MissionCare Collective recently caught up with Jennifer Ensminger, Owner of BrightStar Care of Lane County to discuss how they're building a more stable and efficient workforce. She shared how they've increased their retention rate and are inspiring their caregivers to pick up more shifts, clock in on-time, and increase their hours week to week.

Here is the full transcript.

"Hello, I'm Jennifer Ensminger from Bright Star Care of Lane County. We've been using Reaching for the Stars since the get go. A couple of the reasons why I like it as an owner is that it creates instant connections with all of my employees. And I like the feeling of being connected to them on a positive communication platform where we can share new information or updates on information and they can share updates with each other or back with us.

So Reaching for the Stars. Our program is very much part of the culture for the field, they expect to be mentioned every now and then. They're thanked for clocking in on time, for reporting safety concerns, or for picking up extra shifts. They like earning star points to do fun things with. I think the culture in our office is very much appreciative of this platform because we can thank the field employees for doing specific things pertaining to our area, like nurses, rewarding for safety concern reporting, and schedulers reporting for updates on clients. I think the back and forth feedback, the monthly surveys that we send out to ask them how they're doing and how they're perceiving us. We get that feedback as well as the quarterly survey that we give them for their quarterly review. It lets them know how we see them. And I think that's really important for that transparency. That's good for overall employee retention, because our retention is really high

We've seen, some improvements in the overall activity of our field employees. From their willingness to pick up shifts, to do things on time, like checking in or clocking in on time, as well as increasing their hours from week to week because we reward the more they get more star star points each week depending on how many hours they worked. I think it's important for employee retention. We saw a spike in a retention when we first implemented the program, about a couple of months after, once everybody understood how to use it and what they would get out of it. We've been able to maintain that high retention rate as we continue to use reaching for the stars."