Looking to uplevel your registry’s game to end the year strong? Start by establishing robust support systems to foster long-term relationships with caregivers that you contract with.
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there were approximately 3,961,900 home health and personal care aide jobs. That’s a lot of people.
When you find a select group of people interested in working for themselves through being matched via your registry, you want to hang onto them for as long as possible.
We gathered up the three best tips on how you can support independent contractor caregivers—without risking misclassification.
You don’t even have to be a part of the group; that’s the best part. By suggesting to any caregivers that find work with you to create a peer community on something like Facebook or a text-based group chat, they can:
This creates an environment for them to network, connect, and spend time with people who can relate to their situation.
Since you don’t have involvement in the community nor moderate the conversation, it can’t be a legal consideration (especially if the group name is unrelated to your agency’s name).
This can be an added perk to new caregivers looking to join your registry, that they can join (or create) a peer community so that they don’t feel alone and isolated despite the nature of the work they do.
“Caregiving can be lonely work. Without the supervisory and peer engagement built-in that a home care agency has, registries have to find creative and new ways to engage staff without crossing the boundaries of an employer,” shared Julio Barea, head of sales.
From the first time a caregiver calls to see if you have any clients open, you have a new opportunity to make an impression.
Oftentimes, when people hear the word “brand,” they think of consumers. That’s not wrong. However, a brand is only as strong as its internal brand. The way that your caregivers feel about your registry speaks volumes about how a client’s experience will be.
You can do this by:
There are other pieces and parts that you can share, but the idea is to be transparent and honest about your business model.
More than likely, the caregivers who want to work with you may come from a home care agency or long term care environment. Regardless, they’re likely coming from a W2 employee environment and that style of work.
You have to work in concert with them to get them on the same page as it relates to compliance.
This is why Ally’s registry management system has Family Room built into the platform. It helps caregivers quickly onboard and adjust to this working arrangement. It gives them the transparency they need without compliance loopholes on your end.
One of the key differences between finding work through a registry and working at a home care agency is that caregivers have the upper hand in terms of:
Those three factors play an important role in why caregivers turnover so often in a W2 environment. Your registry gives the control back to caregivers, letting them do what they do best with no disruptions.
This is a unique business model that they likely don’t understand. But they’ll come to love it too, when they understand everything.
Explaining and reinforcing your business model doesn’t have to be a team activity. Take it from Natalie Savadge, Administrator at Home Care Plus, "Ally put the authority in the caregivers’ hands as it should be for our business model."
Read their full case study here: Ally Enables Nurse Registry to Consolidate
There aren’t a ton of aspects of caregiver registry operations that are controllable, but your registry management system is one of them. Caregivers typically use a few systems to clock in and do their daily tasks and taking the time to find the right systems for them to use and easily navigate can be a game-changer for your registry’s operations.
We’ve seen it time and time again, when platforms are hard to use, this can be a factor in caregivers leaving to find work elsewhere.
If you want to support caregivers in a creative way, schedule a demo of the Ally platform here.