Struggling with caregiver turnover, staffing shortages, or turning down new cases?
Book a free strategy call with Ascension Business Solutions (ABS) to see how top-performing home care agencies are stabilizing operations, reducing burnout, and scaling without chaos.
The Home Care Turnover Crisis: The Data Doesn’t Lie
The home care industry is facing one of its most pressing challenges in decades, caregiver turnover at crisis levels.
According to an Activated Insights–based industry report, caregiver turnover reached approximately 79.2% in 2023, the highest rate in five years. That means nearly four out of every five caregivers leave within their first 100 days.
The ripple effects are devastating:
Only 12.8% of applicants are hired, creating severe workforce shortages
Agencies are turning down new cases, not due to lack of demand — but lack of staff
Owners and leaders are stuck in constant firefighting mode instead of growing their business
While early signs from the 2025 Benchmarking Report show modest improvement — with turnover declining to around 75% — this is still an unsustainable reality for most agencies.
The question isn’t whether turnover is a problem.
The real question is: Why does it keep happening and what actually fixes it?
Why Most Retention Efforts Fail in Home Care
Many agencies attempt to solve turnover with:
Higher pay alone
More job ads
Faster hiring
One-time bonuses
But industry data — and real-world experience — show these are band-aid solutions.
Turnover doesn’t start when a caregiver quits.
It starts much earlier, with:
Poor onboarding and unclear expectations
Inadequate training and support
Misalignment between role demands and actual workload
Burnout caused by inefficiency — not laziness
Lack of career path, feedback, or psychological safety
In short: the system is broken — not the people.
The ABS Perspective: Turnover Is an Operations Problem, Not a People Problem
At Ascension Business Solutions (ABS), we’ve spent years inside home care agencies — working directly with owners, schedulers, recruiters, and leadership teams.
What we’ve learned is simple but powerful:
Retention improves when people are supported by systems, clarity, and culture — not just compensation.
ABS was built to solve the root causes of turnover by redesigning how work gets done.
How ABS Actively Reduces Turnover for Home Care Agencies
1. We Reduce Burnout by Removing Administrative Overload
One of the biggest contributors to early caregiver and staff turnover is non-clinical burnout — scheduling chaos, constant phone calls, intake backlogs, and after-hours pressure.
ABS provides healthcare-trained Virtual Assistants who take ownership of:
Scheduling and shift coordination
Recruiting admin and applicant follow-ups
Intake, onboarding, and documentation
Virtual receptionist and after-hours on-call support
By offloading these high-friction tasks, agencies protect their caregivers and office staff from exhaustion — a key driver of early exits within the first 100 days.
2. We Strengthen Onboarding — Where Most Turnover Begins
Industry data consistently shows that most turnover happens in the first 30–90 days, often due to poor onboarding and misaligned expectations.
ABS strengthens onboarding by providing:
Structured onboarding workflows
SOC documentation completed within the first 2 weeks
Dedicated success managers to guide early-stage execution
Clear role clarity so new hires aren’t set up to fail
This creates stability early — exactly where retention matters most.
3. SOC Documentation in the First 2 Weeks: A Non-Negotiable Retention Strategy
At ABS, Start of Care (SOC) documentation within the first 14 days is a core retention strategy — not an afterthought.
During the first two weeks, ABS VAs:
Actively document workflows as they are learned
Build or refine SOPs in real time
Clarify expectations, tools, and decision-making rules
Identify gaps, inefficiencies, or unclear handoffs early
This prevents confusion, accelerates independence, and eliminates reliance on tribal knowledge — all major contributors to early burnout and turnover.
When people know what success looks like and how to execute it, they stay longer.
4. We Support Training, Growth & Culture — Not Just Headcount
Activated Insights consistently identifies career growth, training, and positive culture as top retention drivers. ABS operationalizes these principles by design.
Our internal model includes:
Ongoing role-specific training and upskilling
Team Leads and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) for daily support
Clear feedback loops and performance check-ins
Cultural alignment between U.S.-based clients and Filipino VAs
This reduces turnover caused by isolation, confusion, and lack of support — common but often overlooked issues.
5. We Help Agencies Scale Without Turning Down New Cases
Many agencies are forced to decline referrals not because demand is low — but because their internal teams are maxed out.
When schedulers are overwhelmed, intake is backed up, and recruiters are stretched thin, growth becomes impossible — even when referrals are coming in.
By stabilizing operations with ABS healthcare-trained Virtual Assistants:
Intake moves faster and more consistently
Schedulers aren’t overwhelmed by manual coordination
Recruiters stay focused on quality, not just speed
Leadership regains time to plan strategically instead of reacting daily
The result is more cases accepted, better caregiver and staff retention, and sustainable growth without burnout.
The ABS Difference: Retention Through Systems, Not Band-Aids
ABS doesn’t promise to “fix turnover” overnight.
Instead, we help home care agencies build the systems that make retention inevitable.
When your people are supported by:
Clear, documented processes
Real training and ongoing feedback
Reduced administrative overload
Strong onboarding with SOC documentation in the first 2 weeks
And a culture rooted in support and excellence
They stay longer — and your agency becomes stronger.
This is how forward-thinking home care agencies are moving from reactive staffing to operational stability.
What This Means for Home Care Owners
When you stabilize your internal operations:
You stop turning down revenue-producing cases
Your caregivers and office staff stay longer
Your leadership team regains bandwidth and clarity
Your agency becomes scalable — not fragile
Turnover drops not because people work harder —but because the work finally works.
The Bottom Line: You Don’t Have a Caregiver Problem — You Have a Systems Problem
The industry is waking up to a hard truth:
Slight improvements in turnover won’t fix broken operations
Retention requires structure, support, and sustainability
Agencies that win will be the ones that redesign how work is done
That’s exactly what Ascension Business Solutions helps you do.
Ready to Stabilize Your Team and Scale Without Burnout?
If you’re tired of:
Constant hiring cycles
Staffing shortages blocking growth
Leadership exhaustion
Reactive, last-minute decision-making
Then it’s time for a different approach.
Book a free strategy call with Ascension Business Solutions (ABS) and discover how top home care agencies are using elite virtual staffing and AI-enhanced systems to reduce turnover, improve retention, and grow with confidence.