What Home Care Owners Should Know About the FTC Ban

You’ve probably heard about the FTC ban at this point, but we’ll break down what this means for you and what you can do today to safeguard your caregiver recruiting and retention efforts.

We’ll go over:

• What happened
• What the implications are for your home care agency
• What you can do today

What happened

On April 23rd, the Federal Trade Commission held an open meeting and voted 3:2 on the Final Rule and it passed. This would effectively ban most non-competes. 

The timeline

There are 120 days between when it appears in the Federal Registry and when it’s actually implemented. 

Fortunately, this gives you and your team time to meet with your business advisor or counselor to understand how this specifically impacts your agency, state, etc. 

Lastly, Polsinelli also shared that “The Final Rule is intended to supersede any state law that would otherwise authorize conduct prohibited by the Final Rule.” Watch their webinar on the topic here.

What the implications are for your home care agency

What the Final Rule does is institute a ban on non-competes. More specifically:

• You can’t start or enforce a non-compete clause in an employment agreement.
• You also can’t imply or suggest to an employee that they are subject to a non-compete.

“The rule itself does not impact your ability to enter into a noncompete with a worker during their employment,” shared Emma Schuering, Shareholder at Polsinelli. What this rule does is impact “the worker’s ability to work after the conclusion of their work or employment with the employer.” 

For some context, “The entire administration’s focus is on protecting the free flow of labor in that hourly, you know, lower, minimum wage earning demographic,” Schuering added. 

What this means for your agency is:

• Your ability to maintain a non-compete that restricts working with competitors while an employee works with you is okay. 
• Even with a non-compete that is in play during employment, you can’t imply that a non-compete exists after a caregiver stops working with you. 

What you can do today

Although there isn’t much that can be done around the legislation aside from lawsuits, there are some actions you can take within your agency to limit the impact of this non-compete ban. 

Establish a high-quality employer brand. Recruiting and retaining caregivers has never been harder, however, this rule makes it easier for caregivers to seek work at other competitors after their time with your agency. Having an employer brand that makes your agency stick out makes it harder for caregivers to leave.

What does an employer brand mean in home care? That means reinforcing: 

• The benefits you offer. From health insurance to PTO to other miscellaneous benefits that your caregivers might enjoy, make sure that they know they’re available. According to Ameritas, about “85% of workers are confused about their coverage options.” That means it’s an important part of you and your teams’ collective roles to share and reinforce what they have.
• Address immediate caregiver pain points. The top three reasons for caregiver turnover are communication, pay, and scheduling (in descending order). What these three aspects have in common is that they are within your control. 

Make sure that you maintain a high level of communication with your caregivers. That can mean through weekly newsletters, check-in text messages, satisfaction surveys, and just to make sure that you notify all parties about scheduling changes. 

In terms of pay, make sure that you are constantly doing research on what the market is with your competitors and businesses (across industries) in your area. You’re not just competing for talent with competitors, you’re also competing against companies like Amazon, Starbucks, etc. If you need to raise your rates, make sure to incorporate that into your business plan. 

Scheduling is not as malleable as the other factors, however, when doing in-home assessments with new clients make sure that you take time to assess your own caregivers’ availability. Do you have enough staff that would be willing to travel to this area with the right client skill set/personality match? Caregivers are the ones who are providing care to clients and their skills should help guide your decision-making. 

Scheduling work doesn’t have to just be manual. Use your home care agency management platform to do the heavy-lifting so that your team can focus on the complex problem-solving that technology can’t do for you. 

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At CareTime, we want to be a resource for all things home care. Our home care agency management software is just the beginning of what we offer our customers, and we want to hear from you. 

Using our system can help you maintain compliance with regulations like these and others. Learn more by booking a demo with our team today.