Recruiting new CNA's

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I am lucky enough to be DON of a small family owned and operated Nursing Home/SNF facility for the past 1.5 years. Approximately 70% of our CNA's have been with us 10+ years! The problem is we have recently had some CNA's leave for various reasons (retirement, bad attitude, etc)... We have puts ads in local papers, online ads, we are sending out a mass direct mailing Monday and my ADON is going to hit some job fairs. Any other advice for recruiting CNA's? The other problem is, every facility within a 30 minute drive (Hospitals, Nursing Homes and even Agencies) are struggling to find CNA's. We have great staffing ratios and utilize extra resources for them such as 7 days a week of a whirlpool aide and 7 days a week of a restorative aide to also lessen the floor CNA's load. Most people who I offer a job to accept, but I've also had several people apply and just not show up for interviews. I would have never done that in my day as a CNA so it's very shocking! Any tips on recruiting? Thanks!

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We recruit from nursing schools. We are fortunate that we have several nursing schools close to our facility. The only negative side of hiring nursing students as STNAs is that when they graduate they tend to move on because we don't usually have any nursing positions open.

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Specializes in retired LTC.

My suggestion same as PP. If you offer flex scheduling you may find it enticing.

Could you offer some type of tuition reimbursement as a longevity bonus??? Like as in some way to keep NS grads on at your facility? Might be something your admin could consider if keeping grads is something you see a need to do.

Also, have you offered an employee referral bonus? Eg - Mary recommends Sue for CNA position. Sue is hired and stays for some proscribed length of time so Mary receives matching prorated partial referral bonus installment.

And open the referral system to any & all employees.

Money talks.

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Specializes in LPN.

Might seem a bit out of left field; reach out to CNA training programs as a potential clinical site. Myself and 2 other students were offered jobs at our clinical site, conditional on passing the CNA test with reimbursement for the test after 90 days and $1000 bonus after a year. I stayed with that facility 5yrs. Our DON said she love having students because it helped her current CNAs but, also gave her the ability to view a potential candidate's; skills, time management, professional and personal interactions.

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Thanks for the tips! I really appreciate the ideas.

I have had a very positive response from my direct mailing so I'm hoping we will get the staff we need but if not I'll use those ideas.

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Specializes in Geriatrics.

We are having the same problem and have tried most of the ideas here...but I don't believe we have done a direct mailing. What types of information did you include in this? And did you just gather names/addresses from the nurse aide registry?

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Yes I contacted the CNA registry and they gave me a recent list (within the past month) of all active CNA's in my state. We then had to narrow it down to surrounding counties. We did a postcard for our direct mailing and put basic information about the facility and what we are looking for. I needed CNA's for all shifts but mostly nights so we did include all shifts on there. We added things like we have a whirlpool aide 7 days a week and a restorative aide 7 days a week and that we staff well above minimum numbers. Of course you want it eye catching so we put a nice picture of the building on it too. I sent 500 postcards and have had a lot of inquiries and 8 interviews! I will definitely use this method again!! Postcards can be printed really cheap at Staples too!

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