3 Tips for Hiring the Best Caregivers When You Own a Home Care Franchise
When you own a home care franchise, you have invested in a great industry. More elderly and disabled adults are turning to in-home care support so they can remain where they’re most comfortable, as opposed to spending more time in a hospital, a nursing home, or other facilities.
When you own a home care franchise, you’re going to be responsible for hiring caregivers. This might include home care aides who assist with most basic tasks of everyday life, nurses’ aides, or visiting nurses. Depending on the type of services you provide, you may need to hire one or all of these types of employees. You may even have to hire administrators to help with paperwork, Medicaid filing, supervision, getting new clients, and so on.
Below are three basic tips that can help you hire the best caregivers -the home care aides and visiting nurses- your future clients deserve.
Tip #1: Conduct a thorough interview.
You need to get to know the person you’re about to hire and send to a client’s home. You can only do that by asking questions. You can certainly read their resume, check through the application form, and make a few calls to various references they wrote down, but you will only get a true sense of what this person is like by asking pointed, direct, and serious questions.
You have to understand the limitations on what questions are permissible. You cannot ask about religious affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, or other basic belief systems because you cannot discriminate based on those.
However, you can and should ask about a person’s work history, why they left their previous employer, why they may have been unemployed for several months, what their philosophy is on helping those in need, and so on. The more questions you ask and the more you listen, the greater insight you’ll receive in determining whether this potential employee is aligned with your philosophy.
Tip #2: Run a background screening check.
Even though this may not be required by law, it is highly advisable that all home care agencies who will be sending caregivers into clients’ homes run background screening checks. If a person has a criminal history, that may not necessarily disqualify them, but if certain types of crimes have been committed, such as theft, fraud, deceptive crimes, and so on, even assaults and other physical crimes, those may very well disqualify the person from being a home care provider.
Tip #3: Check their references carefully.
Some people will lie about references. Call and verify. Don’t just call a number listed as an employer, but cross reference the company, call the number you find online, and verify. If a person is lying on their application, they are not a good fit for this type of work.
If you have questions about franchise opportunities with Golden Heart Senior Care Franchise, please contact our office at 1-800-601-2792, or check out our form at https://goldenheartfranchise.com/apply-now/.