The First Week is a Test. Not Everyone Passes.

In the quiet hallway of someone else's home, a nurse stands alone with a clipboard. You call it onboarding. She calls it the beginning.

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There’s a particular silence in home healthcare work.
It hums beneath the surface—between the beep of the monitor, the hush of slippers on linoleum, the weight of being needed.

This is where new employees arrive. Not into a breakroom full of balloons and welcome banners. But into the lives of strangers, often alone, often uncertain.

And we wonder why they leave.

Turnover isn’t a mystery—it’s the intersection of math and lived experience.
20% vanish from home healthcare roles each year. Some specialties? Over 60% (PHI, 2023). The vast majority of this happens within the first year.

These aren’t just statistics. They’re stories cut short. Relationships unstarted. Promises dissolved before they were even made.

And if you trace the thread back, it starts where all stories do: at the beginning.

The first week is a whisper test.
Will this place see me?
Will they bother to learn who I am, beyond my scrubs and certifications? Will I fit in here?

If the answer is no, they go.
Quietly. Quickly. Without a scene.

So what do you do?
You begin the way all good care begins: by asking.

Enter: the Care Profile.

Not a form. Not a checkbox. A conversation, distilled. A way to ask:
Who are you, really?
How do you like to be thanked?
What lights you up, and what shuts you down?

Inside a good Care Profile, you’ll find:

• Recognition Personality – Half emotional blueprint, half motivation map. The intersection of drive, appreciation, and the very human desire not to be lumped into a generic category.
• Recognition Preferences – Some people love applause. Some prefer the quiet click of a gift card in their inbox. Know the difference.
• “The Nicest Thing Someone Could Do for Me Today” – A question that illuminates and distills exactly what's most meaningful.
• Celebration Style – Loud and proud? Or thoughtful and subtle? Birthdays, anniversaries, the moments that punctuate time—these matter more than you think.

This is not fluff or slop. It’s scaffolding.
Build it, and people stay. Don’t, and they slip away like vapor through an open window.

Onboarding is not paperwork. It’s prophecy.
It tells your newest team members who they’ll be allowed to be. Whether they’re a number. Whether they’ll be remembered.

And when you get it right—when you really get it right—
You don’t just reduce turnover.
You rewrite the story of why they came.

And why, this time, they stayed.

Retention doesn’t begin with a contract. It begins with care.
Knowwn can help you write a better first chapter.

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