Recruiting employees requires a strong commitment to meeting their personal needs. Retaining good employees takes an even stronger commitment.

• Offer on site day-care on a small scale for your employees. Many employees have problems with access to childcare and that can lead to tardiness or absenteeism. On site day care can not only be an attractive benefit to attract new employees, but it will enhance the lives of your current employees as well.
• Providing flexible scheduling can be very attractive to employees seeking part-time employment. Stay-at-home mothers who may want to work while their children are at school, retired individuals, or students who have to work around their school schedule would all be interested in non-traditional scheduling. By offering half shifts or weekend work, you could open the opportunity for an employee who would not be able to work for you with a more rigid schedule.
• Re-thinking your benefit package for employees. You could offer insurance to employees sooner or consider some form of insurance to your part time employees.
• Surveying your employees on what is and is not working for them at your facility. Information is a powerful tool in deter mining how to keep your employees satisfied. It also sends your employee the message that their opinion is important to you. Soliciting your employees’ opinion and actually acting on what they say can greatly improve the culture of your community. Your front-line workers are your best source of information on operational procedures that may be inefficient or obsolete. By hearing feedback and then making the appropriate changes, you can improve the environment in which your employees to work.
• Concentrating more energy on your hiring process. Make sure that you are truly finding individuals that will fit with and thrive in your facility. Taking the time to find the right employee will be more cost-efficient and help your turnover rate in the future. In this time of low unemployment, it may be easy to just get in the habit of hiring anyone who comes through your door. That is a shortsighted solution to a long-term problem. On average, it takes six weeks for an employee to become a productive member of your work force. They must undergo training, and begin to build relationships with the residents. If you hire someone who is not motivated by the compassion necessary to work in long-term care, you will lose him or her quickly.
  If you hire someone who is not motivated by the compassion necessary to work in long-term care, you will lose him or her quickly.
  
  It costs anywhere from $2,000 to $3,000 to hire and train an employee. You want to make sure that you are investing that money in someone who will stay with you and make that investment worthwhile.
• Thinking out of the “box” and getting creative with what you can offer your employees. You can request the local bus system to have a stop put near your facility. Talk to local churches, hospi tals, and schools or universities about offering free services such as health screenings, English courses, counseling, or tax services to employees at your facility. Use your vast networking contacts to donate movie passes, ballgame tickets, and gift certificates, to honor employees who exemplify the care you want to promote in your facility.