senior services franchise - Senior Home Care Franchise

Manage and Motivate Your Non-Medical Home Care Franchise Employees

Whether you’re just starting a home health care business, or you’ve been operating a non-medical home care franchise for some time, it’s likely that you realize your staff is your main product. Because home care franchises are often small businesses, the loss of one employee can really put your operation at risk. Because your home care staff is crucial to your success, it’s important to help your employees feel motivated. Here are a few tips to help you motivate your greatest asset:

Think Like a Larger Company

While your home care business will start small, it’s important to recognize key factors which make larger companies successful. In medium and large companies, there are policies for employee time off, performance evaluations, and salary reviews. Similar policies in your smaller operation could make your employees feel confident that they are being treated fairly.

Transfer Your Knowledge to Your Employees

While you and possibly your spouse or business partner have been trained by your franchisor regarding the ins and outs of the home care business, your employees have had no such advantage. It’s up to you to provide training to your employees. You’ll want to be able to rely on each member of your team, but you can only do so if each of your employees is familiar with his or her role in your company.

Establish Accountability for Each Employee

It’s easy to get so caught up in the day-to-day operations of your home care franchise that you fail to hold your employees accountable for performing their duties properly. As the owner of a small business, you will need to make time to evaluate employee performance, offer coaching in areas of weakness, and help employees set goals.

Accept Feedback

Remember that each employee has something to contribute, and be willing to accept suggestions and feedback from them.

Treat Employees with Respect

Whether you have one employee, or one hundred, it’s important to respect everyone who works for you, not only as employees, but also as individuals. People want to feel appreciated. Remember to provide positive feedback on employee performance, and not just focus on where they need to improve.

Employees look to the owner of the franchise for both leadership and motivation. If a home health care franchisee gives his or her employees a clear idea of their duties, as well as training, feedback, appreciation, and respect, it’s likely the employees will be motivated to perform to the best of their abilities.

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Please refer to our most recent Franchise Disclosure Document for important details.

Six Most Common Non-Medical Home Care Responsibilities

When you first start your home care business, you may be doing all the jobs yourself, from handling incoming calls, to going out into the field as a non-medical home care provider. Here is a short list of responsibilities non-medical home care workers provide as part of the business:

Companionship

Non-medical home care primarily provides companionship. An ideal home care aide does offer assistance with daily tasks, but also builds a relationship with the client, and helps him or her participate in activities both in and outside the home.

Meal Preparation

Depending on the visitation schedule, a home care provider may be required to prepare a number of meals and snacks for the client, and usually does cleanup afterwards.

Errands and Transportation

Grocery shopping, pharmacy pickups, taking pets to the vet, transporting the client to appointments, taking the client shopping or to the post office are all examples of typical errands a client may require.

Mail Sorting and Light Bookkeeping

A home care provider can help sort through the mail and help the client decide what must be kept or thrown away, and which bills need to be paid, as well as what to do with any other personal correspondence. Often, depending on what the client and the family have decided, the care provider will assist with check writing and balancing the checkbook register. Unless any other services have been designated legally, most home care workers will not be required to get more involved in the client’s finances.

Housekeeping

Some tasks can be done by the care worker, such as vacuuming, dusting, making beds, laundry, cleaning bathroom and kitchen, and changing light bulbs. Other tasks will require the home care worker to assist the client in arranging for professional services.

Personal Care

Most responsibilities in this category include assisting with bathing or showering, oral care, assisting the client in and out of the bathroom, hair care, dispensing medication, and dressing.

Naturally these responsibilities can vary, depending on the client’s needs and the specific nature of the home care franchise or business. It is important to agree on these responsibilities in the beginning of the relationship with the client, as well as the fee schedule and the times these services will be required.

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Please refer to our most recent Franchise Disclosure Document for important details.

Always Best Care Senior Services Franchise Ranked Among the Hot 100 by RedHotFranchises.com for 2013

Each year, the board at RedHotFranchises.com reviews over 3,000 different franchises in over 100 industries to determine the Hot 100, an exclusive list of franchisors that have proven, outstanding business models and superior performance. Always Best Care Senior Services Franchise was awarded a ranking in the Hot 100. This ranking is based on a number of factors including management, franchisee satisfaction, support, growth rate, and financial stability.

Two of the main reasons Always Best Care was chosen is because of its superior service and effective business model. The well-known franchise directory emphasizes Always Best Care’s three revenue streams and excellent training and support system as reasons why the home care franchise system made the list. The board at RedHotFranchises.com utilizes its combined 50 years of experience to review and rank franchise opportunities and assist prospective franchisees in choosing the one that is the best fit.

In addition to the Hot 100, Always Best Care has also earned numerous other awards. Entrepreneur Magazine has named it one of 2013’s Fastest Growing Franchises, as well as A Top Senior Care Franchise in the Franchise 500. These ratings are based on factors that include financial strength and stability, growth rate and the size of the system. Entrepreneur also looks at the number of years a company has been in business, the length of time it has been franchising, startup costs, litigation, percentage of terminations and whether the company provides financing. Black Enterprise Magazine has also named ABC as one of the Best Franchises for African Americans. The publication rated franchises according to affordability, revenue, potential, effectiveness of diversity programs, and marketing and advertising support.

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Finding Your Direction: Four Strategies to Grow Your Home Care Business

Before you can expand your in-home-care franchise, you will want to decide how you plan to grow. You may wish to consult or even revise your home care business plan, which can offer a roadmap for your company. There are also other methods you can use to grow your business, and after assessing your company’s needs and current status, you can decide whether you want to use one strategy or a combination of many.

Sell more of your existing services to your existing customers.

This is the simplest strategy for growth. Loyal customers and referral sources are already familiar with your home care or senior care franchise. Remind existing customers of all the services you offer. It could be that some of them are thinking of expanding their in-home care programs, or some of your clients’ needs are changing. You can use newsletters or other methods to stay in contact with your customers and remind them of everything you can help them with.

Expand to a new market.

Here is where things get complicated. In home care, a new market often means a new geographical location. You will need to decide how you plan to expand to a wider area or open a new location, what the expenses will be, and how you will break into the new market.

Try something new.

Look into new technologies you can integrate into your existing home care business. Develop a new program for a certain group of home care patients, or train employees to offer additional care.

Diversify.

This is possibly the most dangerous of all company growth strategies. If you develop new programs and services to sell in new markets, you run the risk of entering unknown territory. However, an in-home-care business is closely related to senior residential services and other assisted living options. Be sure to carefully research and explore all opportunities for diversification before making a decision.

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Please refer to our most recent Franchise Disclosure Document for important details.