CareBono Hubs

We are addressing the growing caregiver labor shortage by focusing on the difficulty that caregiver employers face in recruiting and retaining staff. Given demographic shifts with an aging population, the number of elder care workers in OECD countries alone is expected to increase 60% by 2040, which will necessitate 13.5 million new caregivers. Moreover, the caregiving industry continues to struggle with major retention issues. In the United States, the annual turnover rate for home care staff is 76%. This turnover rate is a result of low pay, difficult work, and poor employer practices (for example, poor communication is cited as the number one reason that home care staff leave their jobs).

CareBono Hubs is creating communities of employers, educators, and caregivers to recruit, train, and retain the workforce needed to address the growing caregiver labor shortage. By first partnering with employers in the field, we are able to pinpoint where a societal problem meets a business problem. Employers are already committed to employing the staff needed to make their business successful, and we are providing them with an online platform that facilitates the entire caregiver employment journey while instilling best practices in recruitment, training, and retention. The CareBono platform will serve as the connective tissue for hubs that connect employers with caregivers who they can help grow professsionally, educators who can provide training and development services, and other employers who can offer support and share lessons learned.

CareBono's current platform includes an Applicant Tracking System that allows employers to streamline the recruitment and hiring process. Features include job distribution to major job boards (Indeed, ZipRecruiter, etc.), a candidate evaluation system, interview scheduling function, background and referral checks, offer letter management, onboarding document processing, and caregiver-specific templates and educational resources. Future features will focus more on retention services (feedback surveys, employee recognition, etc.), integrating educational partners, and connecting employers with each other.

There are three main groups that we serve: employers, caregivers, and patients.

Our decision to partner directly with employers allows us to work where the rubber hits the road in the labor shortage by delving into employer-employee relations, business practices, and professional development services. This decision not only enables us to make sure that employers are successful in employing the staff that they need, but also offers us a scalable avenue to improve the way that caregivers are recruited, trained, and treated while on the job. While our first point of contact may be with employers, CareBono is fundamentally concerned for caregiver well-being since happy caregivers lead them to stay in the field and attract others to join. Therefore, our work with employers allows us to ensure the best employment experience possible for caregivers in terms of their treatment, their work conditions, their pay, and their professional development.

And ultimately, our work serves patients since employers that effectively recruit, train, and retain staff cause there to be more well-trained caregivers to address patient needs amid the labor shortage.

I am an economist by training with international development experience in countries including Nicaragua, Niger, and the United States. I previously managed a workforce development program that assisted caregivers in finding employment in collaboration with employers, social services organizations, and local government. I also have personal experience serving as a caregiver for a member of my family.

The rest of the team consists of HR technology professionals with experience providing tailored technology and resources to employers in home care and related industries.

To design the solution, I have spoken to over 250 caregivers and administrators of various healthcare organizations. I have mapped out the user journeys from both the employer's and caregiver's perspective to ensure effective recruitment, training, and retention for candidates from diverse backgrounds. We currently have 16 organizations using our platform and have been further refining our product to meet the needs of employers and caregivers.

I am applying to MIT Solve for guidance on building out our product offering beyond recruitment to more fully include retention and training. I am also looking for connections across the care economy to gain additional insights on the industry and build out our partner base of employers.

CareBono Hubs brings together the relevant parties (employers, caregivers, and educators) that need to work together to address the problems fueling the labor shortage. Moreover, this whole process is fueled with a platform that facilitates recruitment, training, and retention while instilling best practices learned across the industry. Therefore, CareBono Hubs has the potential to create a much more organized and well-equipped network of individuals and organizations to address the labor-related problems facing caregiving employers, including home care agencies, nursing homes, and assisted living facilities.

In the next year, our goal is to have 1,000 CareBono Hubs with employer partners highly equiped to recruit, train, and retain caregivers.

In the next five years, our goal is to have 30,000 CareBono Hubs around the world with a fully built-out Applicant Tracking System, Employee Engagement Platform, and Learning Management System.

We are tracking progress through data that our software captures which includes the number of employers served, the number of applications received, and the number of employees hired.

Activities include: 1) Providing a software that facilitates caregiver recruitment, training, and retention, 2) Offering templates, frameworks, and educational resources to promote best practices in stewarding caregiving talent, and 3) Connecting employers, educators, and caregivers so that they can learn from each other and pursue their common goal of providing accessible, high quality care.

We believe that Activities 1 and 2 will equip any emplower to be highly effective at providing a positive employment and professional development experience for caregivers, which will increase the number of caregivers and the quality of care. We believe that Activity 3 will strengthen Activities 1 and 2 through shared learning and support, which will also boost the results of those activities.

CareBono runs as a Software as a Service (SaaS), and our flagship product is an Applicant Tracking System (ATS).

Our DEI plan has two primary levels of commitment. The first level is to internally ensure a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace by actively seeking out team members with varied backgrounds and perspectives as we grow our organization and to continually assess our current team culture and operations to make sure that we are living out the highest standards of DEI. The second level is to work with our employer partners to ensure that they are equipped to follow DEI best practices.

Our business model is to offer a Software as a Service (SaaS) that provides recruitment and retention services along with tailored resources and support focused on best practices for home care agencies, nursing homes, and other healthcare organizations. We currently offer an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) for partners to attract, hire, and onboard caregivers by integrating with major job boards, moving candidates through a structured recruitment process, and facilitating HR processes, such as interview scheduling, background checks, and offer letter management. We are also building out an integrated Employee Engagement Platform to provide additional retention and development services, including regular employee feedback surveys and a channel for employee recognition. In addition, our plan is to build partnerships with healthcare education organizations to provide relevant training, promote career development, and increase employee engagement, retention, and morale.

Our plans currently start at $62 per month, and our pricing is posted here: carebono.com/pricing.

We are currently profitable through a monthly subscription model.

We have received funding through the LSE Generate Accelerator Programme, and we generate revenue through our subscriptions.