How to Reduce Caregiver Onboarding Costs – Top Five Tips for Success

Caregiver onboarding costs can be rather pricey, and proper onboarding is essential for starting them off on the right foot. While cutting costs is something to investigate, balancing costs with overall onboarding effectiveness is crucial. Here are five successful ways we have seen our clients reduce caregiver onboarding costs while maintaining a smooth transition for new hires:  

Ditch the Paper and Go Digital  

Lowered Physical Costs and Administrative Overhead

Going all-digital – or at least as digital as possible – can help reduce costs when onboarding new hires. Use digital forms, employee handbooks, and other onboarding documents to save money on physical costs, such as paper, toner, and ink. Opting for digital also reduces administrative overhead – your team will have an easier time processing digital forms, in contrast to paper forms, which often must be manually entered into your systems.  

Minimize Travel and In-Person Training

Save Time & Money on Transportation Costs

Thanks to Zoom and online scheduling systems like CareConnect, you can minimize the need for new hires to travel to your office for meetings, in-person training, and other onboarding events. Mixing in virtual meetings makes many onboarding tasks more convenient for new hires, saving money on transportation and training costs.  

Choose a Flexible, Self-Paced Training System  

Increased Onboarding Engagement

CareConnect offers accessible mobile training that’s simple, self-paced, and available directly on a caregiver’s smartphone. Our training system allows caregivers to take mandatory and optional or supplemental training courses based on their schedules. CareConnect’s training system is also an interactive and engaging eLearning platform. This platform leads to higher engagement during caregiver onboarding and better overall mandatory, optional, and supplemental training.  

Implement a Mentorship Program for Caregivers

Higher Employee Retention

One great way to reduce caregiver onboarding costs, simplify the process, and ensure caregivers have enough resources to get started is to implement a mentorship program where a more experienced ‘mentor’ works directly with a new hire. Their mentor is someone the new hire can turn to with questions, to learn things that may have yet to be fully explained during the training and onboarding process and to learn more hands-on. A mentorship program for caregiver onboarding helps increase employee retention and reduce turnover.  

Get Onboarding Right the First Time  

Reduced Turnover  

Don’t be tempted to cut too many costs or shorten onboarding to save money. A comprehensive caregiver onboarding program means that employees will be ready to work effectively and have the support and information they need to do so. Remember that inadequate onboarding can result in frustration, poor quality care, and higher employee turnover. In other words, it’s counterproductive. Investing in your caregiver onboarding program and using a “measure twice, cut once” approach is the best way to make onboarding successful.  

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