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Why Do Caregivers Leave?

Caregiver Turnover isn’t only a problem for a home healthcare agency. It’s a problem for patients and their families looking for consistent care.

In the article “40+ Reasons Caregivers Leave and the High Cost of Caregiver Turnover” outlines an impressive number of reasons why a talented caregiver may leave an employer or the industry. They fall into six groups. Company policies, work conditions, job security, personality issues (both supervisors and peers), personal life changes, and discharge.

Here’s a sample of their list and you can read the whole article here: http://rosemarksystem.com/blog/40-reasons-caregivers-leave-and-high-cost-caregiver-turnover

Company policies:

  • No benefits.
  • Vacation time
  • Sick Pay
  • Health insurance
  • Paychecks are wrong.
  • Pay is too low

Work Conditions

  • The client is a hoarder
  • Too far to drive
  • In bad neighborhoods
  • Don’t have clear directives for continuum of care
  • No notes from the previous caregiver

Job security

  • not enough hours
  • not reliable hours

Personality issues

Direct supervisor:

  • Relationship is not good
  • Perceived as a mean person

Relationship with peers

  • not getting along other caregivers
  • they have no opportunity to interact with other caregivers

Personal life changes

  • Moving out of work locality
  • Decided that they just don’t like the work
  • Health issues

Discharged (Fired)

  • No show, no call to a client shift
  • Caught stealing
  • Not following care instructions

Physician’s Choice Private Duty knows these challenges well and our director has this to say about how we deal with the challenges of finding and keeping great caregivers.

“We do several things…We try to keep our wages very competitive; we try very hard to treat our caregivers with respect; let them know they are valued; we have several different ways our caregivers can earn extra money if they want; treat each of them as individuals with varying qualities that are necessary to make our company successful.

When you hire an agency, ask them about how they deal with the challenges of turnover because it will affect your care. No agency is perfect and it pays to ask a few more questions to find an agency that fits your family’s needs.

(see full article: http://rosemarksystem.com/blog/40-reasons-caregivers-leave-and-high-cost-caregiver-turnover)