In this episode of Home Care Hindsight, host David Knack interviews Rachel Gartner, founder and CEO of Carework. They discuss Rachel's life in rural South Georgia as an Army wife and mother, her passion for hiring military spouses, and the unique challenges in the home care recruitment industry.

Rachel shares insights on building effective systems for employee recognition, managing rapid company growth, and the importance of maintaining a caregiver-first mindset. They explore the difficulties of balancing recruitment intentions with execution and the significance of analyzing recruitment metrics.

The episode concludes with Rachel's thoughts on overrated and underrated recruitment strategies, the benefits of a strong referral program, and simplifying the hiring process.

Lesson Takeaways: 

1. Scaling employee recognition requires both intention and properly built systems to ensure no one falls through the cracks.
2. Having a defined and consistent recruiting process is more effective than constantly chasing flashy new recruiting strategies.
3. Owners and leaders need to be mindful of their language and attitudes about caregivers, as it sets the tone for the entire organization.
4. Referral programs are a highly effective yet often underutilized source of quality candidates and should be funded appropriately based on cost-per-hire metrics.

Timestamps:

[00:01:03] Introduction to Rachel Gartner’s mission as a military spouse through Carework

[00:07:21] A lesson from Rachel’s dad and her big mistake realized after reading employee feedback

[00:14:00] Discussing how Rachel built a system to acknowledge every caregiver’s hard work and spotting company problems through surveys

[00:23:00] Overrated vs. Underrated: Rachel’s take about how to improve recruiting strategies

[00:29:08] How complaining about caregivers influence a whole team and Carework’s newest case study

[00:35:13] Home Care Hot Take: Rachel’s valuable knowledge about hiring caregiver candidates

Quotes

1. Rachel Gartner: " When I do fail or make a big mistake, I go, well, you know what? At least I know I'm trying really hard."
2. David Knack: "Our best caregivers never get to hear from us because we know we can rely on them and they're out of sight, out of mind. "
3. Rachel Gartner: " I will challenge people on bad practices. But there's so much doom and gloom out there that actually is really not helpful for agencies that want to grow. That I try to be very clear of like, it is possible and it can work and it can be really fun and rewarding."

Resources:

1. Carework on LinkedIn
2. Sign in to Carework
3. Case Study about a 25% Cut of Caregiver Turnover
4. Ava
5. Ava on LinkedIn
6. Connect with David Knack on LinkedIn
7. Subscribe to Ava on YouTube