Creating a Culture that Ignites Innovation  

Updated on January 22, 2025

With two momentous forces influencing the health care industry—an alarming shortage of qualified workers and a rapidly aging population in need of care—the ability to sustain a robust pipeline of top talent has become essential to the success of home health care organizations.  

Science and technology are methods, but it is your people who drive innovation. Innovation thrives in a workplace that encourages well-informed, creative solutions, making a healthy work culture more important than ever. 

In our organization, everyone is encouraged to be creative and forward-thinking. Every colleague has a useful viewpoint to contribute, and we instill that as a cultural mindset.   

When I joined this organization in 2022, I stepped onto the shoulders of giants and learned a lot from BAYADA’s 50-year history. Our founder Mark Baiada and CEO David Baiada have never been satisfied with the status quo. We work in a living laboratory of evidence-based experimentation and innovation, driven to help more clients stay safe at home with comfort, independence, and dignity.  

The People Group’s role is essential, but not in a silo. Talent is a pillar of a fuller picture. All teams work synergistically toward the same vision, setting specific goals and working hard and efficiently to achieve them. That spirit keeps us creative, flexible, and determined to get the job done for our clients.  

As we reflect on our past and plan for an evolving future, we’ve found these strategies most helpful: 

Bring Diverse Perspectives to the Table  

Welcoming talent with varied lived experiences brings new ideas and fresh thinking. Diverse organizations experience better business results due to advantages in problem-solving, teamwork, and innovation.  

Employees in inclusive workplaces tend to be more engaged, satisfied, and productive. In health care organizations, diversity is even associated with improved quality of care and client satisfaction.  Not surprisingly, the cultural competence of understanding and respecting the values and needs of multicultural populations leads to more personalized care, a sense of well-being and trust, stronger community partnerships, higher client satisfaction, and better outcomes. 

Promote Women’s Equity and Leadership  

In our 90-percent-female organization, I’ve witnessed what the research has measured. Meaningful representation and the full participation of women benefits employee and client experiences and business results. Particularly in caregiving industries like ours, the perspectives and leadership styles that women can bring to the table help to promote collaboration, understanding of client needs, and innovation.   

On global and national levels, there’s still a lot of work to do to intentionally promote women into managerial, directorial, and executive roles. While women are about 70 percent of the global healthcare workforce, only a small fraction, 25 percent, are in senior leadership according to the World Health Organization and research partners.  

Build an Infrastructure of Cultural Engagement  

Never underestimate the power of a strong, values-based culture to boost employee engagement and satisfaction. Building the infrastructure takes investment and effort. Like a garden, culture needs to be cultivated and tended.  

For instance, we build a regular cadence of cultural touchpoints into employee experiences, such as weekly team discussions that connect our values with their work. When done authentically, cultural engagement helps to retain top talent, increase productivity, and reduce costly turnover. It also supports an environment where fresh perspectives and novel ideas feel welcome and encouraged.  

If you don’t have them already, think seriously about employee resource councils (ERCs). ERCs can be the backbone of inclusivity, meaningful peer connection, cultural engagement, community service, and employee satisfaction across all levels of an organization. ERCs also help your care services stay relevant for diverse client populations. 

Prioritize Recognition  

Reward and recognition programs help to ensure high-quality, reliable health care management and delivery. Recognition can help mitigate compassion fatigue, show employees they are valued, and reenergize a sense of purpose.   

Award programs are an excellent way to internalize the significance of the work you do. By honoring outstanding individuals, we model for team leaders the importance of staff appreciation and exemplify our corporate values as an inspiration to others. 

Invest in Skills Development   

Prioritize internal development and let employees know you value lifelong learning by offering trainings, certifications, scholarships, and continuing education opportunities. This not only helps attract and retain the best talent, but it brings a regular influx of new ideas into your organization. 

Investing in career development is not only good for your people; it’s good for business. It pays to hire externally when you need to strategically acquire a new skill set, but because our culture is so unique, we find that trusted internal candidates tend to do better as office directors and social entrepreneurs. 

At this 50-year milestone, our organization has exciting plans to innovate through the next 50. In this health care crisis of supply and demand, none of us can rest on our laurels. Although our employee experience scores are high, in the 90th and 99th percentiles, using employee insights to continuously improve BAYADA remains a priority, because it will take a movement to transform home health care to serve the millions of people in need.  

Jeff Knapp 1
Jeffrey Knapp
Chief People Officer at BAYADA

Mr. Knapp joined BAYADA in March 2022 as Chief People Officer. 

Before joining BAYADA, Mr. Knapp was executive vice president and chief human resources officer at Clean Harbors, North America’s leading provider of environmental, energy, and industrial services. Previously, he held HR leadership positions of increasing responsibility at ARAMARK Healthcare, Studer Group, Walgreens, Harvest Power, and Dollar Financial Group.  

Mr. Knapp earned an M.Div in Philosophy/Theology from Nazarene Theological Seminary and a BA in Religion from Mount Vernon Nazarene University. He holds an executive leadership certificate from Cornell University, is an executive coaching affiliate with The Collaborative Institute, and has held the SPHR certification from SHRM for over 20 years.