Caregiver Turnover
Broad Street Solutions in Senior Care: Who’s Coming to Help Mom This Week?
THE HOME CARE CHALLENGE
It seems just when you or your loved one is getting comfortable with your new caregiver, they vanish and a stranger shows up to replace them. This soon becomes a recurring event and begins to feel like there is a revolving door in your home; shuttling in new faces every week or two. As a client you may feel disillusioned, frustrated and ultimately worried that this stranger coming into your home has no idea about your needs and may feel less safe.
If this sounds familiar, it’s because it is an unfortunate, common occurrence.
Caregiver turnover is one of the most frequent issues throughout the home care industry. But why does it happen? And what can be done to alleviate this?
It helps if you can look at the situation from the perspective of the caregiver. Generally speaking, caregivers need to work full time and with a schedule they can rely on. In a lot of cases, when they are unable to find those stable hours they resort to taking positions with shorter hours temporarily until they are able to find more reliable work that allows them to earn a sustainable income. This is an unfortunate but unavoidable reality within home care.
For many home care agencies, this can lead to a vicious cycle where caregiver turnover consumes an agency’s resources trying to continue shuffle caregivers around to fill-in. Meanwhile, all of the training and experience can never take hold and most importantly, the relationship never has a chance to develop which creates a negative experience for everyone.
THE HOME CARE SOLUTION
Once you understand some of the causes to Caregiver turnover, you can then look to create an environment that gives you the best chance for success. The key is prioritizing what it most important to you and then building a structure that leads to not only greater reliability but also better support.
A Reliable Schedule Leads to a Reliable Caregiver
Getting more engagement that ultimately leads to something that is closer to full time work can create a greater opportunity for quality caregivers to be able to commit to an opportunity. But it’s not just about full time, it is also how the shifts are organized.
Sometime if a schedule allows for another job to fit nicely into a weekly schedule, you can establish greater stability with less hours. In other instances, people may retain someone for more than they are needed, while this means they may be paying for more hours of services, if reliability is important, it may be a worthwhile compromise.
Plus, it can allow your schedule greater flexibility where you may be able to adjust your schedule when preferred and the caregiver can be more flexible because they know they are getting enough hours to support their needs. This also allows room for growth as your needs may increase.
And finally, sometimes it makes sense to adjust the scope of services where you may be able to get support in ways that you didn’t initially intend. It is ultimately about compromise to create a solution that works for everyone involved.
Honest Communication and Preparation
At the end of the day, quality care and support requires mutual respect and trust. Having open communication wants and needs as well as constraints can allow you to work through obstacles that can lay the foundation for a good working relationship. This also allows for better preparation.
There are some many factors that go into care and it is important to know that it is a process of learning and adjustment. By spending as much time up front working though all of these factors can allow you to work through and potentially avoid issues down the line that could create problems.
Care Managers Are Key
Having a Care Manager involved can help facilitate a number of these issues. Understanding what caregiving resources might be available and what the pain points are can provide you with greater options.
Care Managers understand the caregiving landscape and help guide you through prioritizing your needs and assessing the relevant resources. In addition, Care Managers can help intermediate, asking and answering questions from both clients and caregivers. This can create a buffer to work through issues in a way that preserves the relationship between client and caregiver.
Finally, Care Managers are integral in the preparation of the caregivers. They can help structure the daily routine, assess the skills that are needed and then train and instruct the caregiver. This creates greater confidence for everyone which is always an important success element when getting started.
Broad Street’s Solution
At Broad Street we focus on full-time engagement with our clients. This helps us build stability into the delivery of care. And a deeper level of engagement can improves the overall experience for both you and your Care Professional.
We look for caregivers that have skills sets and experience that are most applicable to specific clients needs. This process is done collaboratively with our Care Managers, who are the key to getting care started and then working through adjustments on a path towards a Home Care Solution. This preparation and proactive management supports both client and care professional and ultimately leads to better outcomes.
If you have any questions about Caregiver Stability or anything else related to Home Care or Home Nursing, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We are here to help you find the Home Care Solution that works for you.
Broad Street delivers the very best in concierge Home Care services, please contact us today to learn more.
Broad Street Solutions in Senior Care
Home Care is all about people, probably more than any other service that exists. It is filled with complexities and uncertainties, because every human being is different. But if we embrace that fact, we can then redirect our focus and approach every situation and every person uniquely. Because we know that within all of that complexity lies the potential for great relationships, relationships not based on perfection but based on genuine care.
At Broad Street, we spend the time to understand the details, to prioritize the needs and attributes as well as work through the constraints challenges and constraints. It is through this process that we continue to learn and work through the issues and adapt. Life is inherently unpredictable. But with greater understanding, we can better anticipate and manage towards not only a more reliable solution but towards creating a great and fulfilling experience for everyone involved.