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Home-based care providers are constantly innovating new ways to recruit and maintain care staff, but businesses still earn the most mileage from internal word-of-mouth referrals.
Companies, which have invested heavily in employee referral programs, such as creating social media groups, have been able to distribute campaigns with current and former employees and send them via email, improving retention. Word-of-mouth referrals don't always generate the most lead for home care workers, but as a result, they have a higher conversion rate and lower acquisition costs.
Tribute Home Care hired 50% of its care team through employee referrals.
Employee referrals are an important source of recruitment for compliments, so the company is always looking to perfect the way in which incoming leads are gathered and managed.
“Nothing fits every size here,” Janine Desatnik, director of caregiver talent acquisition, told Home Health Care News. “We're constantly learning how to do our best with this. We're trying to hit every angle. From the very beginning of employment here, we'll let them know that they're like ambassadors to us.”
Founded in 2012, Tribute offers personal care, dating care, housekeeping support, dementia care and more. The company operates in Massachusetts, Maryland, Illinois and northern Virginia.
One of the company's techniques for collecting employee referrals is to provide staff with decks of cards with QR codes.
The tribute also uses email cultivation campaigns to promote referrals from employees.
The company is also in contact with former employees through its legacy campaign program. The program updates former employees about the current state of the company via email and includes a link to a referral form. The goal is to make it easier for those who want to refer employees.
In CareTech's internal referral rate is relatively low, but according to Chief Operating Officer Kerin Zuger, the conversion rate is high.
“You've actually done 200 interviews and maybe 10% of them will start,” she told HHCN. “From employee referrals, I think about 75% of them converted.”
Based in Omaha, Nebraska, CareTech is an independent home care company offering a range of non-medical services including personal care, dating and family support. The company operates throughout Nebraska, Wyoming and Iowa.
CareTech relies on an engagement platform to collect employee referrals.
“It's a platform that helps you build referrals for internal caregivers,” says Zuger. “If they have referrals, they will submit them there so they can track their start date and how many shifts they have taken.
In 2024, Activated Insights discovered that word of mouth was the third most used method for recruiting professional caregivers. The organization determined that these types of referrals resulted in the lowest employee turnover and that there was one of the minimum acquisition costs for recruiting strategies.
In comparison, employment websites were in fact the number one way of hiring for home care. However, according to activated insights, it generated an 88% turnover rate.
Alison Jenkins, recruiter at Prohealth Home Health & Hospice, explained that word-of-mouth referrals tend to produce stronger candidates because employees know what to look for.
“The feathered birds flock together,” she told HHCN. “A good team member is always looking for another great team member. They are stronger nurses or stronger clinicians when featured here by a good team member.”
ProHealth is the operator of a Birmingham, Alabama-based home health, hospice and skilled nursing facility. Between home health and hospice, the company serves an average of around 1,200 patients a month.
In 2024, 40% of ProHealth's employment was conducted through word-of-mouth referrals. The company uses employee newsletters and internal Facebook groups to collect these referrals.
The success of tributes relying on word-of-mouth referrals has repeatedly prioritized referrals.
“My team and I went back to them and asked why they introduce more people than others and why their referrals are hired far more than some of the other referrals,” Desatnik said. “What they're telling us is that they're not just selling the company as a happy associate, but they're going to pre-screen these and say, “Hey, these are important to the compliment. Is this important to you?”
Carework founder and CEO Rachel Gartner highlighted the importance of establishing a formal employee referral program.
“This is a channel you control and online job platforms are constantly making changes so it can have a direct impact,” she said in a recent Zingage, previous AVA, webinar. “Your business doesn't want to completely rely on it. You don't want your business to be completely dependent on one channel. You always want to have a diverse recruitment strategy just like marketing and as diverse as sales.
Carework is Stateboro, a Georgia-based Home Care Recruitment Company. Since launching seven years ago, the company has been responsible for hiring 25,000 US home care agencies.
Gartner also said that companies that have not been successful with these programs are likely to fail to prioritize them.
“If the referral channel isn't generating a lot of consistent referrals, it's probably either on the backburner, or you're not actually doing it or you're not telling it,” she said.
Ultimately, Desatnick believes word-of-mouth referrals can speak to the company's condition.
“I think the introduction of caregivers is the biggest tribute to the company's culture,” she said. “Essentially, 'I'm happy here. I think I'm treated a lot. I think mission, values, culture is very good for me. We never take it lightly.”
