eight years the data doesn’t lie. So it, it, you know, it becomes to the point where it’s irrefutable. And so my favorite report is the proof of quality report, which, you know, ranks on about eight or nine different categories on a percentile basis responses that we’ve gotten compared to X number of thousand other agencies across the United States because it’s all aggregated. So anytime we get the question, what makes you different from either a prospective client, which they asked that question often, you know, so what makes home helpers different or a referral source to say, okay, you know, you guys, you’re just like everybody else. And I’m like, no, we’re not. And here’s why here’s what our clients and our caregivers have to say about us and have a look at this proof of quality report from last month and so it goes.

Miriam Allred (11:24):

What are some of the responses you’ve got back when you pull up that report or show them,

Mitch Williams (11:28):

Wow, that’s really impressive. You know, they, immediately, they immediately get it. Cause, you know, you have to frame it in a, in a way that it’s a third-party that interviews, you know, our clients and our caregivers on a, on a monthly basis and that, that data is then aggregated. So you have to frame it properly. So it’s not something that’s just off the street. It’s from a real source.

Miriam Allred (11:54):

Yeah. And I call them sister industries, obviously a lot of the referrals that you may be getting in this industry gets are from what I call sister industries, you know, home health, hospice, these, these facilities, they’re used to HCAPS surveys and Star Ratings. And so they kind of know what these benchmarks look like. And so for a nonmedical or private duty agency to come and say, Hey, look at these reports we have’ you know, we’re kind of rising to the occasion and speaking their lingo. And I think there’s just that credibility that’s built instantly when, when you talk that way.

Mitch Williams (12:29):

Yeah. I think you’re absolutely right. And, you know, talking a big story is one thing, being able to prove it through direct feedback from, from clients and caregivers is, is another thing altogether. And then, you know, when they do give you a try, they do, you know, provide you with a perspective client. You have to be able to execute. And often the referral source wants to know what the outcome was. And so we routinely go back to them and say, you remember, so-and-so well, she’s doing just fine, or he’s doing just fine. And in fact has rallied they love hearing that sort of thing.

Miriam Allred (13:07):

Yeah. Great points. I kind of cut you off there. You had said there’s two ways. So you hit on referral sources. What was the other one?

Mitch Williams (13:14):

Sorry. The second is the prospective client. So normally in this industry, the adult children tend to be the ones setting this up. And so in the course of them asking their questions, they’ll, they’ll often they’ll say, so what makes you guys different? How are you, how are you, how has Home Helpers San Mateo County different from all the other agencies in the market? And that’s one thing that’s certainly different. You know, we’re the only one in the entire state of California that has won this Leader of Excellence six years in a row. So that’s a, that’s a big deal there’s 1600 agencies in California—licensed agencies.

Miriam Allred (13:55):

And stiff competition. You know, it’s not, and kind of a small rural area where there’s not competition out there, but having those, that proof of quality amongst a lot of competition in your area is huge. Absolutely. Any, any other ways that you’re able to use these awards to market your agency?

Mitch Williams (14:15):

Well, I would say they’re, they’re pretty, they’re pretty ubiquitous through our, you know, our marketing materials, our email signatures all have the awards in there. We’ve got the prominently displayed the physical awards in our office. So when you walk in, the first thing you see is a whole, you know, a whole showcase of these things. And we’re the whole office staff is talking about. We use it in recruiting. We use these awards and in recruiting other caregivers, because specifically the information, the feedback from the workforce perspective, caregivers want to hear that this is a good place to work and that others are happy working here.

Miriam Allred (14:59):

Yeah, no, that’s great to hear that you can use it on the recruitment of caregivers side with the clients and the referral partners that kind of is your whole spectrum of where you’re hoping to drive your business forward. Any other thoughts around the measurement of, of satisfaction? You know, does it give you as an agency owner peace of mind, or do you just feel in tune with your business, any other kind of sentiments from you personally, or your wife about just having this in place?

Mitch Williams (15:28):

I think it’s become foundational too cause because again, we’ve been participating like the other thing I should not neglect. The Benchmarking Study is something that I read cover to cover every single year. Over the course of, you know, two or three days, I take it really seriously. It’s, it’s mystifying to me, how you could be in this business is not want to know how the very, very best are performing and compare yourself to them and then strive to do better. So I find, I find the whole program to be a really, really valuable in terms of running a good home care business.

Miriam Allred (16:12):

I appreciate that. And yeah, we’re, we’re really, really looking forward to the release of this 2021 Study, as I’m sure a lot of the industry is as we’ve just come out of, in a sense, a very interesting year. And it’ll be really insightful to see what’s happened to the industry over the last 12 months now, even though we’re not out of the woods yet, I think there will still be some interesting information to find there. What’s your take. I want to just kind of tee you up for a few more questions here. What’s your take on where the industry’s headed? What are some of your concerns? What are some of your hopes looking ahead?

Mitch Williams (16:48):

Well most of the, you know, like the Home Care Association of America (HCAOA) that I’m very involved in that Home Helpers is very involved in as well. We’ll say and we’ll tell you in a lot of the industry kind of pundents that this pandemic has really shine the light on the home care industry overall, because there’s been just a lot of discussion on the federal level and the state level about, you know, what are essential services, et cetera. And our workforce have enabled people to stay home where, which is where they want to stay. But given what’s going on in the last, you know, 10 months, they also want to stay safe. So having protocols in place to ensure that I mean, very early on, we adopted the whole infection control kit strategy, and we put PPE in every single client. So I’m continuing to do so. And I think we’ve had really, really, you know, in spite of the challenges that we’ve all faced, we’ve, we’ve stepped up and our workforce has certainly stepped up. It’s been very impressive.

Miriam Allred (18:00):

Yeah. It stretched us in a lot of ways, but I think you’re right. And I’ve, you know, we’ve heard the phrase, this, you know, 12 months has aged us forward. You know, what could be five, six, you know, 10 years and it’s been painful, it’s been uncomfortable, but we’ve really risen to the occasion, like you’ve said, as an industry and really just stepped up to the plate. Do you feel like there are any other changes or things that we need to continue to adapt, to continue to rise to the occasion to really be set up for longer term success?

Mitch Williams (18:35):

I think the the workforce this is kind of a state by state question, but I think the workforce shortages and the challenges that we really have across the country from a caregiver shortage perspective, I think that greater utilization of that workforce is something that we all have to look at. We’re certainly looking at it in California. And what I mean by that are other services, paramedical services in particular that caregivers can certainly perform family members can perform neighbors can perform, but in certain States private duty caregivers are not allowed to perform those. And so that’s something that we’re looking at as a way to drive up the utilization of the existing workforce.

Miriam Allred (19:23):

Yeah, no, that’s a great, that’s a great comment. It is top of mind, recruitment has been and will be, and you know, there’s probably no end in sight just yet, but it’s just commitment and dedication and hope, you know, that things will continue to get better. So appreciate your sentiments there. Just kind of in closing, what advice do you want to offer up to agency owners right now? You’ve had a lot of success, but you’ve also been through your share of challenges and struggles. What advice do you have for other business owners at this time?

Mitch Williams (19:55):

So the nice thing about this particular business is, and really any business you can, you can argue that it’s a set of processes. And if you take the recruiting elements, right, that’s a process from candidate identification to candidate filtering, to candidate interviews, to onboarding training deployment. That whole thing is a bunch of steps. And each one of the steps in that process is a candidate for improvement and finding ways to make it better, faster, more efficient. So I would say, take a holistic view of the entire business and then break down the business into various so, you know, demand creation supply, which is your caregivers, and then just improve relentlessly on each one of those, those processes early on, there were some agencies, this is across the board, the independence, as well as franchise that worked, didn’t want this type of feedback and because they were afraid of what they were going to hear. And I would say, don’t stick your head in the sand, embrace the feedback, the good and the bad, because it’s going to make you better at the end of the day.

Miriam Allred (21:14):

Yeah. I love that. I love that concept of breaking down your business and identifying, you know, individual areas that can be improved because sometimes it’s easy to get caught up in the entire operation or get caught up in the individual areas, but really just dissecting it one thing at a time and handling it as you can. I love that really good insights today, Mitch. I know we’ve just kind of scratched the surface, but appreciate what you’ve said around satisfaction. We, as an industry, you are working with the national associations in hopes of making this type of reporting and measuring part into an integral part of this industry so that we can prove our quality to the whole continuum of care and measuring satisfaction is just one piece of that puzzle. So appreciate your example to the entire industry and what, what you and Peggy are doing there in San Mateo.

Speaker 3 (22:07):

Thank you.

Miriam Allred (22:11):

Thanks for listening to this episode of Vision. If you’d like to learn more about the 2021 Best of Home Care Awards, the list of winners or how you can qualify for these awards, visit homecarepulse.com/awards. Thanks again and we’ll see you next time!