Case Study: Health Care Provider Saves Money While Hiring the Best Candidates

March 2006

The Client:
Bradner Village, a health care center and retirement community in Northeast Indiana, has 230 full-time employees who serve more than 200 residents.

The Challenge:
Finding a cost-effective way to halt staff turnover, a common problem in the health care industry

The Solution:
WorkKeys® job profiling and skill assessment, administered by the Northeast Indiana Workforce Investment Board

The Results: Nearly 40 percent reduction in turnover, and tremendous savings in training costs and employee selection

Situation
Despite spending thousands of dollars on training and development for new hires, Bradner Village executives saw high employee turnover and frustration among employees. In recent years, Bradner lost almost half of its full-time staff. Staffing executives had difficulty finding qualified candidates to fill positions.

In 2004, Bradner president and CEO Eric Walts and human resources manager Deborah Raver decided to address this ongoing crisis. With guidance from the Northeast Indiana Workforce Investment Board (NIWIB), Bradner used the WorkKeys system to profile four key positions—licensed nurses, certified nursing assistants, dietary staff, and environmental services staff. It also identified the minimum WorkKeys-related skill level scores required for entry into each job.

Prior to job interviews, applicants went to the NIWIB's local WorkOne office, where they took WorkKeys exams in Applied Mathematics, Locating Information, Observation, and Reading for Information. Candidates who met the profile standards qualified for a job interview.

Results

Greater supervisory satisfaction and reduction in turnover—Bradner's key issue was high turnover rates. In a six-month period in 2004, Bradner lost 73 employees. In the same six-month period in 2005, after WorkKeys implementation, it lost only 46. This is a 37 percent reduction in turnover.

Tremendous training costs savings—All new certified nursing assistants at Bradner Village are required to complete three weeks of onsite training. Before WorkKeys, this training was offered every month to a class of 20 new hires. Fewer than 50 percent of those hires would make it through the course and work at Bradner Village, creating a loss of more than $86,000 per year. WorkKeys helped Bradner identify candidates likely to succeed in the CNA training. Most employees hired now complete the training and stay with the company. Retention is high enough that Bradner has been able to reduce its training to once every two months for smaller classes of about 15. This reduced Bradner's training losses to a mere $3,600 a year—a 96 percent training cost reduction.

Time savings in the selection process—Before WorkKeys, Bradner's human resources department typically spent much of its workweek wading through applications. Identifying qualified applicants was like "shooting a dartboard with a blindfold on," HR manager Raver said. Now Raver only selects applicants who meet the WorkKeys job requirements. To identify 25 qualified applicants now takes only two hours, instead of eight—a time savings of 75 percent. She also is able to offer jobs to 95 percent of candidates she interviews—a 55 percent improvement in identifying qualified applicants.