Caregiver Pathways 2026: Training the Next 10,000 Home Care Professionals

Caregiver Pathways 2026: Training the Next 10,000 Home Care Professionals

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Welcome to CareSmartz360 On Air, a home care podcast. I’m Erin Cahill, Sales Account Executive at CareSmartz360. Today we dig into how home care agencies can grow smarter, stronger, and more human. We’re joined by Dr. Gregorio Sanchez Jr., Ph.D. franchise owner of Home Instead Pasadena who will shed light on how to train the next 10,000 home care professionals by 2026. From a chemistry lab at University of Southern California to one of California’s leading person- centered care operations, Greg blends

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science, heart, and innovation in home care. In this episode, training pathways, workforce challenges, and what platinum standard care really means. Welcome to the podcast, Greg. >> Thank you so much, Erin, for the invitation. and I really appreciate the opportunity to talk on this subject. >> Absolutely. So, we’ll jump right into the first question here. What are the most effective ways an agency can map out a caregiver career pathway today? You know, I think the uh best way that

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an agency can um kind of map out what a career path looks like by first taking a moment to step back and look at their operations as well as their client base. And uh you know sometimes uh it’s great that you know everyone’s talking about career path career path uh but you have to be able to go ahead and put um there needs to be a point where the rubber meets the road. It’s nice to talk about but you really need to go ahead and have something uh tangible for caregivers to understand and to look

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forward to. So, uh, making sure that you’re from an operational standpoint that you have case management or even lead caregivers that can assist with mentoring. Uh, looking at uh, or at least someone who can maybe, and it’s hard to say, but, you know, with a smaller organization, you may want to see if someone can take this on um, you know, as a stretch goal uh, to help develop um, a program. And start small. Don’t try to be overly ambitious. Let’s identify the caregivers

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in your caregiver pool and determine which ones are really looking for opportunities for advancement. Um, and then kind of go from there. I think that’s kind of the best advice that one can give when it comes to sharing your vision with your caregiving team and or utilizing that from a recruitment standpoint. Um, you know, I would be transparent that you know we are definitely building towards a uh a robust career path process. uh we are in the early stages and look to our caregivers to help us define and kind of

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develop what a career path in caregiving would look like. >> That’s great advice. And which three practices most reliably improve caregiver retention? >> You know, it’s um three practices. So practice number one is when we talk about uh case management, client care coordination, really ensuring that that is a true um position that individuals can lean on. Um I mean if we think about it, caregiving uh in home care is like no other industry. I mean, you know, usually you have a centralized location

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where people go, if they have questions, they can just turn to a colleague or to a supervisor. Um, and but when you are a caregiving agency doing inhome support, um, that’s not there. We like to say, you know, call the office, call the office, but, you know, a lot of folks don’t feel that that’s enough. And if you have a case manager or client care coordinator that they can build a relationship with um then that will be very uh helpful for retention because then they can they feel connected and I

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think that’s kind of the key thing. Um I have seen other agencies that try to leverage schedulers to do this, but um the relationship between a schedule and a caregiver is completely different than the relationship between a client care coordinator or case manager and a caregiver. And um to attempt to do that with scheduling doesn’t always work in uh cuz there’s more of a um it it’s more that relationship tends to be more uh transactional uh be you know be engaged uh you know

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follow up with the office and I will give you more hours. Uh that kind of taints the relationship that you’re trying to establish. and client care is specifically geared towards managing cases and having true understanding of what’s going on in the client’s home. And I think that’s where the relationship uh with the caregiver is better suited for that perspective. The second thing when it comes to retention is really about ensuring that caregivers feel valued and identifying what that

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population looks to for value. Um depending on the market, it could be financial, it could be uh just the established relationship with existing clients, the training. It really is subjective uh in the eyes of that particular population. So it’s not one of those one uh things that kind of fixes everything. Uh so it’s but it’s really making sure that the leadership of your organization has a pulse on what’s truly going on in their market and can leverage that to help develop a more robust um retention

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program. Uh so that’s the other one. The third one really is just and probably should be kind of the first one. Um and that’s communication. Everyone talks about communication. We have it, you know, we talk a lot. Um, you may talk a lot, but communication is also an active listening component that we need to always remember. Um, if you look at a lot of the most recent benchmark studies that have come out, communication tends to be the biggest challenge for a lot of homecare agencies. uh we even as a larger organization

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delivering about 30,000 hours of care a month um still have those problems and it’s really it takes a concerted effort to establish uh appropriate policies and procedures and best practices when it comes to communication because when we look at um you know one of the main reasons why people leave uh it a lot of folks just look at the s superficial uh reason why someone leaves whether that’s oh well I wasn’t getting hours I wasn’t uh you know I I didn’t feel like I was being heard if we drill down to

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the root cause of those issues it tends to be predominantly poor communication practices >> absolutely and Greg how can agencies leverage data or science-based approaches to accelerate caregiver readiness is >> it’s always a great question because you know with uh the uh you know everyone talking about AI and data and all this stuff it’s like you know these are all the buzzwords I think we need to take a step back to make sure that um you know not every owner uh or every operator has

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uh you know a scientific background or has a you know um a background where data really drives decision making a lot of folks get in this industry because of the heart aspect and really wanting to make a difference in their local community. I think when we look at how can we leverage data effectively start small um with simple KPIs um understanding KPIs in your business is are really important doesn’t have to be you know a list of 20 pick your top three um one could be overtime if you are it really kind of depends on what

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your circumstance is so like for us when we have you know a large operation with you know on average 10 call outs a day overtime tends to be one of the things that we look at uh as a as a key performance indicator KPI uh and that helps us evaluate effective care caregiver utilization because that’s another KPI that we look at in our uh does our pool of caregivers um with their existing desired hours and our existing client hour needs are we matching and meeting that? That’s a great kind of indicator to help you

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understand whether you can um be bringing on more people quickly or you can be more selective based on needs. So, you know, start off with some small ones that are very relevant. Um some folks have issues with receivables. So, maybe creating a key performance indicator uh around billing practices. what I mean how much are you how most of us are paying you know uh have payroll I mean we have payroll weekly so you know it’s always one of those robbing Peter to pay Paul things so making sure that

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you have visibility to receivables is really important so again it’s really based off of um data and the use of technology is really going to be based off of what that particular operator needs assistance with And Greg, from your experience with state or federal training grants, what one piece of advice should agencies know about before applying? >> Oh my gosh. Uh, first of all, no, I know they exist. I think that’s kind of the key thing. Most people don’t realize that there are so many um opportunities

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for funding sources, whether it be specifically for workforce development or uh client outcomes that you can apply for. Start off very simply by understanding what your unemployment department does. In the state of California, everyone complains about EDDD, the uh you know the unemployment or the employment development uh department. But when we um move the the curtain out of the way and we start looking at what is being offered, they have so many on the job training programs where you can leverage your

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existing training programs and bringing on new people into the industry. You could potentially have half of that cost paid for by the state depending on, you know, the types of programs. Um, if you’re looking to upskill your individuals in the office, um, a lot of unemployment departments throughout the country have various, uh, funds available. So, start there, uh, because they’re easy to do. Um, unless you have a another thing to look at when it comes to identifying funding sources is work

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with your nonprofit partners. Your nonprofit partners uh really can help by uh access getting you access to uh funds that only nonprofits can do. So, for example, we’ve worked with several different nonprofits on the workforce side to go ahead and be kind of the employer of choice for their particular grant. And yeah, there’s a little bit of work on, you know, what we need to do from a documentation perspective, but they’re managing the grant and they ultimately pay you uh based off of the

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metrics associated with that particular grant. So, I would say start off with uh you know the unemployment office, start off with your nonprofit partners. Again, it looks like there’s multiple benefits of working with your nonprofit partners. I’m not just from the standpoint of you getting funds, but also the goodwill and the um as the whole community marketing aspect that can come of that. The last thing I’ll say when it comes to it, if you want to do it alone, it is a lot of work. Um, we uh were able to

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obtain a Calgrow’s Innovation Grant through the Department of Aging here in the state of California. And um, yeah, that was all me. So, I had like two part-time jobs. I did two full-time jobs, excuse me. It felt like I was back in grad school again. So, uh, if you have the bandwidth to take on that larger responsibility, then yeah, go ahead and try it. You’d be surprised. Uh, most folks don’t think that they are capable of doing it. But there’s a lot of resources from those grant providing

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organizations to kind of help you navigate the process. uh and you know uh state funding or federal funding is more rigorous when it comes to their um the data points that they’re looking for. Um but you know if you can find a um and I wouldn’t call it a non well nonprofit or you know some kind of maybe at a hospital setting where they’re looking for patient outcome. that one might be a little bit easier to uh when it comes to the types of uh outputs that they’re looking for.

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>> Sure. Yeah. And um Greg, looking back at 2025, what key lesson should every home care agency carry into their 2026 training plan? >> Oh my goodness. Um well, you know what? I’m kind of jaded on this topic being that we are impacted by the Eaton fire here in Southern California. So, we had the Palisades fire which is closer to the ocean in LA County. Uh we’re more closer to the hills. So, um training wise for 26 really should be focusing in on emergency um what does your emergency evacuation

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plans look like? What is your emergency contingency plans look like? Not that everyone will face a wildfire, but you may face uh a hurricane or a tornado or an earthquake or, you know, whatever it might be. Um, you know, it could even be, you know, a civil disturbance. Um, how do you navigate those things? I was um you know when I was uh thinking about our friends over in uh Minneapolis, how were they navigating all the it wasn’t necessarily that you know um it was more the masses of people that were there

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kind of blocking traffic. Um you know how do how do caregivers get around that? How do they navigate those things? So really for your 2026 plan, look at your emergency plans for your office staff, for your caregivers, and leverage that as something that’s unique to you in your market. Hey, we have a very robust uh emergency plan. This is how we support your loved one in times of natural disaster or crisis. um you know and even can probably even create a little something for them to

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have so that they their families know okay well you should have water or you should have a first aid kit or things like that and it really kind of helps differentiate you in your market. >> Absolutely. And Greg, last question for you. What metric should an agency track to know its caregiver training pipeline is working and how often should these be reviewed? um you know, a metric for training. Um really, um there’s a lot of great uh software out there when it comes to, you know, just kind of getting a pulse on,

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you know, how your caregivers are feeling, whether they’re supported, whether that be a caregiver survey program through, you know, Zengage or um you know, uh activated insights and their retained software. Um what we look at is basically within the first 30 days of employment if we are not seeing um and we’re in addition to those surveys we’re also following up um by phone, email, in person, what have you because it’s really important for us to understand did the caregiver retain the information

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that was disseminated to them during the orientation and onboarding process. process. Um, do they feel that they have the appropriate tools to be successful? Um, by monitoring that within the first 15 to 30 days, you start seeing that, uh, you get less complaints about caregiver quality and, you know, clients complaining, oh, well, this caregiver doesn’t know what they’re doing. That really kind of helps from a twofold perspective. one, it helps ensure that you have the appropriate amount of time devoted to

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training, you have the appropriate curriculum for your particular population. Um, and also your clients are very happy because, you know, now you’re dealing with some other issue uh from an operational standpoint, but at least they’re not complaining that the caregiver doesn’t know what they’re doing. And I think those are the kinds of ways that you can assess whether your training program is appropriate. Again, it goes back to your market. It goes back to one size does not fit all for

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everything. Um, we are with our large patient population, I would say less than 10% of them are, you know, comp actually I take that back. Less than 5% are companionship only. companionship doesn’t even exist anymore. They’re not hiring home care companies to take grandma to the to the senior center and then come play cards with her and, you know, do that. It’s a hybrid now of personal care slash companionship. Uh whether it’s hands-on assistance in the restroom, whether

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it’s, you know, just standby support, there is some aspect of personal care. So making sure that your curriculum kind of has that appropriate blend for your population is going to be really important. And then the last portion would be on ensuring that your training program has the ability to flex uh to support a for example maybe you have all of a sudden you just got lucky and next thing you know you’ve got seven new clients starting in in less than a week. Do you is your training program

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flexible enough where you can bring people in where you can push them training through a learning management system? Um if you are bringing on more experienced caregivers, can you do you have the ability to shrink the amount of time that they’re in orientation and what do those follow-ups look like? So having that flexibility is really going to make you um a better operator for the per for to support those clients that are coming into you and be able to manage the flow regardless of it’s a trickle or it’s a

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downpour. >> Right. Well, thank you so much uh Greg. That was really really helpful. Um and a lot of great takeaways there. Um, for everyone at home, thank you so much for tuning in to CaresSmartz On Air and I am Erin Cahill and we will see you next time. Thank you so much. >> Thank you.