Hiring the right Home care giver has always been a challenge Home Care Providers face. Although, you have put together the best set-up possible, reached the people about the services you provide but do not have the right “care giver”, then running the Home Health care show is not easy. Care givers are the pillars of any Home Care organization as they are the bridge that connects the patient and the organization. They often represent the organization they work for and thus a good amount of time needs to be invested while they are hired to find the best possible fit.
Professional experience :
As a rule of thumb, an efficient and a well qualified person should always be hired to suit the role of the caregiver. The care giver you hire needs to understand the professionalism involved in the process and is required to exhibit that as a member of the team. Sometimes, the personal experience they have had may also help them take care of the Elderly.
Empathy :
This certainly has to be a criteria as the job of a care taker is different from any other job role. It requires compassion as this mostly deals with Elderly patients and patients suffering and the care giver certainly needs to be able to understand those feelings.
Flexibility :
More than any other job, the role of a caregiver burgeons mostly on flexibility. They need to be available round the clock as one cannot be sure of the needs of the different patients. Some patients may need care in the mornings and others during the night. Thus, the care taker should be someone who is ready to take up all these calls with no complaining.
Although you hire caregivers, there always comes a point in this business that the organizations face a shortage in caregivers. Either the patient count and needs increase tremendously and the Home Care provider is not able to make the ends meet as the demand for quality care givers is always high. And in some cases, the existing caretakers do not stay with the same organization for long and keep making jumps between many, sometimes for that extra cash and sometimes if they are not happy with the organization.
How does one take care of Care-giver retention ?
The true success of any Home care agency relies upon the care givers they have and they cannot afford to lose them. There are a number of ways to improve caregiver retention and it requires a multifaceted approach and not just increasing the wages.
- The true success of any Home care agency relies upon the care givers they have and they cannot afford to lose them. There are a number of ways to improve caregiver retention and it requires a multifaceted approach and not just increasing the wages.
- Incorporating effective training sessions – this helps them in a number of ways as they can continue to learn and grow and there is an opportunity of continual education which is a very good offering and makes it hard to leave the side of organization.
- Use efficient match making tools – a good software system in place that takes care of scheduling the best caretaker to the patients ensure good terms for both the patients and the caretakers. This further establishes a good foundation and brings a sense of confidence and trust that the organization always strives to provide the best quality care to the patients and their satisfaction is of prime importance to the organization.
- Coordinating and encouraging good communication between the office staff and the caregivers on the field. This helps reduce chaos situation and ensures smooth functioning of organization. Further, mobile applications can be employed to help these caregivers keep track of their appointments and stay well informed of the schedules ahead of time. Also this helps implement an efficient system in place for communication between the internal staff and field members and avoid mis-communications.
But this system of caregiver retention is not a one-size fits all. What may work for your organization may not suit an other organization well. But, these may just help you start experimenting and find the best solutions on the long run to run a Home Care service effectively.