Every Day is an Interview

At Support For Home In-Home Care, all of our Home Care Aides are our employees.  We are not a referral agency for some very simple reasons.  As the employer of record, we perform the background checks, determine who is worthy of being a member of our extended family, cover them with liability insurance, our dishonesty bond, workers comp, etc.  That means our home care clients and their families are protected from unemployment claims, injury claims, and so forth.

To be the employer of record, we actually have to assign our Home Care Aides to our clients.  Every once in a while, a client or his / her family will ask to interview the Home Care Aide, first.  When this happens, we explain two things:

• If the client or family "interviews" the potential caregiver, they are indicating to the State that they may be the actual employer, not Support For Home.  That is dangerous for the client or family, because it can result in government burdens and expectations that the client is not prepared for, at all.  We are the employer of record to protect against that.  The client hires and / or fires us, Support For Home, not an individual employee.
• Every day that a Support For Home employee works for a client is an interview, in reality.  We tell our clients several things.  One is that we never want the client to "try to make it work" with a Home Care Aide.  The client and the caregiver are either a good match or they are not.  If they are not, we put a new Home Care Aide in place.  The second message is that things change.  A caregiver who is great for you right now may not be in six months, for whatever reason.  Every day is an interview, at which Support For Home and our employees must excel.

If you or a loved one needs home care, make sure you work with an agency that is the employer or record.  You may pay a bit more per hour, but you avoid a ton of potential liability.