Miriam Allred (00:10)
Welcome to the Home Care Strategy Lab. I'm your host, Miriam Allred. Today, we are in studio in Dallas, Texas, and I am capitalizing on a bunch of home care leaders being in town, and we are in studio. And today I'm joined by Jen Kulig, the Director of Market Operations at Tribute Home Care. Jen, welcome to Dallas, and welcome to the studio. This is a first for you and kind of a first for both of us. ⁓

Jen Kulig (00:30)
Thank you so much, glad to be here.

Miriam Allred (00:36)
But I have been looking forward to this for weeks. Ever since we got it scheduled, I'm like, I have been waiting for this moment, and now here we are actually doing it. So don't take this the wrong way, but a lot of people don't know a whole lot about Tribute or about you. And so when I got connected with you, I thought, of course I want to have you on the show, and I want you to tell a little bit more about Tribute's story and what sets you guys apart and how you've grown so quickly. I think some people might know Jon Sneath a little bit, but you guys are a little under wraps in the industry, so that's part of why I wanted to have you on.

So let's start with just like a good old fashioned introduction of yourself, your background, your home care experience, and then leading up to kind of your role and your responsibilities with Tribute

Jen Kulig (01:16)
So I fell into home care. ⁓ I graduated ⁓ from Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts with a degree in psychology and had no idea what I was going to do with it. And I ended up working for two years in an eating disorder ⁓ residential home and found that unless I had some type of advanced degree, I wasn't going to be able to go very far there. So I started to apply to some other jobs that seemed interesting that were kind of administrative in nature.

a recruiting company reached out to me and they had been contracted by the first home care company I worked with. And the first person who interviewed me was John Sneath back when I was in my early 20s. I spent, so John was the president at that company and I spent eight years there. He left about six, six and a half years into my tenure there.

He really had a very specific vision for what he wanted home care to look like and wanted to go out on his own. So I followed him very closely, left about a year and a half later, went and worked for a care management practice for two years, which was valuable in a lot of different ways. And then once Tribute was kind of up and running in Massachusetts, I joined Tribute. And I've been at Tribute for nine and a half years.

I worked my way up to an executive director position, the first home care company, and then started in a kind of, we call it client solutions manager, like a case manager type position at Tribute because that's all they needed at the time and I really wanted to get in because I knew there was a lot of hope for Tribute. then one of the most exciting things that I did after a couple of years is

think about how do we expand our service territory and kind of create a sister market. And so we had opened, ⁓ our first office was in ⁓ Baltimore, Maryland, and then Tribute came two years later in 2016, 2015, I guess. And ⁓ I really, ⁓ we were really excited about the idea, but how do we expand beyond these two kind of big cities?

but maybe with a little less risk. And so one of the things that I did first after being a client solutions manager for a couple of years was to expand our service territory. And so we moved further west outside of Boston and opened up another office and really created it, ⁓ thought of it as a separate market. ⁓ And that was a real big success and really being able to leverage the referral partners we had in the city and help them introduce us to people a little further out, hire caregivers that were further out. And ⁓

really expand in a very organic way. ⁓ And so from there, I took over the state of Massachusetts and we expanded ⁓ north and south as well and from the city and ⁓ and ⁓ then ⁓ my most recent position for the last couple of years has been to oversee all markets. ⁓ And so now I am I oversee all of Massachusetts and the operations in Massachusetts and then support our market directors in Chicago and Maryland.

Miriam Allred (04:39)
Give us a little bit of like day in the life. Director of market operations sounds stressful, sounds large, sounds like a lot is like in your purview. What are you thinking about and doing on like a day to day basis?

Jen Kulig (04:51)
I what I love about home care is there is no typical day, and I'm sure you've heard that before, ⁓ but it really is true. I think some days it's focusing really on Massachusetts, and ⁓ now there's more layers than there were before. So we have somebody that oversees our client solutions team. I myself used to manage the whole client solutions team. I don't do that anymore, but I manage the manager of those folks. And there are crises that come up all the time.

We work with pretty affluent families who spend a lot of money on our care and they have certain expectations and we've promised to deliver at a certain level. And so we have to manage those things as they come up. ⁓ There's a lot of strategic focus and really thinking big picture about where do we want to go? How do we get there? ⁓ How do we implement change in really effective ways? We are constantly evolving and changing. And so that's really exciting. ⁓ I traveled to Chicago and Maryland. ⁓

probably every six to eight weeks or so on average to really support the teams there. ⁓ I spend time in the field visiting caregivers and clients ⁓ by myself and with colleagues. So it's a whole bunch of things. ⁓ But I think at the end of the day, it's, you my focus is on how do we make sure that we give everything we possibly can to caregivers, because if we do that well, we will continue to succeed.

Miriam Allred (06:16)
That was awesome. That was really well said. And it's actually interesting where you started of someone of your size, it may seem like there's less fires. You've thought about processes and systems and no two days are ever the same, but you would almost, I would almost think that like there's less fires, there's more stability at an organization of your size, but that's not necessarily the case. It's care and it's humans at the end of the day and there's always variables. There's always going to be fire.

Jen Kulig (06:43)
Yeah, I mean you can have a lot of operational consistency ⁓ if this then that but There ⁓ I Still hear new things happen every day like something happens with a client you're like, well, that's a new one. So ⁓

Miriam Allred (07:02)
That's first.

ending firsts in home That's what it feels like. Everyone I talk to, you've been doing this for a long time. People that have been doing it for 20, 30, 40 years. No two days are the same. Which I just again think is interesting. It doesn't matter how long you've been in this business. There's always something new you haven't actually seen at all. Tell us a little bit more about Tribute. You're kind of highlighting where the headquarters are, locations, growth, all of that. But just kind of like fill in again where it started.

the kind of three major markets that you're in and just talk kind of broadly about like census numbers, revenue, payers, just to kind of people can kind of get the lay of the land of tribute.

Jen Kulig (07:37)
We're

all private pay, other than if families have long term care and then those policies will oftentimes kick in and we can support that. But otherwise it's all private pay. So no Medicare, no Medicaid, no VA benefits, none of that. We are about a 30 to 32 million dollar company at the moment. We have grown every single year, usually at a 10 to 15 percent clip. Some years more, some years a little less.

So seeing that growth trajectory continue to go up has been really exciting. Right now we service 14 to 15,000 hours a week of care between our three markets. Massachusetts is our biggest market. We're between 9,000 and 9,500 a week in Massachusetts. Maryland hovers around 5,000 right now. And Chicago's a really young emerging market.

⁓ More like six to seven hundred hours a week. So ⁓ So, you know all three markets are kind of in different stages obviously Maryland and Massachusetts would be considered very established markets, but also very different markets ⁓ and You know really our our mission is to bring love visit after visit for those who need care and the remarkable people who provide it and I just think that really encompasses what we're truly all about and ⁓

know, growth is really exciting, but it wouldn't be possible if we didn't have the caregivers in place and we hired carefully. ⁓ And ⁓ it wouldn't be possible without a kind of growth mindset ⁓ and the willingness to embrace change day in and day out.

Miriam Allred (09:26)
So this is what I want to focus on. So with every guest, I usually approach you and say, where is your passion? What do you want to focus on? What do you want to talk about? And one of the things that you told me out of the gate was like a caregiver-first mentality, caregiver-first mindset. And what I want to focus on and what I want to hear you dissect is, how do you do that at scale? A $30, $32 million business, how do you hire, fire, review, reward, recognize, retain caregivers at scale?

and keep that mentality at the heart and center of everything you do. Because in my mind, a lot of home care agencies tout that, they say that, but how do you actually practice what you preach? And then how do you do that at scale? That's my question. Kind of the theme of the conversation today is I want you to tell us how you guys are doing that as such a large organization. So I think we should just start with your hiring process. What you think about, what you look for, the demographic of these caregivers, and then we'll just kind of piece our way through. But let's start with basically,

unpacking your hiring process. How do you initially approach and think about hiring? ⁓

Jen Kulig (10:31)
loaded question.

⁓

Yeah, hiring is essential to the success that we've had at Tribute. ⁓ We only hire, and I guess I'll back up and say too that I think there's a pretty significant misconception in the home care industry that home care is home care is home care, caregivers bounce between agency to agency. You you may get lucky and get a great caregiver, but then the next day not such a great caregiver.

I think that is the experience that families have with certain agencies, but that's really what we try to avoid at Tribute. And so how do we do that, right? So ⁓ we only hire 1 % of caregivers who work at Tribute. So it's a slog to find what we would call a real Tributey caregiver. And ⁓ one of the most critical pieces of our success is ⁓ our recruiting department. So we have a head.

of talent acquisition, who then oversees our managers of recruiting. ⁓ We have one in each state, ⁓ and their whole job is to find those one percenters. And ⁓ it also starts with customer service. As much as we are assessing their fit for us,

we want to make sure that they can experience right out of the gate what it's going to feel like to be at Tribute. And so every single person who applies gets a response from us. Whether they're going to make it through the process or not, they're going to hear from us. They're going to feel what that kind of high touch is all about. ⁓ then even at the very beginning stages of the applicant process, we give really clear instructions when somebody is applying around

what we're looking for and what, we'll ask, you know, details about not just their experience and, you know, what they can bring from a skillset perspective, but also like, what's your availability? Select the days that you want, select the nights, the days, things like that. But there, there's very clear instruction. And if they don't follow those instructions, they do not get passed through. They may be a great caregiver, but, ⁓ but those little details matter.

And so we do a phone screen. If they get past the applicant review, we do a phone screen ⁓ with our recruiter. ⁓ And then they decide whether they want to invite them for a first interview. ⁓ And then if they get past the first interview, which is usually a half hour to 40 minutes, it's a lot of, ⁓ it's not scripted. ⁓ It's remote.

Miriam Allred (13:24)
It's remote.

Jen Kulig (13:27)
⁓ It's not scripted and it's really, ⁓ it's a lot of situational type questions. Really understanding ⁓ what are their motivations, what kinds of situations have they been in before and how did they respond to them. At the end of the day, to us, experience is critical, but ⁓ to us, it's not as critical as somebody who has grit.

has empathy, who has motivation to do this for the right reasons. So we've got to figure out how to get at that in the interview process, the phone screen and the interview process. ⁓

Miriam Allred (14:04)
It reminds me of your psychology background. I don't know if you're tapping into that or if you train your team to tap into that, but it's very much like a psychological, like how do you think about things? How are you going to approach certain situations? It's less so can you do this? When are you available? It's like, how do they think?

Jen Kulig (14:21)
Yep. Yeah. And, and do they come on time? Do they come prepared? how do they present themselves? because that says a lot about whether someone's really committed and wants to be at Tribute or is this just another job and they applied to 30 of them. ⁓ And that's not to say we wouldn't hire somebody who applied to 30 jobs, but we want to dig to really understand what are their motivations and what about our ads specifically attracted them to apply and

really understand the psychology of that for sure. And we've had a lot of iterations about how we hire and we've gone back and forth about, you know, maybe we're being too strict and 1 % is really painful. I would love to sit here and say we hire 5%. we just keep coming back to we cannot compromise on quality and what we feel is a tribute profile if we're going to go out in the world and promise what we promised to our clients. We just can't.

And whenever we've kind of backed off a little bit or been a little bit more lenient, we've come to the same conclusion, which is, no, stop doing that.

Miriam Allred (15:22)
Let me jump in and ask a couple questions before we keep going. So I want to dive into each section of this. On kind of a tactical level, what platforms and channels are working well for you? Are you guys out on all of the kind of like traditional, indeed social media on all those platforms? And are any one of those helping you get closer to the 1 %? I know it's a volume game. It absolutely is a volume game. And so have to be everywhere. are you finding certain level of success with any one platform or with any one strategy?

Jen Kulig (15:51)
So

the biggest success is word of mouth. 40 % of our hires come from existing caregivers. And they are 10 to 15 times more likely to be hired than folks off of one of the job platforms. So as we grow, our word of mouth grows. And that becomes really, really critical for us. And we pay.

A caregiver, an existing caregiver, gets paid $700 anytime they refer someone that is hired. And they get paid the minute that that caregiver is oriented and hired. So people can refer as often as they want. They still know that we probably won't hire everyone they refer, but I think it motivates our caregivers a bit. And I think that they believe and have experienced what we give them, that they want to spread that to others.

So that is a critical piece to our recruiting. And then, Indeed is probably the one we use the most. ⁓ It's sifting through a lot of muck. it really is. ⁓ But 1 % is better than 0%. And then it's really just about how do we position ourselves in those ads, and what is it that really attracts somebody to apply? And we play around with that a lot. ⁓

you know, what's the title of the ad, what's the language, the body, what are different, we've tried different things, at the onset about, know, like, do we, we have a salary program, which I know we'll talk about in a bit, but you know, do we try and hire caregivers into a salary position or do we guarantee them 40 hours for four weeks and try to recruit them that way? And we've found that just going back to the basics is usually the best way. cause if people are

attracted to something like, ooh, guaranteed pay for four weeks, they may be motivated by the wrong things. ⁓ And so we tend to go back. try, we'll continue to experiment and try new things, especially when we're in a state of needing caregivers more than other times. ⁓ But ⁓ word of mouth and, you know, that 1 % off of indeed. And then, we also have some really good relationships with some nursing programs and some CNA programs.

particularly in Massachusetts, ⁓ that have, a couple times a year as their classes are graduating, will go in and present, help do mock interviews and things like that, and can usually get a couple of new hires from that.

Miriam Allred (18:25)
Okay, I might be putting on the spot with this, but if you had to ballpark like your digital budget for recruiting, any sense of what you're paying on like a weekly or a monthly basis on just online specifically, because you do a lot of word of mouth. Yeah. Which is nice because that's, know, obviously you pay out those bonuses, but it's kind of.

Jen Kulig (18:44)
think

on average we've probably spent a couple thousand dollars a month to post ads throughout our markets. It ebbs and flows. decide, there are some, you can do free postings, but then you get more muck a lot of times. ⁓ And then we may say, you know what, we really need caregivers in this region of our Massachusetts territory. And so ⁓ let's put $500 on that and, make it more of targeted ad. You can pay per clicks. There's lots of different ways that kind of indeed sets things up.

⁓ I'm not involved in the kind of the behind the scenes detail of that as much, but ⁓ we play around with where we spend our money depending on where we need caregivers and kind of what we're trying to promote.

Miriam Allred (19:28)
And that's the nice thing about online. It's like you could just like turn the dial. We need to focus in this area and we need more volume here. We can spend a little, like throw money in that direction. Like that's the game of online. It's like you can kind of like customize what you're doing and how much you're spending. Two quick questions about your referral program, because you said 40 % come from word of mouth referrals. How...

how do you keep that top of mind to your staff? Because a lot of times I see that it's like an intentional effort or an initiative for a quarter and then it kind of fades away and then you like bring it back to light a year later. How do you keep it front and center like year over year so it's something that your caregivers are thinking about all the time?

Jen Kulig (20:10)
Yes, so we mentioned it in orientation. We mentioned it in our monthly newsletters to caregivers. We have caregiver reflections every other month where we invite caregivers to come. It's ⁓ remote, but they come and kind of create a community and we talk about different things. We'll mention it there. And some caregivers are more motivated by it than others. Some have a lot of

family connections, others, you know, happen to have a client in a community, like a senior living community, and kind of are like an ambassador for Tribute and kind of spread the word amongst everyone that's working in that senior living community. But yeah, that's, we just, it's, being consistent about it. We've gone back and forth about how much we pay, when we pay it.

we used to say that the caregiver had to be here for three months, kind of get through that 90 day period before we'd pay it out. And then we went back on that and said, you know, you know what? These caregivers worked hard to help us bring this caregiver in. We should pay them upon hire.

Miriam Allred (21:02)
$700 rate that was going to be my next question. How did you establish that seems kind like a random number?

Jen Kulig (21:06)
I

think we started with a thousand. We've gone back and forth. And as our word of mouth has increased, obviously that expense has increased. So we're just trying to figure out how do we fit it into the budget appropriately and still make it feel like a motivating number. So yeah, it's a little bit random, but and we've tried other things too, where we'll give, a bigger bonus and then we'll also donate to a charity of the caregivers choosing. So at certain times of the year,

if things are particularly tight, then we may try and add like a creative edge to it. But we've been very consistent with $700 upon hire for a while now.

Miriam Allred (21:49)
Yeah, this is interesting how explorative you guys are in your approach to all of these things. it's scientific, but it's not. It's like something works for a period of time doesn't mean we're going to go down this path for year over year over year. It's like, no, we need to continue to refine and look at all of these kind of like micro changes that we make in the recruiting process to see what sticks.

Jen Kulig (22:12)
I think that's absolutely right. One of our core values is to embrace challenges. ⁓ And I think we are particularly good at that. a challenge could be something feels stale, or we're not hiring at the clip we wanted to, or orientation isn't getting the reception that we had hoped it would get, or it's not as engaging as we want it to be. Like, let's go back to the drawing board.

And I think when we're faced, when we identify challenges in a creative way, we then create iterations of things and evolve. And I think that's one of the things Tribute does best.

Miriam Allred (22:55)
I like that word that you just said stale, like processes. You do things over and over for so long and everybody just feels that like kind of staleness. And it's like, okay, let's actually lean in and shake things up and try something new. That just keeps the organization fresh. That keeps people excited, motivated, probably keeps you motivated every single day is just like, let's keep thinking about these processes.

Jen Kulig (23:20)
And also, how do you continue to collect information and data from everyone that's impacted by all of these things and use that to help drive your behavior, right? So we collect feedback from caregivers in so many different ways all the time. And we use that, like literally use that to then help us decide what we need to do next. So orientation is a good example of that. If somebody makes it to orientation, that's actually

the last step of assessing a caregiver. They've been hired, but there are times where we will not, we will term somebody after orientation because that is a really good way for us to spend a whole day with somebody and really assess whether, you know, what we thought they were through the hiring process is still what we think they are in orientation. But also we have to think about how to run orientation in a way that will allow us the opportunity to really engage with the caregivers. can't just be us sitting there.

communicating and throwing crap at them about tribute and how to operate at tribute, much of which they're not even going to retain. So we've got to think about how to really engage with them, how to make it a day that allows them to really feel tribute and allows us to really get to know them on a personal level. So that's just one example.

Miriam Allred (24:34)
Yeah, so let's keep going through the hiring process. You talked about like qualification. Yeah, which I think was so important. You said a couple of things about there's a lot of like indicators in that qualification process. If they're not communicative, if they're not rescheduling, if they're not responding, it's like those are indicators of the type of hire that they're going to be. And so being really dialed into the qualification process, I think is key. And then you talked a little bit about screening. So it's that remote.

call that's very conversational, that's very organic, that's not scripted. ⁓ And now you're talking about orientation. What comes after, the screening process? Interviews? One or two?

Jen Kulig (25:12)
One interview and then it's not really a second interview, but they meet with our kind of an onboarding specialist. And she goes through all the kind of logistical paperwork and understanding their availability and just all those logistical things. But that's also an opportunity for assessing, for assessment of that caregiver again. And there are times where she will meet with somebody and say, nope.

⁓ You know, whether they don't come prepared with the documents that we've told them to come prepared with or, ⁓ you know, they kind of don't treat her the same way that they treated the person who did the interviewing. ⁓ But, you know, the goal is to give really good consistency to the caregiver, the applicant through the process. And ⁓ we would expect the same from the applicant. ⁓ And so once they get all, once they meet with Holly and do that piece, then we set them up.

with orientation.

Miriam Allred (26:10)
Okay, one question about the first interview, is that remote or in person? Remote. Remote as well. And what's kind of the foundation of that interview? Is it very personal, unscripted, organic? Yes. Sounds like it is. Give us a taste of how do your recruiters have that conversation? How do they really suss somebody out in that conversation?

Jen Kulig (26:33)
Yeah, think it's ⁓ learning their experience, like what experience do they really have in this space, but then going way beyond that. So it's really like, this is where we get into understanding what soft skills they have. ⁓ Somebody could have a lot of compassion, a lot of empathy, a lot of kindness, but we also want, and I think I mentioned this a little bit earlier too, but grit is something we talk about a lot because

⁓ If you have grit, not only can you bring your empathy and your compassion to the job, but when you hit something that's really challenging, you're gonna push through it or figure out how to solve the challenge ⁓ or be confident enough to collaborate with somebody around, here's what's happening and I need help. And so we give them a lot of situational scenarios to really understand

how they would think through something.

Miriam Allred (27:33)
Is that how the interview goes? Is you guys have scenarios that you read through or explain and then have them respond? Or do you ask them to give scenarios?

Jen Kulig (27:42)
So we give a lot of, ⁓ our recruiters really can kind of drive that a little bit on their own. they, you know, we've got recruiters that have been doing this for years. I don't think, there's not a script. ⁓ I think they look at each individual and kind of figure out, okay, what do I want to dig on here? we certainly ask some questions about, you know, dementia and,

tell us about a difficult situation because if someone says, ⁓ well, I called my supervisor and said, I need to get out of here because the client's being combative, to us, that's a little bit of a red flag because that doesn't show a lot of grit. also, OK, so what's the next question we should ask to really understand, was it reasonable for that caregiver to ask to be replaced? Because sometimes it is. Or did they just kind of say, I'm giving up. don't like this?

And so the conversation really takes a direction based on how caregivers respond to the questions too. And sometimes we have to dig a little bit more to decide, probably not, or okay, that's an exception. So talk to me about another situation and really kind of assess it again. We really wanna understand what the motivation of our caregivers are.

Miriam Allred (28:51)
That's tricky to do. But because like I think grit is a really good example of that. How do you know if someone has grit? Like if someone asked me that I'd be like, wow, how do I how do I even think about that? But that's why in this interview, it's very like situational scenario based. Here's a scenario. How would you think about that? How would you approach that? I don't think you mentioned it sounds like you only hire people with previous experience.

Jen Kulig (29:15)
We'd like them to have a little bit of experience, half a year to a year, a lot of caregivers come to us with many years of experience. you can teach hard skills. You can't teach soft skills. So we're willing to invest in caregivers in the hard skill side if we need to. We have a whole process for that and assessing what they might need during orientation. But the soft skills is really what we're digging on more than anything in the interview process.

Miriam Allred (29:18)
When you say a little bit, like.

Jen Kulig (29:43)
⁓ And if somebody says, know, like I had a really challenging client who was resistant to care and so I tried X, Y, and Z and they identify like a strategy that they use, like that's a really great sign. Like that shows someone who's got creativity, the grit, ⁓ and the compassion. You have to have empathy to wanna try to work through something with somebody. And if you're trying to seek out a way to work through that challenge, that's a good sign.

So it's pretty early on in an interview.

Miriam Allred (30:17)
You

can tell whether... feel it. You can feel it. It's a feeling. I honestly, I've heard that from lot of recruiters. It's honestly kind of like a gut feeling. They either got it or they don't and you can really feel it.

Jen Kulig (30:27)
⁓

And then the consistency of that, like through the whole hiring process, where they like that in the phone screen and the interview and with our onboarding specialist and in orientation. We want to see that consistency because someone can kind of turn it on for a little while and then their true colors start to come out. So we want to have enough touch points to be able to hopefully make a hire that can truly be successful.

Miriam Allred (30:52)
Which begs the question, how long is this process typically? Over a few days? Okay, how do you feel about that? Does that feel like the sweet spot that you guys have landed on? Do you wish it was shorter?

Jen Kulig (30:57)
About a week and a half or so.

I

do. we've talked a lot about ways to make it shorter as we just keep coming back to if we want to hire the quality that we're promising to deliver and we want to take our time and we want to give caregivers a really good experience, they don't want to be rushed necessarily. so and we need the right amount of time to truly assess.

whether they're right or not. And so all of these steps feel critical. We used to have a second interview ⁓ and done by the manager of caregiver excellence, which I know we'll talk more about, basically the person that would be managing the caregiver. And they have different motivations, you know, like they're...

Miriam Allred (31:53)
coming at it from different angle.

Jen Kulig (31:54)
Exactly.

so, and the recruiters have been with us for a while now and we felt like, we can trust them and we've got a couple of other steps in the process to make sure that we feel confident in that applicant. And so about a year ago, we decided to cut that out. we've actually seen our 90 day turnover go down. So, ⁓ so yeah, so it hasn't hurt us.

Miriam Allred (32:16)
And a seven to 10 day process, it's also indicative the caregiver looking at Tribute. if you're trying to push them through a process in 24 to 48 hours, they feel like they're just like a pawn in a game. Like, they need, you know, it's, it's definitely a signal to the caregiver too of no tribute is giving me the time and the place to get to know me and to meet me where I am. And they're not just trying to put a body in a house and

And so I also am sure that that resonates with the caregivers as well.

Jen Kulig (32:47)
Yeah, and we also never ever hire to meet demand. So ⁓ that is part of why we take the time we feel like we need to take because we're not trying to push a caregiver through to then fill a new client.

Miriam Allred (33:01)
I'm so curious about this. ask most providers this, the demographic of your caregivers are, they're across the board likely 18 to 75. That's what I hear. That's just common across the industry. But if you had to quantify maybe percentages above maybe 45, 50 and below 45, 50 from an age perspective, do you have a lot of older caregivers? Do you have a lot of younger? Is it kind of a 50-50 split?

Jen Kulig (33:30)
I don't know what the split is, but what you just summarized is exactly right. I would say a fair number of our caregivers are in their 30s, 40s, and 50s. We've got some that are a little bit older. ⁓ Some of our live-in caregivers tend to be a little bit older. And that kind of makes sense because they're living with clients, so maybe they've, you know, they're.

Miriam Allred (33:33)
approximately.

Jen Kulig (33:53)
done providing childcare to their own families and they're kind of at a different stage in their life. ⁓ But yeah, I would say the majority are in that kind of 30, 40, 50.

Miriam Allred (34:06)
Okay. And the reason I asked that too, in this kind of like recruiting narrative is you're trying to build a recruiting process for such a vast audience. What a 18 year old thinks, what a 40 year old thinks, what a 65 year old thinks and how they process and how they want to be oriented and onboarded and interviewed. Like there's some variation in that. And again, that's so unique to home care is the employment.

audience is so vast and so you're trying to piece together a process that makes sense for the majority but I think that's the beauty of your process is it's so customized it's so meeting the individual where they are it's very tailored to them rather than just like checking the box.

Jen Kulig (34:46)
one of the things we try so hard to do is to avoid families having the roller coaster experience where they get like a great caregiver and then a not so great caregiver and then a great caregiver and a not so great caregiver. and so there's some consistency in what we look for, even if the profile of the person, the age where they're from, their demographics vary. There's some core elements.

to our caregivers that I say are pretty consistent across the board. That's where the grit and the empathy and that kindness and that motivation to build a real meaningful connection with the human being they're caring for that we hope families feel no matter getting a 25 year old caregiver or 70 year old caregiver that they'll still have that feeling that that person will leave them with that feeling when they walk out the door.

Miriam Allred (35:34)
They're tributy. like that word that you guys use. They're tributy. say that all the time. And the clients, the families, they feel that tributy. It's like people can feel that energy from the caregivers and they're not on the roller coaster that they so often get. Let's keep going through the recruiting process. We're kind of like orient. We talked about the first interview, then the second interview with the onboarding specialist and then orientation. But you mentioned at what point did they get the offer? Because it sounds like they have the offer before orientation.

Jen Kulig (36:03)
the

offer after their remote interview. And obviously it's contingent upon documentation and employment authorization and all those fun things. But yes, that's when they get the offer.

Miriam Allred (36:18)
And at what point did they get their first schedule? know a lot of people feel strongly about like they have to leave here with their first schedule. Is that happened in the orientation?

Jen Kulig (36:24)
Oftentimes

if we've got the demand, they can get deployed right out of orientation, yes.

Miriam Allred (36:31)
Okay, okay. And I think that kind of carries us into it. We're going to talk about retention. ⁓ Any other steps or things that you want to mention that follow orientation that are important?

Jen Kulig (36:41)
Oh, I mean, orientation itself is really important. We want to give them a really good experience. a lot of us are in the office that day. John Sneath, who we've mentioned, our CEO and founder, goes in and does a section in orientation every day, or every orientation. We do orientations on Wednesdays every week.

So he's engaged, he asks every caregiver what motivated you to be here, how did you hear about Tribute, what are you looking forward to, so he engages with each of them individually. And he will do remote for Maryland and Chicago. The office team does lunch with the caregivers, so we buy them lunch and then all sit at a table and just engage and talk about whatever. And so it's all just part of what Tribute is trying to.

kind of get across to caregivers. Your family, we're here for you. We want to support you. We want you to get to know us. We want to get to know you. You're not alone out there in the world. We're all in it together. And so that's a really important kind of final step for them before they kind of fly off into our client's home.

Miriam Allred (37:52)
Yeah, it sounds like a really personal experience like it's it's more so just like lunch and community and John's presence of like, you know We are here to support you. We're here to serve you like it just sounds very kind of relaxed It's it's not so like high-pressure structured. It's more of like just come get to know us We want to get to know you we want you just be excited to start working with us

Jen Kulig (38:13)
Yeah, and we also the other thing we do in orientation is competencies where we'll assess their skills, their hard skills so that we can determine where could they use a caregiver training to work with a more seasoned caregiver to learn something specific. ⁓ If they're a newer caregiver, you know, maybe identifying, OK, let's ⁓ have them train with a caregiver for a couple of days before we deploy them on their own. If they're new to home care and they never worked in home care, but they worked in.

a hospital or senior living, like let's give them a little taste of how home care is a little different. So we assess that as well and help really set them up for success.

Miriam Allred (38:49)
High level, how do you guys approach training? Is it primarily in person, hands on? Is it more out in the field? Is it more online? Or is it a hybrid of all three of those? Hybrid of all three. Okay. And any one of those that you focus more on or have found success with?

Jen Kulig (38:57)
of all.

No, I think ⁓ we will give individuals whatever training they need to succeed with what they're managing at any given time. So like we do a dementia training for all caregivers upon hire, but dementia is not dementia is not dementia. It manifests itself in so many different ways. And so when a caregiver goes into a home and is told this client has dementia, it may be completely different than another client they experience with dementia. And so we've got to be really strategic in giving them tools. ⁓

to succeed with that client. And so it's a constant learning opportunity. We can give these broad trainings and they're really important. And I know a lot of agencies will tout like, we do dementia training or we do hospice training or whatever. But, and of course the basics are really critical, but ⁓ it's also really critical that you give that ongoing support. And so it comes from our client solutions team, our case managers. It comes from the support they get from the managers of caregiver excellence, which we're gonna talk about shortly.

And then it comes from kind of formal trainings. And then it comes from their peers. We have caregivers, new caregivers that train with more seasoned caregivers and really learn the ropes. ⁓ So it's a multi-prong approach depending on what that caregiver needs. And we may have a seasoned caregiver who's been doing this for 20 years and they are dropped into a situation that they've never experienced before and they're gonna need more hands-on support. And that's what we're all.

Miriam Allred (40:27)
about.

I'd imagine training is like a pillar for you as like a core part of like your identity as an organization. sounds like yeah. And has that always been the case or do you feel like that it was an evolution in and of itself of like it's become higher priority?

Jen Kulig (40:41)
Definitely an evolution. It's always been a priority, but thinking about it in the multi-prong way evolves constantly. And really making sure that we hear from caregivers what they need to feel like they can succeed out there in the world in a private home. So listening a lot and identifying what they need and then being able to target that specifically to a certain initiative of some sort.

Yeah, it's really evolved and we've even done things like we'll use Care Academy for like a base dementia training. But what's really cool about Care Academy is that we can create our own content, make it more tributy and upload it and add it and enhance what Care Academy's created. And so we do a lot of that. And our next initiative for, you know, 2026 is to have like a whole catalog of trainings that are

maybe part care academy designed, but also part tribute designed with our own team, with our own caregivers, so that caregivers can learn from other caregivers. so we have a whole position, our senior manager of caregiver excellence, her whole job is really about how to elevate that piece for caregivers.

Miriam Allred (41:53)
and keeping it top of mind, think of back to like the referral program, you want to keep training top of mind, because you do all this work to build out all of this custom training. And they're out in the field and they're busy and they've been doing this likely for years and years. And so they know a lot, but keeping training top of mind to your entire workforce of like, there's always an option to learn more, to grow more specialized training. Like you want to help them be proactive when it comes to training.

Jen Kulig (42:20)
There's

so many reasons why training is so critical. To help a caregiver build their skill set, to impact a client in a really positive way, to retain caregivers. I mean, there's so many benefits for why there's a real ROI on training and the investment that we put into that. And so to us, it's worth every penny.

Miriam Allred (42:42)
Yeah, I guess the reason why I'm prodding, I do hear from some agencies that training is like a chore. It's it's such a grind to get people to train and to want to be trained and to want to like up skill. That's why I think it has to be a part of your identity. It has to be front and center. It has to be going out in the newsletter. It just has to be a part of the conversation regularly to make sure it's like a proactive part of caregivers thinking.

Let's transition to this retention stuff. I know you're teasing it. We've talked about it. And it's like, there's a lot of really good stuff in there. That was awesome overview of the hiring process. Let's talk about retention, because you have deployed some really specific initiatives to focus on retention. And we've got a few of them listed. Which one do you? Should we start with the caregiver excellence department? You just, you were actually just like citing that. So explain what that department is and what they do.

Jen Kulig (43:29)
So, yeah, so we have a caregiver excellence department. We have a department head. We have a senior manager of caregiver excellence. And then we have seven manager of caregiver excellence. It's three in Massachusetts, three in Maryland, and one in Chicago. And their whole job is to celebrate and support caregivers, literally. one of the things that we're,

going back to kind of how we evolve over time and kind of pivot or try new things. Right now in Massachusetts, we've decided to kind of specialize our MCs. prior to half a year ago, you know, each of our MCs had, a third of our caregivers. In Massachusetts, we have about 225 caregivers. So a third of that is, you know, 80, 75, 80. And they would really just kind of

keep tabs on them and really support the heck out of them. What we've done in the last six months is said, let's have one MC who focuses just on the first 90 days, one MC who focuses on support and celebration, so celebratory initiatives, and then one that kind of supports technology and answering a lot of administrative-type payroll and all those things. But we've really evolved with the MCE role. ⁓

pieces of the MCE role is focusing on retention. And that first 90 days, as I'm sure you've heard before, is incredibly critical to someone's success to kind of make it, they can make it past 90 days, we can often keep them for quite a while. so one of the big initiatives that MCs had on their plate a number of years ago was what we called TAP, the Tribute Achievement Program. And we designed it. The thought initially was,

Okay, if caregivers ⁓ meet certain performance metrics, being on time, wearing their uniform, logging in and out appropriately, like all these kind of administrative logistical things, but that really make a difference in the impact of the care you're providing, we'll give them a quarterly raise. Every single quarter, they can keep getting a raise. And what we found was that the really great performers continue to perform really great and get those increases.

But the mediocre performers, or the ones that were in the bottom 50%, didn't really impact their behavior. And so it was a lot of work to administer it and to kind of have all these caregivers with different pay rates ⁓ and give them these quarterly performance reports around how they were doing. And it wasn't really impacting behavior. And so in the last year and a half or so,

our senior manager of Caregiver Excellence, Charlotte, really took the time to research what motivates adult learners. like what are the intrinsic motivators? What are the extrinsic motivators? Like what really gets somebody to want to be better or to work towards something? And through that we created the RISE program. And so it's very heavily

Miriam Allred (46:14)
This super interesting, the way. going.

Jen Kulig (46:32)
concentrated on the first 90 days, but then there are every six month check-ins or as needed check-ins. so the whole point of Rise is to say, look, we really want you to succeed here. And so we want to give you a ton of support up front. We're going to check in with you every week. We're going to be in the field seeing you more often in your first 90 days. We're going to answer all your questions. We're going to, reinforce the things you learned in orientation that you probably forgot because you're learning so much information that day.

and just really hold your hand. And then there's a point system tied to how they're doing and they can go into the tribute store and purchase swag and things like that. financially a lot less expensive. But what we found is that it's really impacted motivation. And when caregivers feel that real support and feel really bought into tribute right out of the gate,

they're going to go out into the field and build those connections with other people because they have the ability to do that because they're so well supported. And so ⁓ that's been really, really exciting. So as we transition to this, all the caregiver excellence managers were all focused on the 90 days for their caregivers. And now we have one person in Massachusetts who focuses on all the 90 day caregivers in Massachusetts. And her whole job is to make sure that we can get those caregivers across the finish line.

And it also allows us to get to know those caregivers on a more intimate level so that we can also weed them out faster if they weren't what we thought they were going to be. And so when you're focused on, you we hired 10 to 12 caregivers a month. So if you're focused on 30 ish, 35 caregivers at a time, you get to know them pretty well and you can quickly identify where there's a concern. You can focus on that. can invest. You can give them more training.

and then they're either going to sink or swim. And if they sink, we can get, we can turn them a little faster and minimize the risk to our brand. And then we can invest in hope that if they swim, that they're going to be a real success story. And then of course, most of our caregivers do great out of the gate and don't need a lot, but ⁓ when they do, there's somebody there for them. So that's also a big part of the caregiver excellence role is just that 90 days. And

Before COVID, I think the industry average was maybe 60 or 65 % turnover rate. After COVID, it's closer to 80%. We've been hovering around 50%. And we've seen a drop in our 90 day. Last quarter, we actually got it to 15%. I think industry average is over 30, 35, 40. So it's working. And that's really exciting.

Miriam Allred (49:15)
And to be continued. Okay, a lot of specific questions around this. think this is so interesting. First, just quick question. Are you still... ⁓ Bonusing, rewarding them for the administrative, check the box on, clocking in and out, like all of those administrative tasks that you said, are you still rewarding them for those or did you do away with that?

Jen Kulig (49:36)
did away. But we still track all of it. And it's still a conversation point when we do check ins with caregivers in their first 90 days and then every six months thereafter.

Miriam Allred (49:46)
Because back to what you said, I think this is so interesting. There are people that are highly motivated, and there are people that are not self-motivated. And caregivers run the gamut on that spectrum. So this is what I interpreted from what you said. The people that are highly motivated, they love that type of stuff. They thrive in that, this and that. You tell me what to do, and I'll do it. And I love the recognition. I love the bonuses. But then the people that are mediocre at that type of stuff, it's not motivating to them. They don't care. They could.

care less whether or not that's in place. And it's like they kind of stay the course. It sounds like you weren't seeing the mediocre people. You were encouraging them to do this, but they weren't becoming highly motivated by this. That's not how this works. It's like they kind of stay the course because it's personally ingrained in them.

Jen Kulig (50:35)
Yeah, and they do to a certain extent, but I also think our goal is for them to be motivated by things that we offer them. ⁓ whether it's additional trainings or promotional opportunities or other things that maybe could have a financial implication to them, but maybe aren't as expensive as raising somebody's hourly wage every quarter.

Miriam Allred (50:56)
you

had to bucket into a few, what motivates most of your workforce, what would you say? Is it the quarterly raise? Is it training? Is it something else? If you had to bucket into two, three, four, what would you say is motivating most of these people?

Jen Kulig (51:12)
So I can't sit here and say that anything financial doesn't impact somebody, right? But I think that the support they get from Tribute is really, really critical to their motivation. PTO is something we hear a lot about, and something we do provide to caregivers is really important to them too, because many of them work 60, 72 hours a week. We pay caregivers over time. We're happy to do that.

you know, they can get burnt out. So if they can get, two days of paid time off, that's ⁓ critical. So that's one we hear very often. PTO, please don't get rid of it. In Massachusetts, we're required to give sick time as well. In Maryland, we're not. But we've been starting to hear a lot of feedback from caregivers about like, I'm sick and now I don't get paid. And so that's one of the initiatives we have on our docket for

the next six months is to look at implementing sick paid leave for caregivers in Maryland. yeah, and every year we do wage increases and we communicate those very transparently to caregivers around what that looks like, why we're doing it. yeah, I ⁓ mean, there's a lot of things that can motivate somebody, right?

Miriam Allred (52:36)
Yeah,

but back to, I think this is really interesting. When we think about what motivates caregivers, know, nine times out of ten people would say money. You know, they're motivated by money out of necessity. And that's not wrong. But this is interesting to hear you talk about support. How far support goes in their motivation. Because they've likely been at other agencies and they haven't been taken care of and they haven't been supportive and they haven't had someone that they can call when they need something. That goes such a long way to this demographic as well.

And so I think that's like an underutilized lever, if you will, is just leaning into exceptional support. And that becomes a motivator for these people. Super interesting.

Jen Kulig (53:15)
Absolutely.

Yeah, mean, support, it may sound cliche because a lot of people talk about supporting caregivers. But as I share with you all the initiatives that we do to really support them, I think it elevates it into something that is very, it's something that you can point your finger to. Tangible. Yes.

Miriam Allred (53:37)
It's

very tangible. ambiguous. Like, we offer good support. It's like a generic term, but it's like, here's how we do that. And then our turnover speaks for itself. Our 90-day turnover is less than 15%. This is actually working.

Jen Kulig (53:51)
So we have, we call it the Everyone Out initiative at Tribute. So literally we have 60 office employees across our markets, from accounting to people that are client facing and not client facing. Everyone has to go out ⁓ and see caregivers and clients. Stay connected to the front lines. And when caregivers see our director of accounting out in the field, what kind of message does this end, right? It's like, I think that's really quite cool.

doing caregiver happiness surveys every year and really taking a pulse on like, are the assumptions we've made really true? Give us the real skinny, you know, and taking that feedback and doing things with it. ⁓ you know, and so the more time that we spend with caregivers, the more that we invite them into the office, the more that they have the ear of John or myself or any other leader. ⁓

frankly anyone that they're touching or that touches them, ⁓ the more they feel part of the organization. And home care, think that's really critical because you're out by yourself siloed. And ⁓ we just were very purposeful in ⁓ engaging in such a way where it takes that isolation away.

Miriam Allred (54:57)
siloed.

I'm glad you highlighted that get out program because a lot of times in an organization of your size if a caregiver ever talked to a CEO that CEO hasn't been out in the field for years that carry that that CEO hasn't taught you know maybe a little bit twice a month twice a month not twice a year not once a year you know you're very connected and it just creates that level like understanding and empathy that really goes a long way

The caregiver excellence department, talked about like their focus being on like the first 90 days. Do you have any sort of like mentorship program or what does it look like in maybe hierarchy or strategy after they exit that 90 day?

Jen Kulig (55:51)
So it depends on the caregiver. Some caregivers just want their work, want to have a real impact on the clients they're caring for, and we check in with them as often as we need to. And then they're off doing their thing. And we engage with them at various times for various reasons. ⁓ Other caregivers, ⁓ we provide a lot of opportunities. So we have ⁓ a brand ambassador.

program where caregivers can apply to be a brand ambassador. And that may mean that they support a new caregiver and do like an initial training. So that new caregiver will come and spend a day with them and kind of learn the ropes of like home care and maybe something specific that that client needs that they don't have that skill set for. ⁓ We just started to implement a new program called Caregiver Partner, where we've identified caregivers ⁓ who are in senior living communities where we have

four, five, six, seven clients. So there are a lot of caregivers that are in that community providing care to those clients. And that caregiver partner spending 10 or 12 hours a week, not as a manager of those caregivers, but as a partner and ⁓ really trying to connect, ⁓ you know, their siloed work with each other.

How are you doing? How are you feeling? What challenges are you faced with? And then for that caregiver partner to make sure, are they in uniform? Are they representing tribute well? ⁓ What are the things that maybe they'd share with a fellow caregiver that they're too ashamed or worried or anxious to share with me or with their manager, whoever? ⁓ And so that's something that we've just started to pilot.

We're always thinking about new ways to just engage. It's not just caregivers engaging with us in the office, but it's also how do we get caregivers to engage with each other.

Miriam Allred (57:44)
Yeah, and baking in that those additional layers of support. Yeah. Yeah, not just them calling the office. But yeah, how do they talk to another caregiver and feel that like direct support really intimately when they're out in the fields?

Jen Kulig (57:55)
The brand ambassador also, we have a brand ambassador meet with any new office associate that's hired. ⁓ We have them come into the office and talk to the new office associate about what their experience has been to be a caregiver at Tribute. And they spend an hour, whoever it is, whether it's a director hire or an administrative associate. ⁓ And like how cool for a caregiver to be able to say, look, I get to represent part of what...

I do out there to a new office associate who will have some impact on me in some capacity. So yeah, just always thinking outside the box about how to engage caregivers in those types of ways.

Miriam Allred (58:32)
And just so much FaceTime. Everyone is like FaceTime with everyone.

Jen Kulig (58:37)
And caregiver excellence is really the glue that kind of makes all of that happen and coordinates those things and make sure that caregivers have those.

Miriam Allred (58:45)
Yeah and it's not a once a year initiative it's that we're doing this on a weekly basis. We're prioritizing that FaceTime. This leads me to your awards system program incentive you know whatever you call it but you have a pretty robust awards program to recognize these caregivers as well. Talk a little bit about the evolution of you know that awards program and what it is today.

Jen Kulig (59:08)
So it's really evolved. ⁓ We used to do yearly awards, annual awards. So we would do like a caregiver of the year award. We would do like most hours worked, most visits, know, ⁓ things like that. And we would go out as a team and deliver these awards to them out in the field. And that was really fun and exciting, but we felt like we were not celebrating enough caregivers.

Miriam Allred (59:10)
Like everything.

Jen Kulig (59:36)
So then we said, okay, let's do what we call remarkable personified and let's do it quarterly. And let's have everyone nominate everyone that works, our client solutions managers, our caregiver excellence, myself, the whole operations team, scheduling partners. ⁓ Let's have everyone nominate someone. And then from that list of people, we'll choose one. And then, so we did that for like a year.

Miriam Allred (1:00:02)
It doesn't

feel like enough. Exactly. have hundreds of caregivers. How do we get it down to one? Right.

Jen Kulig (1:00:06)
So now we invite like five to seven caregivers in on a quarterly basis. And ⁓ they get a monetary stipend for the award. ⁓ They get a pin that they get to wear on their uniform, which is kind of symbolic, I think. ⁓ And then they come in and they get to have a conversation with John and with some other leaders. And we sit around a roundtable and we just ask for their feedback. What's worked? What hasn't worked? What's made you successful here?

What would you like to see different or changed at Tribute? And that information drives so many of our decisions. we also have them tell us a meaningful story about a client that you've cared for in the last six months and how it's impacted you. And just bring it back home to what this is all about. Because you can get caught up in your own job and whatever that focus is.

when you are sitting across from a caregiver and they tell you a very specific story about the way they've connected with somebody and how they've honored humanity, it's just the coolest thing. ⁓ And ⁓ so we want to give them that platform to do that. And so all six or seven come in at the same time. We pull them from their visits. We pay them for those 12 hours that they would have worked and just say, come in and spend two hours with us, have lunch, let's have a conversation.

Miriam Allred (1:01:25)
Let

us just recognize you. Let us just relish in what you do day in and day out. And I think this is so powerful. It's quarterly and it's five to seven caregivers because I agree, I hear of a lot of agencies that do it annually and it's maybe one to three caregivers. But if you have a huge workforce, it's like, I'm never going to achieve that. It's just like intangible to most of your employees. But this is like, I have an opportunity to achieve that. That's so cool. ⁓ What else do we have here on retention programs? I know we've kind of jumped around. We've had a lot of these,

Jen Kulig (1:01:48)
So fun too.

Miriam Allred (1:01:55)
My goodness, the one that I want to talk about is the salary position. We haven't actually even talked about this. ⁓ You all offer salary positions. Talk about how you structure that and how you think about that.

Jen Kulig (1:02:08)
So we call it Tribute Secure. And there's a 30-hour and a 40-hour program. ⁓ caregivers can, so basically we guarantee them either 30 hours or 40 hours of work a week, even if we don't give them that amount of work. ⁓ for caregivers, it can be a little bit complicated initially, but once we explain it and they're bought into it, it's ⁓

a really exciting opportunity for them. About 20 % of our caregivers across the company are on the program. ⁓ the whole idea is, I mean, they're prioritized first, because if we don't get them that work and we have to pay that out, we call that TS admin time, tribute secure admin time, and that's an expense to the company. We spend about 25 to 30,000 a quarter to make sure that those caregivers are getting paid what we've guaranteed them. It's a great retention tool.

And it kind of takes away the ⁓ lack of certainty in home care. You may have 70 hours a week for months and months, and then all of sudden you lose a client and you're down to 30 hours. And luckily, we have enough demand where we can fill them back up pretty quickly, typically. But sometimes it could take a week or two, or maybe even a little longer every once in a while. And they can sit there and know that they're still going to get paid. And so.

It's a budget line item that we've decided is worth investing in. they have to give us set days and times that they're available that they can work under. And then it becomes our job to make sure that we get them work within those days and time. So usually they work 12 hour visits, either three or four days a week. So if it's a 30 hour program, usually you're working 36. And if you're on the 40 hour, you're working at least 48. You can work more than that.

Miriam Allred (1:03:56)
And do you pay overtime for more than that? Yes. Normal as if it were hourly, you structure our overtime the same? Yes.

Jen Kulig (1:04:03)
So we allow our caregivers to work within reason as much overtime as they want. We have a lot of caregivers who work six 12-hour days a week. We do not carry that expense on to families. So again, that's something we've decided to invest in. It allows us to retain caregivers. It prevents caregivers from feeling that they have to work for multiple agencies because they can get the hours they need at one place.

Miriam Allred (1:04:22)
And I might have missed it. Who qualifies for this or how do you decide? How do they decide? How do you decide who's the right fit for this?

Jen Kulig (1:04:29)
So we do a couple of different things. share the program with caregivers in orientation. And if they step forward and say, this is something that I'm really interested in, we'll talk to them more about it. And ⁓ if we feel we can afford it, we will put them on the program right away. It's a really good. and caregivers, sometimes caregivers are with us for a couple of years. And then

their life circumstances are such where they're like, yeah, I can do that now. Because they have to give up a little bit more flexibility. They have to say yes more. There are times where we're guaranteeing them pay, but they also have to guarantee us their availability. So some people are really attracted to that and other people are not. so sometimes it's right upon hire. Sometimes we kind of get them through the 90 days and we identify that they would be a great person. Because it's also somebody that we want to be able to send pretty much anywhere.

because we're paying to salary them and the minute that there's opportunity to get them work, we wanna be able to send them someplace. We want them to be pretty skilled. But we've opened it up a little bit more and we've taken more risk with it because we want people, if they want the opportunity, we want to be able to give it to them. And it's a really, really great tool for emerging markets. So Chicago, where demand is not as consistent and it's the chicken and the egg, how many caregivers, how much demand,

And sometimes caregivers are sitting for longer periods of time. So instead of having a revolving door where we lose caregivers because they're not getting work and then we have to hire more rapidly when work comes in, we just let them sit and we pay them. ⁓ And so it's been a real, it's, you know, it's a budget line on them. There's a financial cost to it, but for us, it's less expensive than losing those caregivers and having to hire again.

Miriam Allred (1:06:12)
Okay, really well said because my first thought is, why wouldn't everyone do this? But you're so right. That's not the nature of home care. Their schedules, their life circumstances, it's constantly ebbing and flowing. And so this doesn't make sense for everyone, but it does make sense for a lot of people. And it's a differentiator. Like you said, in an emerging market, Chicago, it's like you can offer this to people, even mention it maybe in your recruiting efforts or mention it in orientation. And some people, it's a huge attractive

incentive opportunity for them. And so it draws people in, but if it's the right fit. Okay. I'm glad we hit on that because that's, yeah, I don't hear a lot about like salaried positions and how you all are thinking about it is really unique and it will probably continue to evolve and adapt as you put more people through that. ⁓ I think we hit on most of the retention programs that I wanted to hit on. Can you think of anything else that I'm missing?

Jen Kulig (1:06:44)
Exactly.

Miriam Allred (1:07:05)
We talked about training, career paths, promotional opportunities. You just mentioned some career or caregiver partners. Yep, brand ambassadors. Brand ambassadors.

Jen Kulig (1:07:16)
Right now, seven, I believe seven of our office associates were also caregivers, so about 10 % of our workforce. So we're always thinking about ways to also, if, you know, lot of our caregivers, from other countries in particular, had pretty significant careers, whether they were nurses or psychologists or worked in a hospital setting or some accountants, I business people. So any opportunity that we can leverage some of that kind of previous life.

know, skills and experience ⁓ we want to. And so whenever a position in the company opens up, we let caregivers know about it, just like we let our office team and external folks know about it. And so anyone is welcome to apply just like anyone else. And it's been fun to bring in some caregivers into the office team, too, and see them thrive in that setting.

Miriam Allred (1:08:05)
And even just offering up the opportunity. They feel like I have a chance to upskill, become someone in the office. Talked to a lot of owners about this. It's not a right fit for everyone. But even just offering up that opportunity so they can start to think and shape their own career path. A lot of these people are just limited by their own thinking. so showing them a path, showing them opportunities, teeing them up for that, they can decide for themselves whether or not it's a good opportunity. Yeah.

Jen, I've had you in the hot seat for a long time and you are awesome. Like you are just killing it and I'm so just, we could keep going, but I know we're about at time here. Let's just talk a little bit about kind of these last couple of questions, your personal take on the workforce in general. Does this keep you up at night when you hear the numbers that so many people are turning 65 every day

How worried are you about the workforce and about where home care is headed? Is it stress and fear or is it excitement and opportunity or does depend on the day? How do you think about this?

Jen Kulig (1:09:05)
It's mostly excitement and opportunity. I think if we continue to stay the course and do what we keep doing well at Tribute, I have high hopes that we can continue to recruit pretty successfully. And I think our retention will continue to get better and better. I think a lot of home care companies kind of dismiss retention and it's just kind of what it is, what it is, and let it be its thing and we just focus on continuing to hire, hire, hire. That's not really our mentality.

We want to retain caregivers because it costs less. We trust them. When they've been with us a long time, they can give us a lot of really great information to help us evolve. They become part of that fabric. ⁓ So I'm a little worried about the current administration and kind of their take on immigration for sure and kind of what that will mean for even our existing caregivers, current caregivers that are currently working legally.

⁓ But ⁓ we can't control that. And I think we just have to continue to advocate the healthcare industry at large for why immigrants are so critical to this industry. And I think the more that we grow and the more that we get, buy in from our caregivers to keep referring other caregivers, I think we'll be okay.

Miriam Allred (1:10:19)
be okay. Yeah, and self-sustaining and continue to focus on everything that we've talked about. If you just continue to hone in on that and refine that, it's like you almost can't lose.

Jen Kulig (1:10:28)
I mean, of course it's going to continue to get harder and harder to find caregivers because the need is greater and greater. We also have to continue to be relentless focus on doing right by the caregivers and that caregiver mindset because the more that we do that, the more that will attract caregivers. And it may mean that we have to take market share, like competition, But ⁓ if we're doing things the best way, then

we may have more success at attracting caregivers than our competitor down the street. And that may be an unpopular thing to say, but it's reality. We've got to stay on top of that so that we continue to be a place that caregivers really want to be.

Miriam Allred (1:11:12)
Last question, you teased a little bit of thinking about 2026, kind of the next 12 to 18 months. Any initiatives or programs or kind of in this vein of recruitment and retention, anything that you're thinking about or planning in the next 12 to 18 months that you can share?

Jen Kulig (1:11:25)
I mean, what's most critical is that pretty much everything we're focused on has to do with caregivers. mean, our relationship development manager, Colin in Massachusetts, he's been with us for about three years, so sales guy. He said to me pretty early on in his tenure at Tribute, ⁓ I'm motivated by getting caregivers work. So he's going out and developing all these referral relationships. But at the end of the day,

Of course, that's going to help tribute grow, but it's also going to help caregivers keep getting the work that they want, consistent demand. ⁓ so I just think somebody like sales also impacts caregivers directly. So we're constantly thinking about things. The caregiver partner position I mentioned, implementing AI initiatives, particularly in scheduling to make that more seamless, to make sure ⁓ caregivers have the hours they want. We track all of that.

you know, there's so much data that we track, but one of the things we track is how many hours caregivers are working and what their desired hours are and how do we bridge that gap. And right now our utilization is at 95 percent. We're doing great, but it ebbs and flows all the time. And how do we make sure, you know, how do we understand when a caregiver is not working? How do we make sure to prioritize them above a caregiver that's already got 60 hours? You know, just all those variables and AI is going to help with that a lot.

Miriam Allred (1:12:30)
Yeah.

Jen Kulig (1:12:49)
We're going to relook at the PTO program, make it little richer. And we've gone back and forth because we used to offer one day of PTO for every year you've been with us. So at your five-year anniversary, you'd get five days of PTO plus in a cruel amount. And it became a little bit unpredictable for us to budget.

So we went back on that and it's really about the number of hours you work and how much you accrue, but I think we went back a little too far. And so now we've got to figure out what's that happy medium and where do we start and how do we budget appropriately for it. But it is something we hear really often from caregivers. No, and I just think, I think the other big takeaway here is that it's really critical that we continue to try new things ⁓ and just embrace that part of our culture.

Because the more that we try new things, the more that we will see opportunities to move forward. And so I think there's a lot of experimentation. have some, Ghalip is our ⁓ Director of Strategic Analysis and Project Management. So he's constantly leading task forces and pulling people from all different parts of the company to kind of brainstorm ways to do things differently and reimagine how we operate. And I think we have to continue to embrace that as a culture.

in order to really elevate the caregiver experience.

Miriam Allred (1:14:07)
Shout out to Galeep. He's the one that put tribute on my radar. So I'm you just mentioned him. Jen, you blown me away. I had high hopes and expectations for this and you have absolutely delivered. So thank you so much for being here in Dallas, for joining me in the lab and for just bringing the energy and bringing the heat and bringing the prescriptiveness. This is always what I look for and I feel like we got so tactical and technical and prescriptive in this episode. And so just grateful and for everything that you've delivered today.

And I want people to connect with you. I want people to connect with Tribute. There's so much to learn from your organization. And so I will encourage everybody to reach out to Jen, to reach out to Tribute, and make yourself known to them, and learn from them. And I think this is your first podcast, but probably not your last. so. Absolutely. To be continued and more where this came from. So we'll go ahead and wrap here, but thank

Jen Kulig (1:14:55)
Thank you for being my first.

so much, Jen. Thank you.