Nurse Next Door seeks out to disrupt the home care industry. Our bold and bright brand is meant to shatter the stereotypical, somber image of the senior care industry and showcase that aging is worth celebrating. We also seek to elevate the role of the Caregiver and they advocate for Nurse Next Door as the career destination of choice.
We had come across an article about employee experience at Disney and couldn’t help but think about how important it is for our Franchise Partners to show appreciation for their Caregivers at Nurse Next Door, after all, they are the heart of our foundation!
Some of the salient points in the article related to employee preparation, promotions, job experience and how the culture at the Disney workplace supports a positive employee experience.
Disney believes in sprinkling magic pixie dust on their employees. To do this, Disney makes an effort to show appreciation to its employees, which can be done in a number of simple ways like sending a card on their employees’ birthdays. We at Nurse Next Door also set out to find Franchise Partners who were “sprinkling magic pixie dust” on their Caregivers.
We had a blog on “How To Find the Best Caregivers For Your Home Care Business“. Today, we got some tips on ways to recognize your team members for their hard work and how to retain them in the long run as they do a great job.
Employee Recognition Practices
1. Work Anniversary Bonus
When the Delaware team’s Caregivers have been with the company for 5 years, they receive a $500 cash bonus. At 10 years, they receive a $1,000 bonus. This incentive fosters loyalty amongst Delaware’s Care Team and they appreciate this recognition!
2. Internal Currency Program
Nurse Next Door’s internal currency for employee recognition is called, “Flowerbucks”. Tiffany also set up an Internal Currency Incentive program in an effort to show her Caregivers how we at Nurse Next Door:
- Admire our people
- Find a better way
- Are passionate about making a difference
- And provide a wow customer experience
Some of the FlowerBucks prizes are gift cards for Starbucks or Walmart. When Tiffany’s team members demonstrate these core values, they earn FlowerBucks!
Other ways to earn Flowerbucks on her team:
- Volunteering for an approved organization.
- Completing the monthly continuing education
- Submitting a core value story to the office
- Getting recognized/nominated by a peer
Delaware’s Key Performance Indicator (KPI) to measure this program, and promote this important cultural component of building a business with a heart is to have a baseline of giving out 5 points per employee per month (so 100 points = 500 FlowerBucks given out).
Not every employee gets them every month, but by setting a base level of how many should be distributed, Delaware can more proactively be looking for and award the behavior they want to see in their Caregivers.
3. Caregiver Referral Program
A $50 referral bonus is given to a Caregiver who refers a new employee. A Caregiver first receives $25 after the new Caregiver attends the Nurse Next Door Discovery Day and receives the additional $25 after their first 90 days of employment (and attended at least 40 hours worth of visits).
4. Paid Time Off
An employee starts to accrue paid time off and sick time off after 90 days from the date of hire. This allows for flexibility and work-life balance for Caregivers, which incentivizes staying with the company for a longer time as caregiving is often a part-time job.
Tiffany and some members of her tight-knit team in Delaware!
Results
1. Lowered Turnover Rate
Within six months, Tiffany cut her turnover rate in half of the implementation of her people practices!
When regular turnover occurs, a business must recruit and train replacement staff which means incurring additional expenses in on-boarding new employees. When employees leave, you lose employees, training expense and your expertise walks out the door and potentially may go to your competitor.
2. Increased NPS Score
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is another area of improvement after Tiffany implemented her recognition program. Delaware’s client NPS prior to the implementation of her program was 74. At the implementation of the program, the NPS was 80. One year after the implementation of the program, their NPS score in Delaware is 92.
NPS (Employee) score increased from 77 to 87 one year after the program.
The above People Practices that provide WOW Employee Experience seems to have paid off not only in lower turnover rates and higher NPS scores for Tiffany’s team at Nurse Next Door they’ve have won awards in their community!
3. Community Recognition
Tiffany and her team have been awarded Top Employer in Delaware 2 years running, voted as the First State Favorite Winner in Home Care (by the community, and achieved the Caring Star 2019 Award (for being a top-ranked home care provider on Caring.com). Creating reputation and pride is surely a part of our premium brand at Nurse Next Door and culture is crucial. Tiffany personifies this!
When we asked Tiffany why she continues with this program, this is what she had to say:
“We keep going with this program because it’s the best decision from both a business and people perspective. We’ll spend the money anyway (either on higher turnover and retention costs) or on the backend, and we’d rather build a better business if it’s going to cost the same! The adjustment in costs most certainly should pay off in profits down the road.
We just loved hearing about all of these heartfelt initiatives that Tiffany has set out to improve the work experience for her Care Team. When employees feel appreciated, they are more motivated to work hard and remain loyal.
And you know what that means? Happy Caregivers means happy clients and that’s how we best deliver on our Happier Aging philosophy to our clients and people.
Access Your Welcome Package which includes
- Discovery Video – 15 min overview of this opportunity
- Franchisee Testimonials
- The Nurse Next Door opportunity
- Access to our calendar to book a 1×1 call.
