Ep. 74: Diagnosing Retention Challenges—What Home Care Agencies Can Do to Keep Talent Long-Term

Miriam Allred (00:08):

Mike, thanks for jumping on today.

Mike McSherry (00:11):

Yeah. Miriam, my pleasure. Always great to team up with, with Activated Insights for some great, great discussion.

Miriam Allred (00:17):

Absolutely. You spoke on the summit just a month back. And like we, like, we both know recruitment and retention is a hot topic right now. I was just saying, you know, we’re gonna talk about retention challenges right now, which is an evergreen topic. No agency, I think has retention nailed down 100%. So today we’re gonna drill down and talk about some of those challenges in some ways that that providers can, you know, ideally make some progress on keeping talent long term,

Mike McSherry (00:49):

The the best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. And retention is certainly the elephant in the room when it comes to, I mean, so many businesses, like we were saying before, this started not just inhome care.

Miriam Allred (01:03):

One bite at a time. I love that a lot of providers are saying I’ve tried everything. What else can I do? So what would you say to a provider that is, is telling themselves that I’ve tried everything? What else can I do? What would you say?

Mike McSherry (01:22):

I think you, well, first you gotta take inventory of what you’ve done versus, you know, sort of what you think you’ve done. You know, all too often, especially in the home care space, right? These are very busy owner operators just because you wrote something down on paper, right? Like here’s our plan, you know, or here’s our, our, our intention. You gotta actually be honest with yourself. Did we act on it? Did we execute on it is the best we could. So maybe that was at the beginning of last year, we sat on a course to offer more flexibility. Well, did you actually do that? How many of your caregivers were able to take advantage of this flexibility? What was it? So that’d be my first you know, answer is take sock of what you said you did versus what you actually did. And then if you really think you’ve tried everything, you know, I, I mean, the best next thing to do is to go back and survey your team, cuz clearly what you’re doing, if you’re still were suffering from turnover, which most businesses are at any given time, it wasn’t enough.

Mike McSherry (02:26):

You. So then I think again, in the, in the spirit of just, you know, radical candor and transparency with your team, it’s okay to be vulnerable and just look at them, just point blank. Hey, we tried these things. It looks like, you know, a lot of them didn’t really stick with all of our team members. What else can I be doing? You know, your, your staff is always gonna be your greatest resource when it comes to keeping your staff and keeping them happy and engaged. So I think, you know, too often, if you’re up in the C-suite of a business or even if you’re really close to the floor, we forget that that’s, you know, one of the best places to turn to when we’re actually in doubt on so many pieces of business, operation strategy and so forth.

Miriam Allred (03:07):

I agree completely. I think an audit of your retention processes, you know, for someone that says they’ve tried everything we hear that often, you know, I’ve tried everything, to be honest, you probably haven’t tried everything, but audit everything that you’re doing, you know, document it, write it down, get the whole team involved, go through everything in detail and then find gaps. And you know, like you said, survey your team, your caregivers, see things that you don’t see and will generate ideas and bring things to the table. And so survey them be transparent with them and get their input

Mike McSherry (03:41):

Right

Miriam Allred (03:42):

From the get, go

Mike McSherry (03:43):

From a, from a, like a practical standpoint, of course, as ology, you know, we’re a leader in the recruiting and hiring of, of talent. You always wanna have the always be recruiting mindset. So when you’ve truly done all these things and you’ve audited, your, your practice is you’ve surveyed the team. You know, the best thing you can always be doing is making sure you’ve kept that pipeline full because you don’t want to be constantly in reactive mode. You know, we talk about this a lot in our content and you know, discussions we’ve had with home care polls. The last thing you wanna do is be reacting constantly to the turnover. So as long as you’re in the, you know, you wanna be doing those things we just talked about, but also always have that pipeline of new candidates ready and rearing to go. You’re at least gonna mitigate some of those negative consequences that everyone does feel when you have turnover. And when you just wanna throw your hands up in the air, because you just can’t seemingly to get it to stop.

Miriam Allred (04:38):

If there’s anything we’ve learned you is being proactive and not reactive. And even when you feel like you’re in a good place and you’ve got a bench or you’ve got, you know, enough staff to meet the current demand of clients, you know, don’t get complacent. I think just always being proactive, always filling that bucket is a good approach to have one of the things that you’ve mentioned that that workers want most today is flexibility. There’s gotta be a balance though, of flexibility with consistency, especially for caregivers. What suggestions do you have around offering a flexible yet consistent schedule to employees?

Mike McSherry (05:19):

Yeah, this is a tough one. You know, that’s really, I think, unique to the home care. You know, you could also expand home health world where, you know, you don’t have exactly the flexibility of companies, you know, where there’s an office and you can be in the office or maybe you can work remote. These are jobs just like in retail that require face to face human human interaction on, on some type of schedule. I, I think one, one thing to call it, Miriam is we all need to dispel this myth of when you hear work life balance, you know, a lot of us tend to roll our eyes like, okay, here we go. Again, work life balance. Isn’t just about giving people, you know, more freedom from work as in less hours or even more flexible hours. It really just boils down to being accommodating, meeting your employees or at least trying to do a better job of meeting your employees where they are.

Mike McSherry (06:10):

So, you know, if that means somebody, you know, in the caregiver space, they need to have a afternoon’s off on a Wednesday because they have, you know, a loved one kids at home that they take care of themselves on those days of the week, help them schedule around that. And don’t penalize them because they simply have these other things in their life that require their attention. COVID certainly made things more difficult for a long time, right? With childcare needs with schools being virtual learning, et cetera. So I think, you know, one, remember that we’re not trying to boil the ocean with flexibility and work schedules. We’re just trying to be more accommodating. I think if you think it, from that lens, it can open up some more creativity and again, like desire for the two parties to come to together. And then, you know, also look at your pay time off policy.

Mike McSherry (07:02):

So many businesses today are moving to, you know, like all sorts of days off, you have sick days, true vacation days. We’re seeing a big increase in businesses paying attention to in employees, mental health and wellness in providing days off related to mental health. So I, I think the more that you, you know, again, within the constraints of your business and your operating procedures, you can be flexible with how much time off you’re granting and, you know, possibly finding ways to be more creative instead of sick days, mental health days, or there’s, you know, other, other types of leave available that maybe you’re not required by federal or state law to give, but it’s just the right thing to do. And it’s gonna go a long way in the mindset of those employees, even if they don’t take advantage of it. Because a lot of data shows the more time off that you offer to your employees actually more often than not, they take advantage of it less, less. So it’s a bit counterintuitive, but I realize it is a big gulp and a leap of faith for business owners to make. But in the long run, it does pay off, especially when we’re talking about retention and doing these small things, they pay big dividends with your staff.

Miriam Allred (08:11):

Before we jumped on live, we were talking about how diversified the workforces for those of you that don’t know Hireology works with, you know, auto out of companies in the hospitality space and the healthcare space. And the workforce looks very different right now, especially in home care, we were talking about hiring an 18 year old or a 17 year old versus hiring a 62 year old, their expectations, their needs, their, you know, thought process around flexibility. It looks differently. And so, you know, we empathize with you owners that it’s, it’s tough right now and the demands, and then the wants of your employees look very differently, but all the more reason to like Mike saying, understand their needs and their wants, and be able to kind of customize your, your work for them to, to their needs. What, what would you add there, Mike?

Mike McSherry (09:04):

Yeah. I’m glad you, you tied that up. I’m like, think about, you know, if you’re hiring a younger worker, maybe it’s not family care needs that necessitate some extra built-in flexibility when scheduling shifts, you know, this person might be, they might be a musician. And I don’t know, maybe on the side, they’re giving mu you know, they’re giving guitar or piano lessons to people in their, their neighborhood, or they play in a band and they have rehearsals a common, increasingly common thing we’re seeing in home care are a lot of these caregivers are gig economy workers too. So they’re going from one shift to then working another five, six hours delivering for DoorDash or getting groceries for Instacart. Right. So I think we just have to have a Frank conversation with these employees of ours, ask them, you know, what is it that you have on your plate?

Mike McSherry (09:56):

How can I help again be accommodating to you? You know, we can’t move the world here for you, but I want you to know as your employer, I’m, I’m here to do as much as we can and then find out like, what are those two or three things that are like, man, this would really make me the happiest person in the world. And then as a need to have flexibility wise again, cuz it’s gonna be different, right? Just like you said, MI based on the age background, you know, socio socioeconomic background and so forth, find out what are those nice to haves versus the needs to haves. And then you can make your, you know, your course of action from there.

Miriam Allred (10:28):

I love that. Hi Kim.

Kim (10:30):

Hi. Hi. I see you. I, I got on too late. And, and what you were saying about, I think it was paid time off maybe. I don’t know if you’d mind reiterating that. I, I’m not sure. I know that some other, that other agencies are doing that tough thing to do where, you know, your, your revenues are based on people’s powers worked, you know, and then you’re gonna pay them, but not get any revenues. I mean, it’s just, it’s a tough sell, but I’m wondering what it, if it’s structured as a very, you know slow accrual of PTO or how that is typically done.

Mike McSherry (11:20):

Yeah. All good questions, Kim, you know, again, this is coming from, you know, people that came of age in a, in a time and place myself included where vacation was earned, not given like who do you think you are coming in here? Any new company, right in, in expecting to get this pay time off, but times have, have changed, right? Like so many other aspects of our business. I, I think we just had to sometimes get over ourselves in the way that it was. We came up or what we’re used to and adapt to the, the current circumstances. And with PTO specifically, it’s more about getting creative. So instead of that usual format of, well, you earn 0.8 hours for every day, you know, that kind of formula. Maybe when you start out the gate, you’re just awarded a certain number of PTO days. And then beyond that, I was talking MIRI about being more creative with how we’re labeling these days.

Mike McSherry (12:12):

So make maybe it’s X amount are true. Vacation, X amount are for sick days. And then you have maybe another amount of PTO days that are for mental health and wellness. It’s an increasingly common thing we’re seeing across businesses where they’re, you know, really putting their money where their mouth is through their employers that we’re invested and interested in helping you with your mental health. And it’s honestly something as simple as just changing the name of PTO day to a mental health day. It just shows the employee that you care, you’re engaged. You’re thinking of them particularly with the younger workforce, millennials and gen Z, that creates a lot of Goodwill. And the way we think about it, Kim is that yes, that might be a, a sunk cost for, for you. However, think of it like you’re making an investment in that employee. And also with a theme of retention, this is gonna do more for you in the long run to keep them on staff longer, by doing these small things that, yes, it’s a cost, but it adds up over time. And that’s what you’ll see the ROI.

Miriam Allred (13:10):

I would just add to that by saying Kim, I’ve a lot of agencies that do, you know, they, they work X amount of hours. Then they earn, you know, a paid day off. Like Mike said, you know, sometimes it’s so complicated where it’s, you know, 0.2, five hours for every, you know, 30 hours work. I, I would say make it simple and make it repeatable and standardize it across the board. You know, after they work 300 hours, they get a paid day off, make it, you know, simple and repeatable. And I would just echo, you know, the mental health days. I think that just sets a precedence, you know, from the first day that they’re hired, that you care about their wellbeing, you’re gonna prioritize that. So, you know, one mental health day, a quarter or twice a year, I think making it very simple and clear that you can implement it across your team.

Kim (13:58):

Well, I think the mental health day as being, you know, like I’m gonna call in tomorrow, which for an agency then throws us into a, a, a, a, a mess, right? We, if you give us two weeks notice, maybe we can schedule around that. But, but not, not tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, I need a mental health day, which is usually how you think of it. And I, I do think it would have to be an accrual kind of a system and the, because just what we find, unfortunately, that too many people we hire either, either sometimes it’s our fault, cuz we don’t have the hours for them right away. Sometimes it’s, it’s their fault. Something we discover about them. Right. But too many of them even though we think we’ve made a good hire, it never gets off the ground and, and to give them yeah, you can take a PTO in your second week, you know, and then that’s ends up being a three week employee.

Kim (15:14):

Like you’ve just, you’ve just given away, you know, all the profits probably for that that higher. I, I don’t know. It’s, it’s a tough, we’re doing that in other areas, you know, try trying to give healthcare increased wages and so on. And I know they would love, and I would love to give them PTO or some form of vacation pay. It’s just, it’s just hard under the business model that we have where every you know, we’re, we’re not, we’re not selling widgets, right? It’s, it’s they’re of work, we’re getting a certain percentage. And if we pay them and we’re not getting any percentage it’s it’s, unless you’re big enough, right. It’s, it’s hard to do.

Mike McSherry (16:09):

It is tough in, in all these things we talk about, like it has to be taken in balance with the hotel out of your circumstances is business that Maryam mentioned. We work with a lot of retail businesses, they’re in the same boat. How, how can you pay somebody commission to sell a car if they’re not working in the dealership? So a lot of these dealerships are finding ways to be more flexible there it’s like a bend don’t break mentality. There’s just, sometimes there’s nothing to give. And in the, those circumstances where we’re seeing those companies be successful with their engaging employees is just being honest and transparent. Hey, here’s why we can’t do that thing. That your friend is getting working at Starbucks or working at target or working at the Amazon distribution center. It’s it’s not a perfect remedy Kim, but I, I think again in the like the time and space we’re in right now, transparency full frontal honesty with our staff, even if it makes us uncomfortable as business owners talking about these things that are some usually behind the scenes that in of itself can engender more, you know, I think like Goodwill with the employees and they’ll get it.

Mike McSherry (17:17):

And maybe they’ll still leave, cuz they’ll go get the PTO elsewhere. But maybe not. And they’ll respect that you were honest with them.

Miriam Allred (17:25):

I love that. I think employees respect, transparency and, and what you just said, Mike, you know, their friends are working in retail and hospitality and all these other industries and they are getting that, that PTO or those mental health days. They wanna know why, you know, they wanna understand Kim, it sounds like you probably know your margins explaining a margin to an employee saying, Hey, you know, this is what a client is paying us. This is what we’re paying you. These are all the added costs that I have as an owner, kind of breaking that down for them. I’ve heard from a lot of providers that that level of transparency is really well received so that they understand, you know, the type position that you’re in as an owner. And it helps them for context and performance on their end. So really good thoughts. Thanks. Thanks for sharing that, Kim. And thanks for being here. I wanna, I wanna talk a little bit about kind of tangential to this. Something we’ve talked about, Mike, is employees leaving to go work in other industries for pay alone? You know, what are your suggestions for when people are leaving? Because they can get paid somewhere else?

Mike McSherry (18:30):

Oh gosh. Yeah. Like this is just, this topic has gone absolutely off the charts in the last 12 months with pay rates increasing literally in every sector in America, corporate work, retail work, hourly salaried it’s bonkers yeah. I mean, look, it kind of similar to discussion with, with offering PTO. Some of us are just not in a position to match those better compensation offers and that’s just the reality of it. However, there’s a, there’s a concept that I, I talk about a lot with, with clients and partners alike and it’s, it’s around this notion of emotional salary. More so again with younger workforce millennial and gen Z, the emotional salary is typically is what ties the employee to an employer longer. So emotional salary think of things like we just discussed the work life balance, the culture, and, you know, know the third thing is really growth opportunities and career pathing.

Mike McSherry (19:36):

You know, millennials and gen Zs are not actually as money driven as prior generations, which may not look that way when you see everybody on TikTok and it’s all about me and material possessions, but it’s true. Most younger people, they want predictable steady pay, but beyond that, they want these things like knowing, well, where am I gonna, if I work for you, where am I gonna be in the next three years next four years. And so I think that’s the first thing you have to do is again, be transparent upfront early on. Hey, if you know, you give this to me, here’s what you can expect in return. And I’m gonna help you get to that. Too often we think of career pathing as one way street, whereas it’s just on the employee to keep hustling and get to that promotion become, you know, a top caregiver and then maybe they can be a manager and then maybe they’re managing multiple locations.

Mike McSherry (20:27):

We actually have to put pen to paper and show them that path. And also as managers and owners work with them every step of the way to get there culture, you know, this is even harder in the home care space because you don’t have the luxury of having like a centralized office space, you know, with a break room and everybody’s together. But you know, you can, you can find ways to get around that and make sure that your culture, it’s not something that’s just on the wall, but it’s actually on the floor. It’s out there in the field, you know, as your, your team members are out with your clients, they’re representing your brand, they’re representing you. So what is your culture? And, and are people living it every day? What can you be doing as an or to make sure that that’s happening? That’s, you know, individuals really are tied to this concept of why I work for a business that does this, you know, this is why they’re in business. And that goes to that emotional salary of people feeling more invested in the company because of that culture and the mission, you know, the good that it’s doing in the community as opposed to, well, I, I make 1750 an hour versus 1450 an hour for my last job.

Miriam Allred (21:32):

I’m writing down the phrase, emotional salary. I haven’t heard that before. And I absolutely love it because there’s this like imagery of like emotion tied to compensation. And that’s a really just cool concept. I’m just thinking, you know, we, we survey thousands of caregivers every single month and most providers think, you know, everything that they’re complaining about is, is pay is, is things that have like this monetary value attached to them. But that’s not the case, you know, recognition and scheduling and communication. Those are things that have no value that you can improve quickly and efficiently that you don’t have to pay for to please your employees. So I think this is exactly what you’re saying. Mike is there’s, there’s ways that you can retain your employees, that don’t cost you a dime. It’s just a matter of listening, understanding, and then implementing

Mike McSherry (22:26):

A hundred percent, you know, employee recognition and engagement in general. Also just add that to the emotional salary bucket and we’re not talking about, oh, so, and so got the, you know, top caregiver award this month for the highest, you know, customer satisfaction index scores, here’s your $25 Dunkin donuts gift card. Throw that out the window. Like that’s cool, but that’s not recognition, recognition. And engagement is more of like this continuous kinda like the culture, like it’s is it something that’s on the wall in the break room or is it alive and well in the business? And that’s same with engagement and recognition it’s off the cuff or, you know, maybe it’s somewhat a little bit goofy and it doesn’t have anything to do with like the it’s just the act and they’re being recognized for it. And it, it doesn’t have to be this whole like big song and dance that goes a long way to keep people excited and motivated.

Mike McSherry (23:21):

A lot of psychology just behind the simple notion of recognizing someone for the work they’re doing when they didn’t expect to get recognized. Yeah, these, the things that all add up and you can’t put a dollar amount on ’em and again, you’re not gonna make everyone happy. You’re just gonna have to deal and accept the fact. Some people are always gonna chase the higher paycheck and that’s okay. Cuz the type of business you’re running, maybe those aren’t the folks that you want on staff. Right. You know, especially in this industry, we probably want the people that are more empathetic, compassionate and are tied to those more like EQ you know, types of motivation, motivators, and so on than just pure like monetary motivators.

Miriam Allred (24:02):

Absolutely. I was just thinking everyone on this call can probably remember a time when they were recognized in a personal and meaningful way and it probably wasn’t, you know, a paycheck or a bonus. It was probably a handwritten note or a phone call or, you know, just, you know, in person face to face, just, you know, a couple of words to you that meant something recognition can’t be overstated. Everyone has this desire to be recognized, especially in this industry. And so finding the ways that your employees want to be recognized is so important. And I just, I love all the thoughts that you’re sharing Mike. I hi. Yeah, absolutely.

Meghan (24:47):

So I actually work with Mike, so here in solidarity, but

Mike McSherry (24:52):

Secrets out,

Meghan (24:54):

What did you say

Mike McSherry (24:55):

Secrets out?

Meghan (24:58):

But I mean here in higher allergy, we do a lot of these. We do a lot of, you know, financial bonuses too, but we do a lot of the emotional recognition where, you know, your, your fellow colleagues can recognize you. They can do shoutouts for you and you get recognized in front of the whole company. And I’ve only been with higher allergy for about three months. And I remember my first couple, all hands meetings where they did this and they acknowledged people in front of the whole company. It’s just, it was really nice to, because we’ve all worked in places that maybe weren’t as supportive. And so I feel like, I think it goes a long way. It really, really does. And I feel like getting that recognition in front of your peers is, is invaluable

Miriam Allred (25:39):

And tying it back to what you said, Mike, about recognizing based off core values. That’s something we do here at home care pulse. And another really good example of that is senior solutions in Tennessee. Some of you know, or have heard Kanu KSAL speak and their recognition is tied to their core values, you know, ask your caregivers right now. Do they know your three to five to seven core values? Can they recite them? Do they know them recognize based off of those? You know, one of ’em here at home care, pulses service mind, every time you see someone do something that’s service oriented or service mind, we recognize based off of that core value. So, so attach your recognition to, you know, the, the mission statement, the, the core values of your business. So that that culture is replicated throughout your business and throughout your recognition.

Mike McSherry (26:29):

Yeah. You know, the cliche is true, right? The culture eats strategy for lunch. And as Megan said, especially, I remember when I was an early employee at ology, I looked forward to that weekly, all hands meeting, just because you never knew like, oh my gosh, are they gonna call my name for the eager to improve core value shoutout or the, you know, create while moments it like, it was just such a cool feeling. And I came from a very old school stodgy law firm environment where that never happened. You know, your recognition was great. You know, that judge didn’t chew you out last week, good job. Or the client didn’t destroy you. So I think making it fun, making it simple, if you build it, they will come. It may sound cheesy, whatever the forum is that you can do in your business. But, you know, try it start small, ask some of your employees, Hey, if we did this, would you like that? Would you care? If not, what would be a good format? Again, they’re always, probably gonna be your greatest source of, of truth on what you should, what you should do versus what you shouldn’t do. And this is something that literally takes zero work and it cost the company nothing and can have is Megan. And I will said, you know, an out sized impact.

Miriam Allred (27:44):

Yeah, absolutely. I love that and meet them where they are, you know, for some of you, your in person time is during orientation or quarterly trainings or, you know, through an app, meet them where they are and create this a repeatable recognition system that you can use, you know, across the board of your, this last topic that I wanna talk about is burnout. You know, it’s inevitable, our employees are burnt out and they’re tired and they’re overworked. What are some of your suggestions, Mike, around addressing burnout with employees?

Mike McSherry (28:20):

Yeah. And you know, this is always one of the most affecting issues for post of environment businesses that have people that have to be out face to face. And again, you know, ology, you mentioned beyond home care, we work with a lot of retail businesses, you know, hourly workforce in general, everyone’s feeling this pain. And in fact, before the call started, Mary, I were just talking about how in the hospitality space. So many people have left the industry in general because as a result of COVID, they just were burnt out. They loved working in the hotels or in a restaurant group, but just couldn’t do it again. So I think, you know, there’s no silver bullet, but the first thing you gotta go back to is awareness and awareness via talking to your staff. The, you know, whether you’re not comfortable doing this yourself, or maybe you have some trusted veteran employees, managers, you always have to just have the feelers out there, cuz sometimes you, you it’s, you, you can’t see it.

Mike McSherry (29:17):

And in our industry and we’re not always face to face with our coworkers. You just simply may not know. So the more that you can be aware of, you know, is burnout pervasive. Is it one or two people? I think that’s a step in the right direction. Second in, you know, this should be without saying like, you have to take immediate action. If, if then the answer to that question is, are my employees suffering from burnout? Then you have to take, take action, implementing solutions. One of them could be implementing mental health days. You know, this is something like, it doesn’t have to be huge. Maybe it’s one a month or maybe it’s just privately talking to that employee, like letting them know, Hey, you know what we know you’re out of PTO days. Why don’t you go ahead and take off a day, we’ll work it out with the scheduling.

Mike McSherry (30:01):

You let us know which day. So it doesn’t leave. You all hang, you know, in a tough spot, filling a shift. I, I think additionally you know, more and more employers have been offering employee assistance programs over the last, you know, five, 10 years. Again, something that can be difficult to do to provide us benefit for more all our businesses like sending you on the phone, but at a minimum providing access to it. So maybe you’re not covering the cost for if it’s counseling or some type of like support. You’re, you’re showing again the employee that you care and you care enough to help them get the type of assistance and support that they may need to help them get over the burnout. And you know, less, but not least this is a bit self-serving, but the more you can have a full staff to help avoid these issues, which cause the burnout, which is some of the folks working too many shifts, you know, maybe it’s their commute time.

Mike McSherry (30:56):

They’re, they’re picking up shifts that aren’t convenient for them because there’s just not enough people. And they’re far away from their home everything that you can do to mitigate that goes a long way. And even if it’s not gonna entirely solve burnout, if you’re showing again the spirit of transparency, right? We talked about this a lot today. You’re showing your staff, you’re taking these steps. That can also go a pretty long way. You know, not fixing the burnout, if you can’t take away some of the causes, but at least that employee knows you’re on their side. And you know, of all too often, burnout leads to this like contentious adversarial type of relationship like, oh, the employer, they’re the one, they’re the bad guys. They’re the ones that are making feel this way. I think, you know, as much as you can do to try to address that and show that that’s really not your intention and you, you’re interested in making, you know, engage and desire for them to feel good and be healthy. Those are the kinds of actions you wanna be taking.

Miriam Allred (31:52):

And I’m thinking back to being proactive instead of reactive, I think burnout happens when no one’s checking in on them for months at a time. And then it’s, it’s reactive. You know, that contention is started. That frustration has set in and then it’s not too late, but it’s gonna be a lot harder to kind of reel them back in. So checking in with your employees regularly can help avoid getting to that last resort when they’re, you know, down and out and just ready to leave. So, so really just being proactive and checking in with them regularly, be for it, it gets to that point.

Mike McSherry (32:26):

Yeah. Look like in the home care business, especially really in healthcare more generally where we’re we scrutinize our, the satisfaction levels in feedback from our customers, you know, patients in other healthcare industries, we have to start thinking about our employees and recruits too is the same way that we think about our customers. We have to roll the red carpet out for them, you know, yes, it is a privilege to have a job, but with so many jobs open right now, you don’t have, we don’t have the leverage anymore. So we have to be taking these extra steps the same way that we are so painstakingly careful with our customers and making sure they’re happy and their needs are being met. We just need to apply that same logic. And I think intention with our staff and you know, that actually should have a compounding positive effect on the happiness and satisfaction of our cut customers, right after all happy employees, usually a direct correlation to happy customers.

Mike McSherry (33:25):

So it’s, it’s tough, right? I get it. It’s a big paradigm shift for most businesses to really, you know, roll out the red carpet in the same way that they do for customers to employees. But that’s the world that we’re operating in today where employees have all the cards, same, same with applicants. There’s more jobs open in America than there are able bodied workers. So just as anything, when we’re thrown a challenge as a business owner and operator, we’ve gotta adapt to it or, you know, risk the consequences, which in this case, it’s becomes this vicious cycle of, well, I guess I didn’t do enough to keep that person happy, engage with the work and then they quit. And then, you know, rinse and repeat. If you don’t take steps to then break that cycle.

Miriam Allred (34:07):

Whenever we talk about caregiver burnout, I always have to make note of the provider, the owners, most of you are owners. Some of you are administrators, executives. You probably are also feeling burnout to some level and everything that we’ve just covered on this burnout topic is applicable to you. You know, check in with yourself, check in with your staff, take a mental day health day off yourself, you know, in order to give your all to your employees, you’ve gotta be taking care of yourself too. And we talk so much about employee burnout and our caregivers, but everything is applicable to yourself as an owner and operator, make sure you’re taking care of yourself and you’re not, you know, letting the contention of the frustration settle in with yourself because that will be, you know, replicated in, in your staff as well. So I just wanted to, to add that

Mike McSherry (34:57):

That is a re really good point, MI, I’m glad you did. You know, I, I took a, my first mental health day ever about a week ago after a very worked all weekend. Megan, my colleague and I were at a, at a conference for four days. So gave up an entire weekend out of our month, long hours. Everyone knows the drill from the trade show life. And the following Monday, I took a mental health day. Was it any different than a regular PTO? Not really, but I think the fact that I like was intentional about saying this is a mental health day, made me that much more apt that day. I worked out, I ate healthy. I, you know, slept a lot. Typically if I take a random PTO day on a weekday, I have a really bad tendency to log in, check emails, check messages, get some work done. And I say, oh, I, I was relaxed, but no, not really. So the mental health day, I completely shut off. I never opened my laptop once. And I, and again, I think it’s sometimes these like small little acts that have bigger you know, bigger results than we anticipate just by the simple act of doing it.

Miriam Allred (36:01):

And you’ll be amazed. The results that you see from, you know, taking a day off thinking about the business is not, and not working in the business. You know, there’s that phrase to, to work on your business and not in your business in home care. A lot of you are filling in for scheduler or for, you know, an administrator you’re wearing a lot of hats. You’re covering a lot of ground, but if you take time off to think high level as strategic and long term, you know, your business will reap the rewards of taking that time off for yourself when, when you prioritize that. So, so really good thoughts. I, I know this time has gone by really quickly them insights. Mike, thank you so much for being here and for sharing.

Mike McSherry (36:41):

Thank you, Miriam. Always a pleasure.