How home-care company Griswold reduced employee turnover by 20% with the help of AI

• Griswold uses AI to reduce turnover rates and improve caregiver experience.
• The platform rewards employees for completing tasks and can predict when a caregiver might quit.
• This article is part of "CXO AI Playbook" — straight talk from business leaders on how they're testing and using AI.

Griswold is a home-care company that assigns caregivers to older people to help with daily living in their homes.

Founded in 1982 and headquartered outside Philadelphia, Griswold operates eight locations and has about 150 franchises in more than 30 states.

Situation analysis: What problem was the company trying to solve?

Michael Slupecki, the CEO of Griswold, said turnover rates in the home-care industry have been increasing nationwide, especially in the wake of COVID-19.

Slupecki said that in the past few years, Griswold's turnover rate had reached about 80% annually in the locations it operates in Pennsylvania. Finding and replacing caregivers is costly for the company and affects the care clients receive.

"There's a high correlation between consistency in the caregiver workforce and client satisfaction, which goes to your reputation, which goes to the strength of your business in attracting more clients and more caregivers," Slupecki said.

Griswold wanted to improve caregiver experience, reduce turnover, and predict which helpers were most likely to quit, he said.

Last year, the organization started using TeamEngage, a system created by WellSky, a health and community-care tech company, and powered by Ava, an artificial-intelligence platform.

The tool incentivizes and rewards caregivers for completing activities and reaching goals.

Key staff and partners

Katherine Schiavino, the chief financial officer at Griswold, and the company's human-resources team determined which metrics would be used to recognize caregivers, such as being on time for work, taking extra shifts, and referring new caregivers. They also decided on a point system for rewards, she said.

AI in action

The AI tool automatically assigns points to caregivers when they complete activities or achieve goals, Schiavino said. For example, if they clock in on time or accept a shift to fill in for someone, the system gives them points. They also receive points for their birthdays and work anniversaries.

The points can be redeemed for gift cards, such as for Starbucks, or a preloaded Mastercard, she said. When caregivers receive a reward, it's announced on a community platform in the system, which others can see. And their colleagues can congratulate them there.

Employee recognition used to be a manual process, but office staff sometimes lacked the capacity to consistently celebrate caregivers, Slupecki said. The AI tool automates honoring these milestones and minimizes the administrative workload, ensuring that caregivers' work isn't overlooked.

"It helps reach out to all of our caregivers and recognize them in a way that they should be recognized," he said.

The AI platform also tracks and analyzes factors that might contribute to caregivers quitting so the company can find solutions to retain them, Slupecki said. For instance, it identifies those who haven't had a rate increase recently or who've been assigned a client who lives a long driving distance away.

Did it work?

Griswold has reduced turnover by about 20% in the locations it owns since it started using TeamEngage in October, Slupecki said.

Schiavino attributed that to the reward system and to how the tool helps identify caregivers who need extra encouragement. For example, someone might be arriving at a client's home on time but not clocking in right away — so the system notifies the company and caregiver that they're late. The system will then automatically incentivize the caregiver to change their behavior.

Receiving recognition on the community platform has improved morale and fostered a sense of community, which is important since caregivers work in client homes and don't typically gather together, Schiavino said.

The AI tool has also helped Griswold increase employee referrals since caregivers earn points when they recommend others for the job.

What's next?

Griswold is using TeamEngage across the locations it runs in Pennsylvania — which employ about 400 caregivers — and in a few franchises, Slupecki said.

The company said it planned to discuss the tool's benefits at its franchise conference in August to encourage more franchises to improve their turnover, he said.

"It's worked really well for our caregivers," Schiavino said. "They've really connected with this."