National Church Residences

National Church Residences is an innovative and forward-thinking provider of caregiving services to seniors, employing hundreds of caregivers throughout the US.

National Church Residences is bracing for the impact of the “Silver Tsunami”—the increasing number of senior citizens needing care—by growing their caregiving program. Their original ask of us, “How do we recruit more caregivers?” quickly evolved. After digging in, we learned that a large percentage of caregivers quit within the first 90 days of employment—a huge cost for the organization that leaves seniors without care.

What happens in those first 90 days that makes caregivers quit?

By mapping the caregiver hiring journey in a Service Map, we identified knowledge gaps in the caregiver’s experience that we needed to explore further in our focus groups.

Our focus groups consisted of employees in multiple different roles—caregivers, hiring managers, recruiters, and trainers—to gain a more holistic view of the caregiver hiring process.

The research revealed 17 unique opportunities for improvement within the caregiver hiring journey.

Research revealed misaligned expectations about the difficult realities of a caregiving job. Caregivers felt like they weren’t being prepped for this wake up call before it was too late.

Additionally, caregivers felt that the hiring process was overwhelming, unapproachable, and they felt unsupported throughout.

The future is focused on empowering caregivers to provide seniors with quality care.

Our final deliverable consisted of a roadmap of seven initiatives—ranging from adjusting internal processes to building digital products—all focused on addressing the opportunities found in our focus groups. Through this project, we were able to identify how issues throughout the caregiver journey had a deeper impact on the organization as a whole. National Church Residences will use this deliverable to align other key stakeholders on steps forward.

ZoCo team members were professional, knowledgeable and passionate about their partnership and work with National Church Residences and the Caregiver Journey. Through focus groups and analysis, we were able to identify action items to improve the caregiver and patient experience in key areas. We appreciate the collaboration and engagement with ZoCo throughout this process!

Stacey Gates, Director of Recruiting and Compensation