Home Health Workers: Pre-Employment Tests
Home health is a growing industry, and we’re here to help you find the best candidates! Discover pre-employment test options for home health workers.
A person is so much more than a piece of paper.
While resumes are certainly vital to the recruiting process, they don’t convey the unique qualities of each individual. They often don’t reflect what it really takes to be successful in the job either.
Early in my career, I learned that most managers “hired for skills then fired on attitude.” I did my best to avoid that same fate.
Skills can be taught, but personalities are permanent, or at minimum difficult to change, which makes it vital to know more about the attitudes and characteristics of your new hire before you put them on your payroll.
With the growing demand for health care workers, especially in a home environment, it’s easy to see why so many businesses are making use of home health pre-employment tests.
What pre-employment assessments are available for home care workers that can help you to find the best fit? Let’s take a look.
Unpacking Pre-Employment Tests
Industry-specific pre-employment tests are an excellent vehicle to ensure the right hire. They assist in reducing staff turnover and save a surprising amount of money and resources in the process. Not only do you want to confirm that the person has the ability to perform their duties, but that they will fit into your company culture and advocate for your patients. Therefore, an objective look at personal strengths and weaknesses, soft skills and adaptability, measured by adaptability quotient (AQ), is an excellent barometer.
Healthcare Skills Tests
A medical pre-screening healthcare assessment can be used to implement the most accurate and valid tests for pre-employment testing and skills gap assessments.
Healthcare comes with its own unique skills requirements, which include:
- First aid
- Basic life support
- HIPAA
- Home health aide,
- Medical billing
- Medical coding
- Medical office administrative skills
- Medical terminology
- Medical transcription
- Nursing skills
- Pharmaceutical terminology
These assessments help identify skilled candidates early in the process. This eliminates job candidates who lack the fundamental skills required for a specific role. They further reduce hiring errors, which may only become obvious once the candidate has been employed for a period of time.
Personality Tests
Caring for another human when they are ill or frail requires a certain personality type. Healthcare workers who choose this vocation usually display kindness, helping disposition, empathy, and compassion – all essential qualities.
However, they will also represent your organization and work closely with your existing team. The wrong hire may fill one one position but deter others from applying or force others to quit.This means that you’ll want to employ people who are likely to fit well with your culture, your team, and thrive under your particular brand of leadership.
In personality testing, there are no right or wrong answers, so you can easily evaluate the candidate you are considering for employment, understand who they are, and ensure their compatibility with the different needs and styles of your patients.
Soft Skills
Alongside innate behaviors, each person will possess a set of soft skills. These are learned abilities and can include things like problem-solving, adaptability, time management, and integrity.
Establishing a list of these desired abilities may be easy to do on paper. But it is incredibly difficult to determine who possesses these traits simply from a resume or from a 30-minute conversation. Certain personality tests are available to highlight whether these qualities are present, and how likely they are to be learned.
For instance, how useful would an assisted living workers employment test be to your organization? What attributes would matter most to you?
Adaptability Quotient
Listed among one of the most important traits in a team member in the 21st Century is adaptability, which can now be measured as adaptability quotient (AQ). AQ has been defined as the ability to pivot or adapt to unexpected changes quickly and successfully.
On the surface, this may seem a simple thing; after all, change is inevitable. (And I dare you to identify any human being on this planet who isn’t vulnerable to change.) But not everyone is prepared. The ability to change one’s thinking and behaviors at the current pace of change, however, is no small matter. To do so constructively, putting ego and opinion aside, is a big ask. It makes sense therefore to ensure that your employees and future leaders possess the ability to adapt or willingness to pivot upon demand.
We’ve touched on the broader assessments, but I’ve barely scratched the surface. Whether it is typing and data entry skills, the ability to multitask, or lead a team, there are over 600 subjects to choose from when looking for pre-employment tests for your healthcare team?
Key Benefits of Pre-Employment Testing
The advantages of pre-employment testing for your healthcare team are numerous, and some may surprise you. Let’s look at three key areas that are impacted by pre-screening.
Reduce Staff Turnover
Whether you’re letting go of unproductive or unsuitable employees, or they’re choosing to leave, staff turnover comes at a cost. The dollar cost is most notable with some research suggesting direct replacement costs as low as 50 – 60% of an employee’s annual salary to multiple times salary. The cost of recruiting and training alone can be prohibitive. In addition, high staff churn reduces morale, which in turn reduces productivity.
Finding the most suitable person in the first instance, one that can do the job and will fit well into your organization, is the antidote to staff turnover.
Reduce Recruiting Time
Anyone involved in hiring staff will tell you that screening potential candidates is incredibly time-consuming. Pre-employment assessments quickly identify candidates who don’t have the skills or experience that you require, and allow you to focus your time, resources, and energy on those candidates that do.
Pre-assessments allow you to screen out candidates that don’t fit while shining a spotlight on those that do. This results in a shorter time to hire, and a better quality of candidate.
Build the Best Teams
The best candidates won’t necessarily be those with the most letters behind their names. Investing in a skilled care worker employment test will help you determine the right people to care for vulnerable and high demand patients. These tests will also highlight those with high adaptability, emotional intelligence, leadership abilities, and the ability to gently persuade people toward exemplary patient care and shared values.
Fast-Track Healthcare Hires
Whether you’re a large or small business, pre-employment tests offer the option to save money, get the best candidates in the shortest time, and set up your team for long-term growth.
There’s no simple way to get around the human personality; there will always be a veil of mystery around who we really are and how we’re likely to perform. It’s time to lift that veil with solid, science-based assessments which remove opinion and bias, replacing these with objective, data-backed solutions.
We invite you to contact our professional team and let us demonstrate how we can assist you.
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