Golden Heart Summerlin
Las Vegas, NV home care agency achieves exceptional service while retaining caregivers using Smartcare’s integrated platform, Caregiver Rewards.
Highlights
Caregiver Rewards helps home care agency, Golden Heart Summerlin hire and retain caregivers while improving client service.
Golden Heart Summerlin’s owners truly appreciate the exceptional caregivers working at Golden Heart and provide them with extensive educational and professional support so that Golden Heart caregivers feel confident, skilled, and supported as they engage and interact with clients.
To reward their caregivers for their hard work and support their growth, the agency adopted Caregiver Rewards, Smartcare’s embedded caregiver engagement system.
Golden Heart Summerlin
Golden Heart Summerlin delivers non-medical home care services to seniors in the Las Vegas and Summerlin area. Their philosophy is that each stage of life is precious, and individuals of all ages need to be treated with the utmost respect and dignity.
Challenge
Golden Heart of Summerlin faced a challenge familiar to many home care agencies – caregiver retention and hiring.
Bob Swadkins, the owner of Golden Heart Home Care Summerlin, was always trying to differentiate his agency in the competition for skilled caregivers. In addition, his agency faced challenges with tardiness and difficult-to-fill shifts.
“Caregiver Rewards was exactly what we needed.”
— Bob Swadkins, Golden Heart Summerlin
Solution
Golden Heart Summerlin adopted Caregiver Rewards almost immediately after Smartcare released the tool.
“We’re always looking for ways to incentivize our caregivers,” said Swadkins. “And to have such an easy platform, such as the Caregiver Rewards, that’s in your system right now. I saw right away that the feature was exactly what we needed – the ability to reward caregivers. Our caregivers enjoy it.”
“It differentiates us,” continues Swadkins. “I think that’s the biggest thing. I’ve talked to all the competitors, and none of them are doing this kind of thing. They give a gift card here and there, but it’s not an organized effort. With Caregiver Rewards, there are automatic triggers, and caregivers know they earn points and see what they can do with the points. It needs to be a concerted effort within a system that consistently rewards the caregivers for optimum performance.”
Complete Integration is Key to Success
Smartcare integrated Caregiver Rewards into its platform, so the program awards points automatically for selected triggers like being on time. Caregivers see the points immediately in their app and know how many points they need to earn awards offered by the agency.
“For me, integration into Smartcare is huge because I don’t like to work any harder than I have to,” says Swadkins. “I have a system that does everything for me, and everything is there, including the numbers. I’m a numbers guy, and I manage my businesses through numbers. So I think having a completely integrated system makes it easier for owners to manage.”
“If I had a reward system that wasn’t integrated into my home care program, I would have numbers all over the place. It would be hard for me to look at historical data and see what’s happening. And worst of all, it would be impossible to manage and reward caregivers on a consistent, routine basis. Someone else might offer a great rewards platform, but if it’s not in Smartcare, it’s not for me because I want to tie everything together.”
Reduced Tardiness
Golden Heart Summerlin saw a significant reduction in attendance issues when they implemented Caregiver Rewards. Offering points for being on time and working extra hours is a solid incentive for ideal job performance.
“Using Caregiver Rewards, you can incentivize caregivers in different ways,” says Swadkins. “And we’ve found one of the helpful ways is to reduce tardiness. Caregivers were coming in late – not that they didn’t come to work – but they were coming in late. So we tied the reward to being on time. When they clock in on time, they get X number of points, and that’s an incentive for them to show up on time. And then how many shifts they work is another incentive, and how many hours they work is another incentive.”
“Reward integration into Smartcare is huge because I don’t want to work harder than I have to.”
– Bob Swadkins, Owner
Filling Difficult Shifts
Golden Heart Summerlin finds reward points useful when filling difficult shifts like overnight or holiday hours.
“Sometimes you have to escalate points to get certain shifts filled,” explains Swadkins. “Let’s say we have an eight-hour shift that we need to fill, and it’s in 4 hours. We can send a message saying, hey, if you come in and do this shift, we’ll give you 400 bonus points. If we have no volunteers, we may need to offer 800 points to get the shift filled; in other words, we escalate the points.”
“There’s a fine line between getting the shift filled and conditioning employees to wait to get the highest number of points. We don’t generally see that, since we do a mass text to the employees that are capable and that are a good fit for the shift, so it becomes a harmonious balance because caretakers don’t know when someone else is going to accept the shift.”
Rewards for a Job Well Done
“At Summerlin, we use Caregiver Rewards for many purposes,” says Swadkins. “We give points away for employee of the month and employee of the year. If a good Google review mentions an employee’s name, we give points away. Or if someone writes an employee appreciation letter, we give points away. Basically, whenever we can give away points, we do it.”
“Caregivers like rewards, and they can use the points on a gazillion different things. What you can give them is endless. We give them any gift cards you can give, or they can redeem their points for a day off.”
Streamlined Setup and Roll Out
“Setup is not overwhelming, but there’s some setup,” says Swadkins. “A lot of the decisions have to do with what kind of offerings you want to give because the program’s structure is easy. You have to ask yourself how much you want to give and what kind of offerings you want to offer. Once I did that, I had to understand the actual cost of the rewards. For example, every time a caregiver shows up on time, I give X points. I needed to understand how much it was going to cost me for every 3-hour shift.”
“From there, I put together a rollout sheet for the caregivers so they knew about the program, though as soon as it goes live, they see it right away and figure it out quickly. Then I began advertising it and using it to my advantage on job sites like Facebook, telling everyone to join us because we have rewards and they can get all these points for working and earn rewards.”
“For any new caregiver entering our organization, we make Caregiver Rewards part of their orientation, so they understand out to earn points and redeem rewards.”
Goals Met!
Does Caregiver Rewards improve caregiver satisfaction? We asked Bob that question.
“Oh, for sure,” says Swadkins. “There’s no doubt that the caregivers like the program – they love getting their rewards. If I ever took Caregiver Rewards away, I would have anarchy. So that’s not even an option.”
“Caregiver Rewards differentiates us. I use it to our advantage on job
sites like Facebook. ”
— Bob Swadkins, Golden Heart Summerlin
Tips for Starting with Caregiver Rewards
Bob Swadkins, the owner of Golden Heart Summerlin, offered these
tips for agencies just starting with Caregiver Rewards:
“The caregivers really like the program. They love getting their rewards. If I ever took Caregiver Rewards away, I would have anarchy. So that’s not even an option.”
– Bob Swadkins, Golden Heart Summerlin