From Reset to Remarkable: Cypress’s Year of Transformation

Just sixteen months ago, Cypress HomeCare Solutions was operating with a team of only 18 caregivers. Today, that number has surged to approximately 240, a testament to the company’s strategic overhaul of its workforce processes and a deliberate cultivation of its company culture. Founded in 1994, Cypress provides essential personal care and specialized dementia programs to clients throughout the region.

The decision to part ways with Honor, a year before their agreement was set to expire, stemmed from fundamental differences in operational philosophies. Roth emphasized that home care is, at its heart, a deeply relational business. “It’s relational with our caregivers. It’s relational with our clients and their families. It’s not a transaction,” he stated, highlighting the importance of personalized care and strong interpersonal connections.

Navigating the Post-COVID Hiring Landscape

The landscape of caregiver recruitment had fundamentally shifted in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Traditional methods of attracting talent proved ineffective. “Caregivers weren’t coming to the office anymore, and it wasn’t just [Cypress],” Roth explained. “We had to go to where they were in order to find them, interview them and bring them into the recruitment funnel.”

To address this challenge, Cypress forged strategic alliances with innovative recruitment platforms. AvaHR proved instrumental, enabling the company to simultaneously post open positions on up to 18 job boards daily, utilizing automation to ensure continuous visibility. “In these job postings, you have to be dynamic,” Roth noted. “If you’re static, you fall down to the bottom, so you have to continuously refresh that. We don’t have humans doing that any longer. We let the machines do that.”

Further streamlining the process, Cypress integrated HelloHire, an AI-powered recruiting platform, to implement digital interviewing. This addition transformed the initial screening phase, adding a concise, ten-minute virtual interview to the beginning of the candidate journey. Previously, Cypress’s hiring process involved a four-stage approach: a phone interview, an in-person interview, a three-to-four-hour orientation, a meeting with the scheduler, and finally, a drug test.

“In the new paradigm, we do the digital interview,” Roth clarified. “We gather all the credentials, then we do a second digital interview, and we’re doing a much deeper dive. We’re really learning a lot about their background, their experience, their likes and dislikes, their availability, and their geographic preferences. All this information is transcribed, summarized, and seamlessly imported into AxisCare.”

By virtualizing the initial stages of the interview process, Cypress significantly accelerated its hiring timeline. This speed is critical in a highly competitive market where potential employees often have multiple offers. “Ninety percent of our workforce lives paycheck to paycheck, so if you can’t get them into the recruitment funnel as quickly as possible, you’re going to lose them,” Roth emphasized. “We’ve reduced a process that used to take three weeks to just three to four days.”

Building a Thriving Culture Amidst Rapid Expansion

Beyond recruitment, Cypress recognized the importance of fostering a strong company culture to support its rapidly growing team. The company now conducts virtual check-in meetings twice weekly, providing a forum for staff to discuss cases and share insights. Team-building activities, such as painting sessions, axe throwing, Topgolf outings, and happy hours, are also regularly organized to promote camaraderie and connection, particularly crucial for a remote workforce.

“We try to do that once a month, just so that we can all feel like we’re connected,” Roth said. “It’s hard because you feel siloed. We’re in a new world, and I really think that we need to embrace where we’re at.”

Despite the challenges of ending its partnership with Honor, Roth acknowledged the valuable lessons learned during their collaboration. “I learned a lot from my Honor experience,” he stated. “The people were incredibly brilliant. I really believe my intellectual capital is probably up times 10 because I learned so much from them, but here I was not attached to any of the baggage I had before, and I could pivot and evolve into this entity I have now.”

What strategies do you think are most effective for building a strong company culture in a remote work environment? And how can home care agencies best balance efficiency with the need for personalized, relational care?