The quality of home health employees management that a nurse, therapist or aide receives is critical to employee retention. The reasons home health workers leave their jobs has more to do with management and supervision not the job itself.
It is not enough that the supervisor is well-liked or a nice person. Starting with clear expectations of the employee, the supervisor has a critical role to play in retention.
Establish a complete job description for each job type in your agency. Include the responsibilities of each job. View a few sample responsibilities for a home health aide –
Job descriptions include exactly what is expected of the employee and how the expectation is measured.
A review of the employee’s job performance will be completed every 6 months. The employee will be evaluated based on adherence to the job description.
A meeting of all home health aides will take place the first Monday of every month. The meeting will include (not limited to…) new and changed policies and procedures, patient care protocols, training policies.
Telephone, email, text or talk in person to each worker regularly (monthly) and acknowledge something they’ve done – submitting progress notes on time, picking up an extra shift, a patient’s compliment, thoroughness of documentation…anything the employee has done recently that would create an opportunity to contact them.
The perception of fairness and equitable treatment is important in employee retention…treat all employees the same.
The ability of the worker to speak his or her mind freely within the Agency is a key factor in employee retention. Does your Agency solicit ideas and provide an environment in which people are comfortable providing feedback? If so, employees offer ideas, feel free to criticize and commit to continuous improvement. If not, workers bite their tongues or find themselves constantly in trouble - until they leave.
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