Four Ways for Caregivers to Increase Their Pay Rate (Kimberly Jones)

When a caregiver asks, “when do I get my next raise?”, do you have a good answer? Kimberly Jones, Vice President of Help at Home Senior Care, shares the transparent four-part compensation framework her team uses to reward skill development, specialized training, long-term commitment, and leadership. We break down hands-on competency evaluations, dementia skill assessments, certification pathways, longevity bonuses, and why clear career progression has helped the agency retain caregivers for many years. Kimberly also shares the retention data behind the program, including why 66% of their caregivers have stayed for more than two years and why their highest-paid caregivers average 6.5 years with the company.

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min

Jul 21, 2026

Four Ways for Caregivers to Increase Their Pay Rate (Kimberly Jones)

Miriam Allred (00:10)
Hey everyone, welcome back to the Home Care Strategy Lab. I'm your host, Miriam Allred. It's great to be back in the lab with all of you. Thanks for listening and thanks for tuning in week after week. It's a pleasure to be in your ear, and I hope you are getting lots of insights and answers and ideas from this podcast. And I always say this, but more than anything, I hope you're implementing what you're learning and taking it back to the team and putting in the work. So thanks again for being here. Today in the lab, I am joined by Kimberly Jones. She is the vice president at Help at Home Senior Care.

In California and Nevada. Kimberly, welcome to the show.

Kimberly Jones (00:44)
Thank you. Thanks for having me, Miriam. I have just always enjoyed listening to your podcasts. You've been with a couple different podcasts and I've learned a ton from the guests. So I'm really honored to be here with you. Yeah.

Miriam Allred (00:56)
I love these full circle moments when you've been listening for lots of years and now here you are in the hot seat to share your expertise. I think of you as kind of one of those like under wraps operators that's very much just like heads down doing the work, having a lot of success and definitely walk the walk, but don't get maybe a public stage to talk the talk. And I'm glad I've gotten you to to step up and join me on the show.

Kimberly Jones (01:21)
Thank you. And I love our topic because really my passion as much as I love seniors, my real passion is that people love what they do and have a great place to go to work every day. And so that's what the culture is that we try to create for our staff, but really for our caregivers as well.

Miriam Allred (01:39)
Yeah, we're gonna get into talking about how you all structure pay rate increases for your caregivers. You have kind of like a formulaic approach and it's very straightforward, but it's helps you retain your caregivers for exceptionally long amounts of time. And so we're gonna unpack all of that and you're graciously gonna share kind of the nuances of your program, which is amazing. Before we get into that, let's have you introduce yourself briefly, talk a little bit about kind of your professional history and then also your family life and then getting into this business about ten years ago.

Kimberly Jones (02:07)
Sure. well my career in my twenties, I was with a office staffing company, temporary help company. And I started there doing staffing. And back in the eighties, you were just using a file folder and applications and orders. It's very different than what we do today, but it's basically the same kind of concept that you're finding places for people to work. And so I ended up with that company having the top office there, there in my twenties.

I just really enjoyed doing that type of work and ended up being the marketing director for the company and was with them for about seven years and I stopped and raised my family. And so I have four girls and I homeschooled them. So I was home for about 25 years. And then I was wondering, what am I going to do now? Do you just go back into the workforce and say, hey, this is what I did after this break? But I wouldn't change it for the world. I'm so glad that I spent that time home with my girls.

But I found out about Help at Home. I met Steve, who's the president of Help at Home, and it was kind of struggling at that point in the history, and they were looking for someone to come in and do staffing. And I said, Well, you know what, I can do that for you, but let me tell you about what I have done and what my philosophy is with it. And he took a chance with me, and it has been great. So I started here at Help at Home doing staffing and then became the operations manager and then eventually the vice president for help at home. But a lot of the things apply.

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Miriam Allred (03:50)
That's what I was gonna ask.

You know, thirty years ago versus today, are there really the fundamentals of staffing and of scheduling and kinda like that HR piece? Do you feel like it's a lot of fundamentals that are universal?

Kimberly Jones (04:02)
absolutely. I think that people know when you respect them.

And when you're looking out for the best for them and then you treat them with warmth and kindness, I mean, even now I'll be told by people on our team like it's really hard to interact with a caregiver unless you're texting them. And that's really hard and I know that makes me sound like a boomer, but you know, I re I just think fundamentally people are human beings and they and I and I think we're learning things, we're learning ways to interact through

Text. but important conversations I think I always encourage the staff. You need to pick up a phone and have an important conversation so that the tone and all the things that are you're wanting to say really come across in the way that you want to and that communication piece is happening.

Miriam Allred (04:53)
And the pendulum has swung so far that there's too much technology. And I think people actually crave conversations. And when someone does call you and have a conversation, it feels out of the norm and makes you think twice, but also feels like really personal and genuine. And so I think, you know, we're trying to actually like bring the pendulum back a little bit and have more conversations and have more of that human touch.

Kimberly Jones (05:15)
Right. Things like personal notes. I mean, do people really get tired of getting a personal note in their mail? I don't think so.

Miriam Allred (05:21)
I don't think so either. So you've shared a few details about help at home, but share share a few more. The company's about twenty two years old. You've been involved for about ten. Talk a little bit more about just some of the context of the company, how many offices, how many office staff, payers, hours, et cetera.

Kimberly Jones (05:28)
Right. Yes. Absolutely. So Help at Home has been here in Auburn since 2004, so about 22 years. And we've actually been awarded best in home care in Auburn for twelve years. And right after I started, we got the first of our best place to work in Auburn. So we have been awarded best place to work in Auburn for the last eight years. And we started a Nevada location, so it's in Reno, and that was about four years ago and shortly after we started the Santa Rosa location. We do primarily private pay. We've been doing VA since 2008, long-term care. So those would be our major payer sources.

Miriam Allred (06:23)
Okay. And did you say how many how many locations? Is it kind of the the three primary offices?

Kimberly Jones (06:28)
Right, so it's the three locations with pretty large territories, but the three locations, we have close to three hundred caregivers that are providing care, and then we have about twenty-two office staff.

Miriam Allred (06:42)
Okay. And you are the vice president. Talk a little bit about your purview. You know, every organization's structured a little bit different and what you kind of oversee. Obviously staffing is kind of like your wheelhouse. Is that take up the majority of your time today? Or are you also thinking about operations and the clinical side as well?

Kimberly Jones (07:02)
So at this point I would say it really is taking a look at all of the pieces working together. I have three incredible managers that oversee. we have kind of a different structure. It's not like a branch manager, but managers that take care of the staffing, business development, and finance, and they are so incredibly good and competent and so I would say it's not just in staffing that

That I've involved, it really is taking a look at all of the things working together. We recently put a document together of what the leadership team each was responsible for, and the biggest thing is the culture of the company is that I'm looking at is that that's maintained no matter how large we get, whether you're a client or a caregiver, that that same culture that we've always had from the beginning stays in intact.

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