Cracking the Code: Strategies For Successful LTC Recruitment

Join Joshua Moore, Gaston Wilder, and Katie Churchill as they explore some of the strategies for successful recruitment in long-term care.

Discover the key strategies for proactively sourcing talent beyond traditional job boards. Explore the importance of your company's brand and culture, and how it influences candidate perception. Learn how to analyze metrics to make informed recruiting decisions and adapt your approach. Plus, find out why a tailored, fluid approach is essential for effective recruitment in today's diverse markets.

Joshua Moore, joshua@fullspecstaff.com
Gaston Wilder, gastonw@fullspecstaff.com
Katie Churchill, katiec@fullspecstaff.com

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Full Spectrum Search Group 

Recruitment Roundtable in Long Term Care is a podcast hosted by Joshua Moore, Managing Partner in Home Health and Hospice, Gaston Wilder, Sr. Managing Partner for Full Spectrum Search Group and Katie Churchill, Managing Partner in Senior Living. This trio recruits top talent via executive search and headhunting.

Interested in learning more? Visit www.fullspecstaff.com or reach out via LinkedIn.

Want to join the show? E-mail Katie Churchill: katiec@fullspecstaff.com

Transcript

Joshua: 0:08

Welcome to the recruitment round table and long term care where our team of savvy recruiters from an executive search firm spills the beans on the ins and outs of hiring in long term care. Join us for candid conversations, industry insights, and a touch of humor as we explore the fascinating world of long term care recruitment. Get ready for real talk, practical advice, and a few laughs along the way. We are three recruiters from Full Spectrum Search Group, an executive search firm highly niched in the long term care recruiting space. We're your hosts, Joshua Moore, Gaston Wilder,

Katie: 0:40

and Katie

Joshua: 0:40

Churchill. So Nestle in poor drink of your choice and buckle up for the ride of the recruitment round table and long term care. And as always, if we call, you should probably answer.

Katie: 0:55

All right. So we're here with episode one from the recruitment round table and long term care. And today's episode with Gaston, Josh, and Katie, we're going to be talking about cracking the code strategies for successful long term care recruitment. Hi, Josh. Hi, Gaston. What's up, Katie? Hey,

Gaston: 1:14

Katie.

Katie: 1:16

Okay, so for part of this, we talked about four different sub topics within cracking the code, right? We talked about your personal brand, your employer brand. KPIs and metrics, and then also we talked about, you know, tailoring recruitment for various different roles in long term care and what we need to do to kind of pivot, right? One size doesn't fit all mentality. So, I kind of wanted to pick apart a little bit about branding, because That's one of my favorite topics. And talk a little bit more about personal branding versus the company branding. And when we talk about personal branding, you know, that's your opportunity to really network, right? Go to conferences, grow your LinkedIn presence you know, who you are outside of your Your work, your place of employment, right? Personal brand is how people, how you want people to see you, right? Your values, your skills, your experience as it relates to your, your career, right? And your, your experience. Reputation is the first impressions you make. So that first phone call, right? Or, you know, not responding to a text. And that's the, how the relationship starts to get developed. So this is how people see you. And we all have a reputation, right? Some might be really good. Some might be, you know, very bad. So in my personal opinion, it's important to have at least your personal brand reputation, as well as then how is your employer's reputation.

Joshua: 2:47

A hundred percent. I mean, I think the, the explanation that I usually give when I'm talking to a candidate that has negative pushback on, on a company because of the Not so much the brand, but the community awareness about them, the potential stigma around them. A lot of times I'll try to describe it like Starbucks. You know, when it's a company that's at a certain size, everybody has an opinion. Some people love it, some people hate it. Really, you gotta go there and try it to be able to decide if it's for you or not. So That's usually kind of how I try to describe it on the candidate side, but I think what's important for us as we're in the recruiting space and trying to get passive candidates to talk to potential clients, being able to have as much information on the brand and specifics around that opportunity gives us, you know, a lot more ammo for those conversations. And so a lot of times I know clients would prefer to say, Hey, Hey, Got this director search in this area. This is the census. This is the pay. Get going. And that doesn't really help us as the recruiters to tell a story for a passive candidate who's not actively looking, who needs to know, okay, well, what is the, the brand of the company? What is their, their kind of mantra? What is the culture that you'd be stepping into? I think those are all, you know, I mean, obviously buzzwords, but all very important for That conversation to be able to kind of download to a candidate when you're trying to get them to the table to say, what's the harm in having that initial conversation so that you can find that strikes in candidate that's working for your direct competition right down the road.

Katie: 4:21

Right. Yeah. I feel like it's important for us as recruiters to really get to know that culture. You know, their mission, their vision, their values, you know, if they're growing, if they're not growing, you know, like what, what's essentially happening at the home office that then trickles down right to all the other leadership roles. Yeah, that's a good point.

Gaston: 4:41

Let me ask you this, Katie, from a branding perspective, you're talking about, you know, coming, coming from the top down, who drives like the brand of these long term care communities? Is it the leadership? Is it the staff? Like, who drives the

Katie: 4:57

brand? So, you know how they have the triangle, right? Everything starts at the top, right? So, like, in my opinion, it's actually, like, flipped upside down, where everything at, you know, if we talk about senior living, everything at the community level, all of those positions, really creates that brand for that local reputation. Because you can have a company brand, right? Like, just like, like, you know, we have a firm brand. But inside of the firm, we also have all these other leaders that have their own brand and reputation. So, you know, and like, there's sometimes, you know, leaders at the community level or at, you know, at that are, maybe they feel like, They were burned or wronged in some way, right, from people at corporate that then affects that hyper local reputation in that market, which we hear obviously a lot, you know and I, I do like what you said, Josh, about like, well, you know, it's like Starbucks one size doesn't fit all kind of deal. Like you, you know, you don't know until you start having conversations that you might actually really relate to that leader and do really well there. You know, it's just, you heard on the streets, the word on the streets is. You know, it's not

Joshua: 6:08

good. I mean, I think the brand is where you start and then you try to get a sense of what's the vision for the company. You know, where, where are they going and do I want to be along for the ride? You know, cause that's a big, you know, you know, key point that we try to push with candidates as well to say, yeah, I understand like, you know, this facility, this agency has had issues in the market. I mean, whether you're talking about assisted living, skilled nursing, or home health and hospice. You know, there's offices or companies that have had major problems. And you know, some people don't want to be part of a cleanup group and others are like, I really would enjoy the opportunity to be able to get in and kind of hit restart and make the culture my own and really, you know, redirect the perspective. To being more care focused and, you know, that's something that I would be excited about. I think it's a lot easier to get excited about that whenever you're able to get a taste of the vision that who you'd be reporting to has for that company. So that you're like, okay, I'm not in this alone. There is, you know, yeah, there's some work to be done. But the person I'm reporting to, I'm really confident in the vision that they have for this office or this facility. And so I want to get on board for for that journey. So I think being able to understand, you know, okay, what were you guys at in the market right now? What is the brand you're putting out? What's the brand that you actually conceptually have? And then what's the vision for, for where you're trying to get to? I think those are all helpful things for us as we're going to market with a position and trying to get people engaged. That's all real helpful, you know, talking

Katie: 7:37

points for us. Yeah. I like to tell clients, like, I want to know the really good, the bad and the super ugly, like lay it all out. I don't want any surprises, you know, as I'm talking to clients or candidates, because, you know, the moment you have those surprises, you're like, Oh, you know, like what happened here? You know, oh, there was a bad survey literally three months ago. Why, why did I not know that?

Joshua: 7:58

Yeah. Going into it.

Gaston: 8:00

Yeah. Yeah. So then at the, from a branding perspective at the facility level, you talk about the triangle and how it's flipped upside down from a leadership perspective. What have you seen some strategies that leaders in this space have taken to when they noticed that, that brand at the facility level, certain leaders are not identifying with the brand. Yeah. Like how do leaders in long term care rally the troops to get everyone back on the same message? Have you seen some strategies that leaders use? Yeah. I

Katie: 8:30

mean, I think that at, at the very top, right, that the, the corporate level at the home office level, those, those regionals executives, whatever it might be, if they are feeling the culture and the brand of the company, and they are you Living it through and through. They believe in it. You know, it is their mission. It is their vision. It resonates with them. Then it will go down to the leadership at the community level. Now, if those people don't believe it and don't feel it and don't want to, you know, have it be their day to day life, then it won't, it won't work, right? You have to believe in it, right, to it. To have it work. And I think back to one company I worked for and every morning during standup meetings. It was every team member in the community in this private dining room. Sometimes we'd have to go to the actual dining room because there were so many people that worked there. And every morning we recited the values for the company. We all had them memorized and we all felt it. And we. You know, that was what we did day in and day out, resident care, resident family satisfaction, like customer satisfaction, like all of it, that was the very, very grain into our human being while we showed up at work every single day. And I think, you know, the regionals and the VPs kind of coaching us through of this is our vision, this is our mission, how do you feel about it? And then reciting it every single day, like the Pledge of Allegiance, just made you feel more empowered. And you know, you, you also believed in it too. And if you didn't, then you left. Hm.

Gaston: 10:06

I love that. So,

Joshua: 10:07

yeah. Let me ask you. So

Katie: 10:09

maybe we should start that.

Gaston: 10:13

Like a pledge of allegiance. Josh, you got to write the brand mocks, then you got to say it every morning meeting. What do you think?

Joshua: 10:18

You know, you just got to salute the full spectrum logo and just recite it. And exactly.

Katie: 10:24

We can do the Recruiter 10 commandments every morning. Yeah,

Joshua: 10:27

exactly. There you go. So let me ask, Katie. So I mean, working is a regional director in sales for assisted living. I'm sure you came across liaisons or people that were out in the field marketing that didn't seem like they were, you know, on on the same way. You know, Paige is everybody else. What do you feel like is a good way to correct someone whenever you feel like, hey, you're, you're kind of straying away from the pack. This is the direction we're all going in. And, you know, the reason you're having an issue is you're, you're not in line with these things. What's a good way, do you think, to, to try to correct somebody that's, you know, on your team like that?

Katie: 11:06

Have you ever felt like, you know, sometimes you make a hire and they're just not in the right seat? Like, they're just, they're, they, you know, probably love what they're doing or, or, you know, they love who they're working for, but they don't love what they're doing every day. And I think that comes back with the whole conversation with your teammates and the people that work underneath you of, are you happy? Like, do you still love this? Because if you don't love this, that's okay. Let's find something that, that can work for you. If you do love this, you're just struggling in some key areas. Like, let me help you then. And I think that's that top of mind conversation always with your team. And that also then brings that professional development. You know and that like, almost like empowerment for that team member of like, well, no, I do really like this. It's just, you know, my mom's in the hospital. You might not even know, you know, that they're struggling personally. And so, that's that connection that I think that we sometimes miss because we're so focused on. Other, you know, goals in the organization.

Gaston: 12:04

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. So then from the perspective of brand, you know, there's the company brand, there's your individual brand, there's also the industry brand, right? There's the long-term care industry brand, and I'm curious in senior living and home health and then and hospice and then in skilled nursing, how do we feel the brand as a whole. is perceived to other industries and other verticals. I know when I'm talking to professionals in, in non healthcare verticals, or just even, you know, in, in the acute care setting, for example, you, you know, you say the word skilled nursing and it's like, everyone, you know, steps back and looks and says, Oh my gosh, no, no, no, no, no. Just in terms of, of, of how I guess gritty the business is getting in terms of just. Of what the individuals that are in this space have to deal with day in and day out. It's a very thankless type of environment, especially in skilled nursing. So curious, like leaders in skilled nursing, leaders in senior living and home health, how do you guys feel the brand is being perceived? To the rest of the world. Yeah.

Katie: 13:14

I mean, for, for senior living, senior living kind of like broke out, you know, it was assisted living, right? Before it's like assisted living kind of broke out what, like 30 years ago. And it was still like, everyone's still called it nursing homes. I mean, you look at a community from 30 years ago versus you look at one today, it is apples to oranges. You know, it is so far different than. nursing home, right? And even skilled nursing centers. I mean, they're immaculate. They are beautiful. You know, the, the exercise rooms, the PT rooms, the equipment that they're using, all the different vendor partnerships. And so, I mean, I feel like, you know, the brand is, is changing so slightly to be more positive, but, you know, also. COVID, a lot of stuff and during COVID was out about skilled nursings and senior living communities and even agencies bringing COVID to buildings and all of these things like that. And I think that that obviously did some, some major damage. On, on the long term care industry as a whole, but for the most part, when you take a step back and you look at what all of those people in the communities or in the centers or with the agencies are doing every single day, like you said, Gaston, like it can feel like very thankless, but it is, I mean, critical to our aging population at this point. If we did not have it, what would we all be doing?

Joshua: 14:34

That's 100%. Yeah. I think it's been interesting to see how that has kind of evolved with home health and hospice. I mean, from, I think, later in the process of dealing with the pandemic, there was a big push to get people out of facilities. And so discharging. Skilled nursing discharging patients from hospitals and then putting them out into home health initially that everybody was dried up There's a lot of agencies that that closed because no late liaisons could get into facilities to be able to market And the referrals weren't coming out. And so you you went from this kind of Famine to this, you know feast as it were of all these, you know People that were being discharged out into homes. And so I think that that Has kind of helped with a little bit of the the just awareness and knowledge I mean a lot of part of home health and hospice is still about education, you know You know there's a lot of hospice people that I talk to that are still working on trying to get away from the stigma of hospice being A death sentence and just saying it's a gift. It's it's you know, a an aspect of elevated care, And being able to have those conversations with, with families and educate them is, is an important part of the process. Being able to, you know, receive you know, therapy at home and in, in home health is, can really be a gift as well. And so I think education's been a big part of that. I think there is a I, I think the awareness and the. The stigma around it is slowly changing, but at the same time, the difficulty that we're running into is that there's also a bottleneck in you've got more and more people that there is a need for and, and the, the quality of care isn't necessarily, you know, there across the board, you know, and so the markets either that are, really saturated in that they've got a lot of different agencies, but not, you know, a ton of great clinicians to make that a really challenging, you know, time for, I think the agencies that are looking to try to get themselves set apart. But I think kind of to answer your question post pandemic, I think there's been overall a positive perspective change, but it's definitely still evolving and there's still some. real needs in home health and hospice. And I think the issues that they're running up against now a lot and we could do a whole separate podcast on this is with Medicare changes, CMS guidelines, you know, the PD GM model and what that's looked like. I mean, it's shifting how these agencies are, you know, being able to make payroll, how they're being able to have their, their income and you know, what they're being held accountable to. And so there's going to be continued. You know, growth in those markets over the next, you know, 5 to 10 years, but at the same time, you know, they're getting more and more restricted and how they're able to pay for everything, whether getting reimbursed for and so it's, I think, going to have to continue to evolve. I think there's going to have to be some. Some big shifts in the market and I'm curious to see how that's all going to kind of play out.

Katie: 17:33

Yeah. Yeah. Same. And all of those things that you even talked about, like the Medicare reimbursement and stuff, that's going to affect skilled nursing, you know, and all of it, you know, and so, and then the branding that comes with that. And I was just thinking about when you're talking about, you know, that lack of education to even hospice, you know, I'm forever grateful for hospice. I've had my own personal experiences with hospice, but There is no college degree in long term care, you know, like, there's no like, you, there, you just don't, you, when you go to college and you're going to get, you know, your degree in health administration, sure, long term care is a part of it, a lot more of it is about the hospital system, but, you know, even thinking about people coming into the industry, you know, they don't really know about it unless they've had some kind of maybe personal experience with it or it was on their clinical rotations. Transcribed And they fell in love, you know? So that part is going to get interesting about recruiting.

Gaston: 18:25

Unless you get a degree in What did you get a degree in, Katie? Gerontology.

Katie: 18:30

But like, I

Gaston: 18:31

always knew Not everyone gets

Katie: 18:33

a degree. They don't even have the degree anymore. They closed down that major. Because like, I was one of eight kids that got it. Yeah, kids, students,

Gaston: 18:46

In terms of, in terms of going from, from the company brand to a personal brand, you know, we can talk about really all three verticals, but. Someone that's new into the business that needs to build a brand, let's say on the sale side, right? Customer facing, whether it's a marketer in skilled nursing, whether it's a a liaison in a home health, like you're trying to build a personal brand out in the market. So for someone that's new coming in the business, I mean, do we have any little trips and tips on building a personal brand to start?

Katie: 19:17

I think at least for building your personal brand, it is more about figuring out who you are, to the very core, you know, there's like parts of myself, like I'm a mom, I'm a wife, I'm a sister, you know, all of those things, you know, but I also then work for my company that I love so much, so, and that is a part of me, and I think that at least when you are looking at your own personal brand and who you are, go and talk to other people. Ask for a one on one meeting with other people and how they maybe have worked to develop their own brand. And, there's no right way to do it all, but there's a level of vulnerability to it, obviously. You know, through social media accounts and There's a few friends that I network with on LinkedIn that are so good about, like, doing all these TikToks, and I'm like, I could never do that. Like, I just don't have it in me. But, like, it's, it's cool, and I love watching it. I love seeing it. And so, you know, for me, it's more of just start following the people that I guess you kind of resonate with more, and then, start engaging in that and just kind of putting yourself out there in, in that way. I also think, business development wise of just, Meeting more face to face virtual cup of coffee type of stuff with people helps in your networking and then developing more of your, your personal brand, in my opinion, at least. Love that. Yeah. I mean, I'd love to pivot if you guys are open to it. Okay, so we talked about, we talked about branding, right? And the culture from the employer brand, the, the employee brand and then how it all trickles down to all of your team members when it comes to the culture and the brand of the whole company. You know, there's another part of this, which is really more of that in recruiting, at least, you know, we're fueled by data. And KPIs, and analytics, and how that we know that we're being successful, right? For, for recruiters, right? It's like, well, I made a placement. Great, that means you're successful. But what about all those other things that happened before the placement? So, I guess, Gasson, I am curious on, your opinion on, Data

Gaston: 21:24

generally good question, I think, and this is, you know, maybe something for all you data nerds out there because I'm definitely a data nerd proudly on my shoulder or wherever you wear a badge. I don't know where you wear a badge on your chest. I looked at my shoulder and I said, yeah, I mean, you know, KPIs are, I feel like KPIs are just a part of life. And I think, you know, a lot of times you maybe don't even know that you're looking at a KPI, but at the end of the day, like they just run the world. And for me, like they run my life and, you know, a simple KPI that a lot of times that we don't think about is, you know, the dashboard on your car. Right. And the dashboard has a speedometer to figure out how fast you're going. It's got the fuel gauge. My car doesn't have that. Is it not? I'm just kidding. Or do you have the Tesla? Does the Tesla not have that? No. No, I'm just kidding. I actually don't think, I don't know if the Tesla has that.

Katie: 22:22

I'm just kidding. My car has a speedometer. I just don't look at it. But yes, continue.

Gaston: 22:26

Well, I guess you kind of, you kind of know it's there and you have to look at it because if not, like at some point your car would stop working and it wouldn't go, right? Yeah. Yeah. Like especially gas. 100 percent 100%. So I think, you know, dashboards and looking at numbers and looking at data through metrics actually drive most of, of, you know, our lives, and especially as we're trying to get results. And I think recruitment as a whole is a strategy, right? It's it there's not one thing, it's a full strategy, and to know how your strategy is doing. You have to measure it and you can't measure it if you don't track it, right? And no one loves tracking everything, but at the end of the day. You can't measure it if you don't track it. So I think in terms of, of just long term care in terms of recruitment, I look at recruitment in really three different buckets. There's recruitment in terms of executive search, right? So you have executive search recruiters like Full Spectrum that are headhunters, that are an extension of your team that are out in the market, headhunting, change making talent. That's one type of strategy. There's another type of strategy that is your own internal talent acquisition team that is on the phones talking to candidates posting indeed job ads, trying to do the internal recruitment efforts for your organization. One can call it a corporate recruiter. That's one strategy. There's another strategy that actually comes from what Katie was talking about in terms of just company branding as leaders in the organization do their own recruitment. Not through recruiters, not through the corporate recruiting, but just through their own networking within the space. So really, I try and break it down to recruitment strategies. There's really, there's three of them. And what I would want to do is there's another episode that we're going to run that really just talks about some of the actual KPIs inside of each of those strategies. For example, in executive search, right? If you are an organization that is maybe interviewing an executive search firm, maybe a KPI that you would want to know is what is their submission to placement ratio? How many qualified candidates do they need to put in your inbox? Typically, before I hire happens, that's a pretty solid number to look at. Why? Because it, it, you know, it underscores efficiency. Are you having to talk to 10 candidates before you end up hiring one candidate from that agency? Or even interviewing them? Or even interviewing them, right? We're going to run a different podcast on specific metrics in all of those areas, but the beauty where we're at, I would say in 2024 is You can use and leverage technology for a lot of this from a metric tracking perspective from a strategy perspective. You know, we've got some pretty beautiful systems out there that can help organizations, whether it's personally or holistically track a lot of their data. So That's my little data nerd piece, and I put my badge on my chest, not on my shoulder, is that what it is? Yeah,

Katie: 25:33

not on your shoulder. You know, I like to joke with you a lot about all this data and how you're such a nerd and all that stuff, but like, it really does, you know, fuel the way that you kind of have your trajectory, even for the day, the week, the month, or even the next month, you know, all of that. So I guess my question to you is, do you feel like at any form, KPIs can also be pretty fluid? Maybe that's not the right word, more so,what I do today is gonna help me for tomorrow, and what I do this month is gonna, help me for next month, right? So, do you see yourself, even personally, kind of manipulating a little bit of your KPIs as you go, or at least your goals? To get to those metrics change at all. Do you look at that personally?

Gaston: 26:13

Yeah, I do. I think it, I think it all comes down to what result you want. And typically you build KPIs backwards based on the efforts today from the result in the future. So absolutely. There's a lot of tinkering because at the end of the day, goals change, right? And certain results you want change. So you want to have what I like to call a benchmark. Where in certain categories that you've decided these are the key metrics that are going to drive my success or my business or my organization's effort. You want to benchmark those and then build systems in place to be able to to consistently track those on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. Because as it goes in saying with any type of sales organization, right? And just anything in general, a bad month, I'm sorry, a bad day. Leads to a bad week, which leads to a bad month, which leads to a bad year. And no one wants that. So it's, it's definitely important to do what you're saying.

Katie: 27:09

Yeah. I also think it's also interesting with just even your background in real estate too, you know how it, I feel like it really translates into recruiting in that, if you're not out there marketing yourself for real estate, like you're not going to pick up houses. I'm not a realtor, but you know, but like, I think that that also, you know, helps put into that perspective too. Yeah.

Joshua: 27:32

I mean, it's a great way to be able to quickly diagnose like what's, what's not working. You know what I mean? You know, there's a You know, early on in my recruiting journey, I know it's just like, you'd have a conversation with one of your leaders whenever you're not tracking these things and you're like, well, yeah, I mean, you just got to start making more placements, you know, you just got to, you just got to do it. And it's like, okay, where am I missing the mark, you know? And so being able to track about, you know, for, for us, what that would look like is like you're saying, Gaston, you know, how many candidates submissions have you done, you know, how many phone calls did you have to make to be able to get those submissions? Okay, well, what do we need to do in this process to be able to change? Do you need to be on the phone more? Do we need to, you know, be sourcing different names? You know, are we, you know, just kind of banging our heads against the wall? Like, are we, you know, not able to, to get the right people on the phone? Like, you know, what, what's the breakdown? And you know, KPIs are so amazing and being able to diagnose that. And something I think that You know, we share with with clients that I think is really helpful and being able to give them an understanding about what that market is, is like, especially when you're talking to somebody that's coming from a national headquarters or somebody that's, you know, regional, we're seeing the West Coast, you know, they may not be really specific or have some knowledge around. You know, the Bakersfield market and, you know, like how many executive directors are available in Bakersfield, you know, but if you can say, hey, we've identified this many, we've spoken to this many and, you know, we've gotten these two names submitted to you. That's going to be the best we're going to find in Bakersfield without looking for a relocation candidate. And so if you don't like these two names, we should pivot our search. So I think being able to like, speak to that is is. Yeah, really, really crucial. And I'm sure, you know, a lot of people that are working in long term care are familiar with KPIs on the clinical front, on the resident front and, you know, things along those lines. But I think being able to look at it more so from a hiring perspective, I think is going to get the right people in the right seats.

Katie: 29:33

Yeah. I love that. Yeah. And when I think about even talking to, like, sales directors, right? I'm like, what's your conversion? What's your, you know, tour to move in? And, I knew that, right, when I was a sales director. And so it's like, that's, like, the ultimate KPI is, like, this is how many tours in a month I need to have to have a move in, you know? And so I, I think about that all the time. And like you were saying, like, even our cars, you know, that's our KPI, like, that drives our decisions, right? Every time moving forward. And I think that that's a really great analogy and great way to put it. You know, I'm thinking about even to, right, we're in all three verticals, skilled nursing, home health and hospice, senior living, you know, how can we tailor recruitment for different roles within long term care? You know, like the one size doesn't fit all mentality, but also, there's so many different skill sets across all three of these that could definitely overlap, right, and mesh into one another.

Joshua: 30:27

For sure, for sure. I think being able to identify, okay, what are the skill sets that we're looking for in this role? What are the, you know, what are the essential skills? What are the soft skills that are, are important? I think is going to be more and more a part of the conversation. Like we touched on earlier, I mean, you know, COVID really changed the game and, and long term care. A part of that is that on the clinical front. And you saw a lot of nurses going into vaccine clinics, which were paying exceptionally well to back in, you know, acute care. And so you have this exodus of clinicians from, you know, long term care. And so now it's even harder to get these roles filled, much less find somebody that's an ideal candidate for those roles. So, I mean, it begs the question, you know, as these markets are all growing, you've got more people growing older, retiring and needing care in SNF Hamilton Hospice, being able to have more flexibility in who the clients are open to seeing, I think is going to be really helpful, especially for roles that, you know, obviously don't require that, you know, licensure, you know, that you would need as an RN license or NHA license or things along those lines, RCFE. Bye. Bye. But being able to have some flexibility with someone who's familiar with long term care market and hey, you know, this person's got the soft skills that we need for a leader in this role. And I can outside of the box perceptively see how they would be able to perform well. As a operations leader as a sales leader and being able to see, you know, I think that this is somebody that would be worth spending some time on. I think that's going to be more and more a part of the conversation as we're continuing on. And, you know, we see it right now a lot in areas that are like the Southeast, you know, people have, you know, signed agreements that they're not going to be able to make a move. And, you know, there's certificate of needs areas that are more and more challenging to be able to see how many hospices do we have open? How many are we able to open? It's a tighter market to be able to pull from. And so in those areas, whenever somebody has signed and I compete when somebody you know, is in a certificate of need state, it is An area that clients are more open to. Okay, well, we can pull somebody from pharma. We can pull somebody from assisted living that might be able to move into hospitals because we've got those hospital relationships, you know, being able to, you know, make those moves and changes and being able to think outside of the box we see happening out of necessity in some of those tighter markets right now. And I think that that's going to be continuing across the country. And something that's going to be necessary as people are trying to make sure they're getting the right person in the right seat.

Katie: 33:09

Yeah. Yeah. I like that. What you just said about even more so that strategic development right up at the leadership. You know, that's like, wait a minute, we got to pivot, you know, like, this is not going to be successful here and what can be, you know, what other industries or what other, you know, verticals, right, could we consider and talk about, you know, I think the other thing you said is do we even have the right person in the right seat, could this person morph into a different kind of role given training and education and a different kind of plan, to support other positions too.

Gaston: 33:40

I definitely I definitely think it's it's certain verticals be at home health be at skilled nursing be at senior living are harder to, I guess, cross pollinate than others, because you've got a, you know, like, for example, in skilled nursing, you have a needs based type of sale. And in senior living, you have a service base. Type of sale. It's a much different. So, I mean, I'm curious what the team is seeing in the market. Like, is there one industry that we feel like is pivoting more, pulling more from another vertical at this time?

Katie: 34:15

Yeah. I mean, senior living, hospitality, definitely. You see it a lot. You know, senior living is like you said, it is you're selling a lifestyle. You know, rather than skilled nursing, it's I need this rehabilitation at this moment right now, you know, so it's very, it's very different and I think that, as we even look at other candidates and, you know, that are coming in, like even, you know, remember that real estate agent? That we placed like phenomenal person and doing very well, you know, so it is just, it's I think that there's very specific skill sets. It's just then do they have the culture that matches and the why of why they want to be in that specific industry. Does that all make sense? You know, it's matchmaking.

Joshua: 35:01

For sure. Yeah. I mean, the way I'm seeing it right now. I mean, it is more so coming over from from sniff and clients are open to candidates that have some experience with home health or hospice. So someone that's a director of you. Nursing and SNF or, you know, an ADON that has previously worked as an RN case manager in home health and hospice especially for a significant amount of time. I've got someone interviewing right now that is was a clinical supervisor for a large home health agency 10 years ago. And she's been working, she's worked some in assisted living and she's over the past five years has been a DON and SNF. And, you know, they're looking at her for a director role for a home health and a really tight market. You know, there's just not a whole lot of strike zone names that you're going to pull in that market to be able to, you know, say, okay, well, we've got someone that's your direct competition down the street when there's only, you know, I mean, even in metro markets, depending on what, you know, commuting looks like, you know, there's only going to be a handful of places where you're going to have someone that's commutable distance. That's that's in that exact role. So, I mean, that's who we're going to be sharpshooting and targeting as the bullseye for every search. Bye. You know, you get to a point of, hey, there's a need in getting this position filled, and we've worked through, that inner circle, we need to start, you know, expanding out what our our target looks like. Otherwise, you know, we're going to be sitting on this search for months and months and, you know, you guys could have had a really successful candidate in this role, you know, if we were open to a, you know, somebody that might need a little bit more guidance in one area, but really checks a lot of

Katie: 36:35

boxes otherwise. I agree completely. And I think back to what you were saying about that individual that had done that position ten years ago. It's like, don't discount that ten years ago. You know, they still have the skills. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Keep it going.

Joshua: 36:53

Yeah. Yeah. They know the nature of what that, that role looks like. Obviously there's been a ton of changes and, you know, the Medicare star ratings and, you know, all these things. I mean, there's been a ton of changes in the industry, but they know the dynamic of it. They know what the urgency is. They know the questions to ask and, you know, being, whether you were doing it when it was paper charting and now you're looking at it and, you know, doing EMR and doing Oasis charting. You know, I mean, it's a lot of the same questions that are on those forms, you know, I mean, so being able to have familiarity with that, you know, I think is is something that goes a long way and, you know, there's people that are, are more trainable than others, you know, so I think having that conversation, if somebody is willing to learn I think not counting them out is, is going to be, you know, going a long way.

Katie: 37:40

Yeah. Well, I'm really happy we did this. Thank you all for listening to the first episode of the Recruitment Roundtable in Long Term Care. We are excited to, record episodes more frequently and can't wait for you to join us on the journey of recruiting in long term care. And like Josh said if we call, you should probably answer. Right?

Joshua: 38:04

100%. All

Katie: 38:05

right. Thanks so much, everyone. Have a wonderful week. Bye. Bye. Take care.