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SURVEY: Majority of Home Care Agencies See Staff Shortages as Top Threat to Growth

May 31, 2016

Nearly 70 percent (69.7 percent) of home care administrators identified “caregiver shortages” as one of the three biggest “threats to the future growth of [their] business in 2016,” according to Home Care Pulse‘s seventh annual survey of private duty home care agencies.

“Caregiver shortages” were by far the most commonly named threat to growth. The second most common, “Fight for $15 wage battle,” was cited as a top threat by just 26.6 percent of administrators surveyed.

“We’re living in an age of worker shortage that is only going to get worse as boomers and their aging parents start seeking care,” Institute for Professional Care Education CEO Sharon K. Brothers writes in the survey.

Staff shortages are inextricably linked to a pair of issues that consistently vex home care administrators, Brothers writes: recruiting and retaining quality home care workers. And of the two, she writes, “retention is, to me (and your clients and families), even more important than recruiting.”

The Worker Shortage is Real. Your Move.PHI’s June 21 webinar reveals how successful providers are tackling the staffing crisis.

During an upcoming PHI webinar for organizational leaders entitled “Retaining Workers in an Increasingly Competitive Market,” PHI National Director of Coaching & Consulting Services Susan Misiorski will describe key strategies and tools designed to boost retention across long-term settings.

The Home Care Pulse survey also includes data on worker turnover. It found that the median caregiver turnover rate among the agencies surveyed was just under 60 percent (59.7 percent) per year.

One fourth of agencies reported yearly turnover of well over 100 percent (106.7 percent).

— by Matthew Ozga

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