Build a Winning Assisted Living Team: Top Staffing Tips!
Mar 20, 2025
Starting an assisted living business is exciting, but success depends on having the right team in place. Your staff will be the heart of your facility—keeping things running smoothly and providing quality care for residents.
Whether you’re hands-on in the daily operations or taking a supervisory role, hiring the right people is key. This guide will walk you through who you need, where to find them, and how to hire the best staff for your assisted living facility!
Check out the video, too:
Who You Need on Your Team
A strong assisted living team includes a mix of administrative and caregiving staff. Here are the essential roles:
π¨πΌ Administrator – The leader who manages daily operations, staffing, and compliance. You can take this role yourself or hire someone experienced.
π Assistant Administrator/House Manager – Helps with scheduling, hiring, and handling supplies. Not required, but very useful!
π Medication Technician (Med Tech/QMAP) – Certified to pass medications under a nurse’s supervision. This helps reduce caregiver workload and ensures meds are given correctly.
β€οΈ Caregivers – Provide daily assistance like bathing, dressing, and toileting. Some states require Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs), so check your local rules.
π©Ί Nurse (RN or LPN/LVN) – Oversees medical care, does resident assessments, and updates care plans. For small homes, a part-time nurse is usually enough.
π§Ή Housekeeper – Keeps the facility clean and helps with laundry. Not required, but very helpful!
π§ Handyman – Can be hired as needed to handle repairs and maintenance.
π Pro Tip: Check your state laws! Some states require specific staff-to-resident ratios or certifications.
Where to Find Great Staff
Hiring the right team starts with knowing where to look. Here are some top places to find quality candidates:
β Indeed – Best for hiring administrators, caregivers, and med techs.
β Facebook Groups & Marketplace – Great for finding local caregivers and CNAs.
β LinkedIn – Ideal for hiring administrators and RNs.
β Community Colleges & Training Programs – A great source for newly certified caregivers and med techs.
π Pro Tip: Assisted living has a high turnover rate. Keep a steady pipeline of candidates so you’re never short-staffed!
How to Hire the Right People
Follow these five simple steps to build a winning team:
1οΈβ£ Create a Clear Job Description
Outline job responsibilities, experience needed, and pay range. The more detailed, the better!
2οΈβ£ Review Resumes & Applications
Look for candidates with relevant experience, good references, and proper certifications.
3οΈβ£ Conduct Interviews
Ask about their experience, personality, and how they handle caregiving challenges. Look for kindness, patience, and reliability.
4οΈβ£ Check References
Call previous employers to verify work ethic, reliability, and performance.
5οΈβ£ Make an Offer & Onboard
Once you find the right fit, extend a job offer and start training.
π Pro Tip: Be upfront about pay raises, promotions, and notice periods for quitting. This prevents surprises later!
Onboarding & Training Tips
Once you’ve hired your team, set them up for success with a strong onboarding process:
π Complete Paperwork – I-9, W-4, background checks, and any state-required documents.
π Provide Training – Make sure staff complete all required certifications and state training.
π Set Clear Expectations – Explain facility rules, work schedules, and performance expectations.
π° Set Up Payroll – Use a service like Gusto to handle payroll, direct deposits, and tax deductions.
π Pro Tip: Happy employees stay longer! Offer good pay, fair schedules, and a positive work environment to reduce turnover.
Final Thoughts: Build a Strong Team & Succeed!
Your staff is the backbone of your assisted living business. By hiring qualified, caring employees and giving them the right support, you’ll create a thriving facility where residents feel safe and valued.
π Next Steps?
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Download our Business Plan Checklist to build a solid business plan.
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Need help figuring out where to start? Join the next Roadmap Challenge and build your launch plan with me.
Show full transcript π
Transcript
00:00:00 - 00:00:53
hey friend I'm Brandon Gustafson I help beginners like you launch their Assisted Living business in the next 12 months excited to have you here on the Channel with me today today we're going to be talking about how to get the right staff in place for your Assisted Living business also make sure you go and grab that free underwriting calculator Assisted Living investing. net we'll have that up in the top right corner of the website make sure you go and grab that free [Music] resource welcome back to Assisted Living
00:00:28 - 00:01:19
investing again I am Brandon gust and excited to have you here with me on the channel today we're going to be talking about how to get the right staff in place for your Assisted Living business so you can really hit the ground running and if you want to do something like me and operate this remotely or be a little more passive how you can do that by hiring the right people if that's something that you want to do then type in passive down below would love to hear how many of you want to do that and
00:00:53 - 00:01:49
those of you that want to be in it and and actually working through this type in active down below so passive if you want to be passive like me active if you want to be working in the business I'm I'm curious how many of you are out there in in each of these buckets I think it would be really interesting so passive or active uh type that in below which staff do you need for your Assisted Living business now when it comes to residential Assisted Living business it is a smaller scaled a little
00:01:21 - 00:02:13
bit tighter of an employment scale staff scaled business number one is you need your administrator you have to have the the administrator they have to be licensed this could be you if you're one of those people that typed in active or it could be somebody else if you're one of those people that type in passive down below but what I want you to know is you have to have the administrator in place they have to be licensed we have a video where we talk about the process of getting licensed and what that looks
00:01:47 - 00:02:42
like so we'll link that up above but you have to have this person in place it is absolutely crucial they run the business they do the day-to-day they do incredible work so those of you that are administrators watching this video thank you so much you don't get that enough thank you you do incredible work and you are incredible people and the things that you put up with are just beyond what most people can comprehend so thank you thank you so much now the other ones that I want you to be aware of is
00:02:15 - 00:02:58
there's an assistant administrator type of a position you do not have to have this especially in a small residential facility but it's something that is a good way for you to kind of build in ladders and ways for you to promote people from within um so that's something I want you to be aware of assistant administrators it's a really good spot um we have that in one of our facilities our other one doesn't the other one that doesn't we actually have a house manager which is the third one
00:02:37 - 00:03:26
house manager is another of those things that's not required but it does give people a way to step up and and build you know some longevity with the company and show your appreciation for the work that they are doing your administrator can delegate things they can kind of take care of some of the things like hiring new staff or having people report to them the scheduling buying groceries some of those types of things it's the assistant administrator and the house manager you're administrator can
00:03:01 - 00:03:58
delegate a lot of things off to those individuals to really help out with that so that's the third one number four is going to be your Medtech so Medtech or could be something different in your state in Colorado we call them Q Maps I've seen just all kinds of things but basically they are certified to pass medications they take a course a short course doesn't it's not a lot not very expensive we actually pay for our staff to do this they get certified so they can pass medications which means a nurse
00:03:29 - 00:04:22
the nurse at your facility can delegate and say yes this person has taken the course they are certified they can go and they can pass medications to the the residents underneath my license that's basically what it is they're crucial especially if you're doing Med Management in your facility and most assisted living facilities help out with Med management so you're going to want to have those med techs that are certified to pass medications the fifth one is going to be caregivers and this
00:03:55 - 00:04:52
is what you probably think of when you are are thinking of assisted living now caregivers are not at a CNA level actually they're at a lower level they provide care they provide assistance to the residents they meet the needs of the res residents based on the care plan uh they'll help out with things like toileting and dressing and some of those types of things in Assisted Living this is a misnomer and a lot of people don't understand this you are not providing skilled nursing care that goes into a
00:04:24 - 00:05:20
nursing home nursing homes and assisted living are very different if you would like to learn a little bit more about that type of Nursing home down below so I can create a video that is specific to that but they are different types of homes they serve different types of populations and so a caregiver is not qualified to provide that skilled care but in an assisted living facility you don't necessarily need that some states do so don't take this as a blanket oh Brandon said you don't need any CNAs
00:04:52 - 00:05:57
some states do Wyoming is one for example that absolutely does require a CNA but not all states do so that's something I want you to beare now the next one is going to be an RN so a lot of you ask this you know do I need to have a full-time RN nursing like that's so expensive in a small residential facility you do not need a full-time RN you do need to have an RN or an LPN LVN it could you know whatever your state requires you do need to have that person at the facility for a period of time but typically they're there for
00:05:24 - 00:06:15
8 to 15 hours a week so one to two days uh they do assessments on new residents that are coming in they update care plans they make sure that all the the medical records are are correct and everything is in place so you're going to need somebody but they do not need to be a full-time position um at your small residential facility if you get something big big box type of facility it's a different story you probably do want that but in small residential facilities like what you're watching
00:05:51 - 00:06:39
this if you're watching this channel it's probably you you don't need that person full-time and the other one is going to be housekeeper not a requirement but something that can really take a load off of your staff so they don't have to worry about this housekeeper goes in does all the laundry kind of takes care of a lot of the cleaning and things like that that can be timec consuming that doesn't allow a caregiver to give the care to a resident that they need it's the same thing that
00:06:14 - 00:07:13
goes with like a handyman not required but certainly something you could consider is hiring a handyman to just be on call or come into the facility once a week to just kind of make sure everything is up to date um so those are the types of positions that you could be looking at for your residen Assisted Living business so next where do you find these staff where do you go and find the different staff to help you with your business for finding staff good places to look are indeed like I would say the best spot is probably
00:06:44 - 00:07:37
indeed Facebook is another good spot you can get on the Facebook Marketplace Facebook used to be really good you can also do this in groups uh I found that they tweaked things three or four years ago probably like in 2021 and it was used to be really good really easy to navigate and things like that and now it's not quite as easy and then the third one would be LinkedIn I would say LinkedIn is probably going to be more for your professionals though that's why I find indeed to be the best spot you
00:07:11 - 00:07:59
also have to realize this is a very high turnover position so you will have people cycling through your facility on a regular basis uh it's just something you have to get used to and understand that this is part of running this type of business now let's talk about how do you hire staff how do you hire the right staff for your Assisted Living business like the process that you go through go through you need to have a job description you need to kind of have that in place so you can really help
00:07:34 - 00:08:19
people out and and let them know what is entailed in the job to see if it's a good fit for them uh you're going to want to review their resume once they apply you're going to get their resume you want to see do they meet the requirements what type of experience do they have so you want to look at their resume you want to review that and make sure it's a good fit you want to interview them after you do that you want to bring them in and have a conversation with them then you want to
00:07:57 - 00:08:45
be reaching out to any references that they have and and see if they're a good fit and and what typee of worker they've been and the experiences that they have these reference calls don't need to be long but it does give you just like a little bit of extra confidence that you are hiring the right person and and then you have to make an offer once you feel confident in that person then you make the offer they accept it and now they are a part of your team which is really exciting now when you bring new staff in
00:08:21 - 00:09:13
there's an entire onboarding process that that I want you to be aware of so number one is there's documents that you got to get there's I9 documents there's paperwork you know forms and things that you want to fill out internal things that you want to do there's going to be trainings that you need your staff to do there's going to be any certifications you know we talked about MedEx and getting red certified you need to set expectations something we like to really set expectations are our on our raises
00:08:47 - 00:09:41
we like to talk about promotions what that looks like and also giving proper notice we actually put into our our paperwork for our staff that says if you do not give us two weeks notice then your last paycheck will be at minimum wage um check with your state rules and see if this is something you can do we're able to do this in one of our states and it really has helped us in at least allowing us to have some time to backfill a position if we need to but filling out these types of forms and
00:09:14 - 00:10:04
getting all this paperwork done is something you need to do right as somebody comes into the facility it also helps out if there are any unemployment claims or anything like that the more documentation you have the better off you're going to be now when it comes to paying your staff you're going to need to run payroll I have a link for Gusto down below Gusto is who we use for our payroll they're great and if you use the link down below I think you get a $100 Visa gift card after you run your first
00:09:39 - 00:10:32
payroll so make sure you use that link I mean I'll give you 100 bucks how about that I get a little bit Kickback I think it's the same thing but that will help you out quite a bit you got to set your wages as well look at what's normal in your state I typically see between $15 and $20 an hour for you know caregiving staff could be more in your state could be less it just kind of depends and that's why having kind of Promotional and raise types of documents that they read and sign up front can be really
00:10:06 - 00:11:04
beneficial because it means you've given it thought and now you know how to build that in also you got to think are you paying people's salary or hourly we pay our our Administrator salary so that works for us all other staff are hourly but you make your decisions you figure out what works for you um and then you have to also cover sh there will be times I promise you this that you will have shortages in Staffing you've got to cover sh you got to scramble to do it there's really two ways that you can do
00:10:34 - 00:11:27
this number one is a temp agency and number two is having you know your other staff kind of covering things you can also use staffing agencies to help you find people but temp agencies or having your staff work extra hours and paying overtime those are the best ways for you to kind of cover any extra shifts that come up or when somebody quits unexpectedly or those types of things so that's something I want you to be aware of if you need some help just like if what I just said to you is like oh my
00:11:01 - 00:11:53
gosh I have no idea what he's talking about why do I need this this is for when you are launching that business this is Phase five of my five-phase Approach if you need help with any of these things go apply to The Mastermind program Alim mastermind.com and fill out the application free to apply and I'll see if I can help you out if I can't I'll send you all the details you can decide if you want to work if it's a good fit for you now to recap this video we've been talking about getting the
00:11:27 - 00:12:16
right staff in place we talked about which staff do you need those positions that you need we talked about where do you find those staff we talked about how do you hire the staff where to go to hire them the onboarding of new staff talked about paying your staff as well and then just kind of covering those shifts and everything that looks we jam-packed a ton of information in here so if you found this video helpful make sure you like the video subscribe and ring the bell as well so you get notified every time we put out content
00:11:52 - 00:12:37
like this we go live on Tuesdays and long form videos on Thursdays to really help you out and give you some guidance and help you launch that assisted living business does residential Assisted Living sound interesting to you but you don't know how to get started at Assisted Living investing. net I'm here to help beginners like you launch their Assisted Living business in the next 12 months make sure you go grab that free underwriting calculator Assisted Living investing. net be in the top right
00:12:14 - 00:12:43
corner of the big blue box and remember it doesn't take a lot just a little bit keep going step by step by step and I promise you that if you do and you're consistent and persistent you will be successful thanks for watching and have a great day [Music]
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