If you want to find out what a CMS-funded study learned about how to improve retention rates among direct service workers, you can read a report by the Rand Corporation. Or you can sign up for a free webinar next Monday.
Sarah Hunter from RAND and Laura Steighner from American Institutes for Research will present the results of the Direct Service Workforce Demonstration grants on November 16 at 2:30 p.m. Eastern time. The webinar will be hosted by the National Direct Service Workforce Resource Center.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services awarded 10 demonstration grants in 2003 and 2004 to test the effectiveness of different workforce interventions on recruiting and retaining direct service workers. RAND’s report on their findings was published last month.
According to the report, the biggest hurdle to finding and keeping direct service workers is wages, which are too low for a job that is so challenging.
Many interventions failed because of an incomplete understanding of workers’ needs. “For example, the study found that some grantees who tried to implement health care coverage or training initiatives offered a package that did not meet the needs of the workers, thereby rendering the initiative ineffective at improving recruitment or retention,” the authors write.
Even when they failed to provide any concrete benefits, however, the attempted interventions sometimes boosted retention rates. That may mean that direct service workers are so used to being overlooked and underappreciated that they are more likely to stay when their employers make an effort to improve their jobs, even if that effort is not successful, since at least it lets them know that they are valued.
An intervention in which prospective new employees got a realistic job preview also improved outcomes, indicating that employers could reduce turnover by telling new hires more about the job before they start.
Register for the webinar
Elise Nakhnikian
Communications Director
Direct Care Alliance
