Miriam Allred (00:00)
Welcome back to the Home Care Strategy Lab. I'm your host Miriam Allred. It's great to be back with all of you again this week. Today in the lab, I'm joined by Louis Frank, the CRO at Activated Insights. Louis, welcome to the show.
Louie Frank (00:14)
Awesome. Thanks for having me, Miriam.
Miriam Allred (00:16)
Let's start with a personal introduction. Some people may know you. You've been on webinars, you've been at events, conferences and things, but you might be a new face or voice to some of our listeners. So ⁓ introduce yourself, tell everyone a little bit about your personal and professional background.
Louie Frank (00:31)
Sure, yes. So like Maryam said, Louis Frank, Chief Revenue Officer at Activated Insights. Many of you might be more familiar with Home Care Pulse. We rebranded about a year and a half ago or so underneath the brand name of Activated Insights. I've been here two years. based out of a little bit north of St. Paul, Minnesota. And just really enjoyed my first two years being in the home care space. Previously, I was in revenue cycle management ⁓ serving
also post-acute providers, but generally on like the home health hospice side of things. And then most recently I was working for payments for nonprofits, so churches and schools, and really have enjoyed my time coming back into the healthcare space. And then personally, like I said, I live in Minnesota. I have two kids that are very active in sports. ⁓ I coach them in basketball, and that's where we spend most of our nights and weekends doing and a real passion of mine of spending time with the kids, but a lot of time with sports.
Miriam Allred (01:34)
Awesome. Awesome. Well, thanks for sharing all of that. I think most people know that I was at home care pulse, previously. That's actually where I got my start in home care. but it's been several years since I've been there. So we didn't actually overlap, but, ⁓ excited to learn from you and have you on home care pulse and activated insights have gone through a lot of changes. Like you said, not just the rebrand alone, but have, brought on a lot of companies and products and services. And so, you recently shared a couple of statistics with me from this year's benchmarking report. And a couple of things that stood out to me were around ⁓ turnover. You know, that's one of the things that we talk a lot about. It's just like employee churn, but more importantly than that, just some of the hiring funnel problems or issues and data points that we have observed this past year. And so that's what I want to dive into today is specifically like the mid funnel.
we talk a lot about just the hiring funnel in general, and there's kind of top funnel, mid funnel, bottom of funnel. And you've identified some of the statistics that I think are interesting in that mid funnel. So that's where I want to like dissect today is what you all are seeing in that mid funnel. And hopefully you can share, yeah, some data points, some KPIs that people may or may not be thinking about. And then also, what agencies are doing well and where there's room for improvement for these agencies when it comes to that mid funnel. So.
Before we get into that, I think a lot of people are familiar with Activated Insights, but just share a little bit about kind of your take on Activated Insights vantage point when it comes to just like workforce in general and workforce analytics specifically.
Louie Frank (03:10)
Yeah, thanks, Miriam. And also the alumni of Home Care Pulse I know you were involved in benchmark report too. So great to have somebody with your type of expertise that's familiar with what we're talking about, the depth of what you're talking about too. in terms of our view of workforce ⁓ analytics, obviously the workforce being such a huge component of what these agencies are trying to deliver as it relates to better quality of care, but also ⁓ just the sheer volume.
of our aging demographic and the volume that's coming into them of having enough workforce to be able to those needs. So our point of view on that is really trying to ⁓ recruit, train, and retain that workforce in the most effective and efficient way possible with allowing you to get insights along the way, try to make your process better not only for yourself internally, but also for those applicants and really create a real engaged workforce that feels motivated
about the work they're doing and connected to the mission that your agency is doing in the community.
Miriam Allred (04:14)
so today we're going to focus primarily on recruit. Obviously those three things that you all tackle go hand in hand. They all work together, but I want to focus on this recruit aspect of your point of view. Let's share the data points that you shared with me around where turnover was this past year.
Can you go ahead and share what those were and why those are interesting?
Louie Frank (04:38)
So in 2024, we saw a 75 % turnover rate, which is actually positive compared to the prior year, And
Some of the things that we're attributing to that based on what we're finding from benchmark report that the respondents are attributing those to are referral programs, ⁓ stronger employee alignment with the mission, which we see as a really positive thing. We know that referral programs are such a big driver of bringing in
Team members are gonna stay longer once they have kind of a trusted friend, if you will, inside the agency. And then the agency's doing a better job of sharing what their mission is, right? And be able to have that alignment with the team from top to bottom is gonna have a much better impact. So I think that's a real positive sign of how agencies are taking some of this data and translating that into stronger staff retention.
Miriam Allred (05:34)
That's super interesting to make sure I understand that is agency reported. Those are things that they have reported as improvements that they've made. Okay. Yeah, I think that's interesting. we've monitored turnover closely through activated insights, home care pulse the last 15 years, and it's just so interesting. Oftentimes it's kind of marginal changes year over year, but
Louie Frank (05:41)
Right. Yes. Yep.
Miriam Allred (05:56)
⁓ A drop in turnover is always a good thing. You know, we'll take that win wherever we can get it. So, so down from about 79 % to 75%. So again, a marginal, marginal drop, but still means something. And so you were just saying that agencies have reported, recognition programs, as being maybe the top reason. And also that's interesting around like mission and culture alignment. what are your thoughts on that? You think agencies are just focusing more on culture and on mission and vision and being able to communicate that to applicants.
Louie Frank (06:27)
Yeah, well, just a quick clarification. Referral programs is what they had shared with us. like employee referral programs of getting, you know, their staff to refer other other team members. Hopefully recognition is a part of that. That didn't show up in terms of specific recognition. But in terms of the mission side of things, something that we've been trying to be a little bit more dogmatic about, whether it's in webinars or podcasts like this, is you guys have an incredible story to tell, right? In terms of what you guys are doing in the community and be able to
⁓ help an older demographic and the impact that it's having on those lives. Right. I've seen some franchises just do an incredible job of telling that story through video, right? Of what that person means coming in to their home every week or whatever that cadence is. And just sort of what might be viewed as kind of minimal effort has such a big impact on them, right? It's changing their garbage is changing their laundry, whatever it might be of what a relief it is to them or an impact it makes to their day-to-day life.
and be able to tell that story to other people, whether it's future job applicants that you're looking for or even other clients, right? In terms of the impact that you're having in the community and just what a benefit that is. So be able to feel confident about it. You have a great story to tell and then share it, right? Be able to tell that story, I think is a great thing.
