Helen Giza: Hi Victoria, great to have you on the Berenberg team. The home target, it’s still aspirational to be at 25% by 2025. And we recognize, that home growth has been impacted by obviously, the labor challenges and kind of staffing shortfalls that we had in 2023. At the end of Q4, we were at roughly just around 16%. So, it’s definitely a focus for us to continue to accelerate — and now obviously, as we see this labor situation stabilizing, we should be able to kind of get back on the training and really continue to drive that. Like we had kind of maybe this time last year, where we’re seeing that momentum come through. So, yes, still really excited about home, very much a key pillar of our strategy to kind of offset in some ways is the labor challenges that we have. But ultimately, also feed into our value-based care strategy of really improving outcomes in a home setting, which should ultimately reduce cost as well.
Victoria Lambert: Thank you.
Operator: The next question is coming from Falko Friedrichs from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Falko Friedrichs: Thanks so much. Hi, Helen. My first question is can you provide an update on the labor shortage situation in the US, and also the amount of open positions that you’re still looking to fill at the moment. And then related to that, how important is a significant improvement in that regard, when thinking about achieving your new 2025 target. And then my second question is, whether you can provide an update on the CFO search? And can you provide a rough time line for, when the new person might be announced? Thank you.
A €“ Helen Giza: Thanks, Falko. So labor yes, as you know, it’s been a many moving pallets on that as I mentioned, which was one of our more difficult numbers to kind of size for 2023. But I’m really starting to feel, that we’ve got our arms around this labor situation and stabilizing it. In terms of the open positions, we are currently around 4,400 down from around 5,000 last quarter. I’m also really happy to see that, the use of temporary labor, the spend overall has come down quite significantly, and not just the volume that we’re using, but the rates are declining as well which is really important. And then, the other part that was a challenge for us, was this constant turn of labor through the summer. We’re seeing some significant improvements in our employee turnover rates particularly, in the less than one year period and that is kind of a better hiring adherence, kind of longer training classes, kind of a buddy system.
So we’re really seeing a lot of these benefits take hold. I think we’re also seeing, maybe this is some of the inflationary measures, the hot kind of market has subsided and we’re seeing that show up, in a little bit lower weights as well, overall. So, I feel really good about what we’re doing there. And on top of that, not just the shortages and the cost, but the productivity improvements that we have both baked into this, kind of this midterm view on margins. With regard to the CFO search, that is being initiated by the Supervisory Board of the MAG. That is — it is progressing. There are slates of candidates and that will move into interview — an interview time line, shortly. I truthfully, don’t know, how long it’s going to take. And obviously, it depends on anyone’s availability and time line as well.
So, I have no date, but I can assure you the search is ongoing. And I am, yes, looking forward to that.
Dominik Heger: Okay. Due to time, we can take one last question.
Operator: Yes. The next question comes from Robert Davies from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
