Reinventing Clinician Training in Home Healthcare to Promote Work/Life Balance

2020 was the year of the nurse, and it’s important in 2021 to end the year in a similar vein, honoring the nurses and home healthcare staff that made it all possible. Finding solid training topics year after year can be tough, as internal and external circumstances shift in the home care industry. In your training curriculum, you have the unique opportunity to contribute to a culture of positivity and foster success in your clinicians and other staff.

Here are some ideas on how you can promote a work-life balance into your training plans:

1.   Financial health and wellness

In a fast-paced and rapidly-changing line of work like home healthcare, it can be easy for caregivers, nurses, and other staff to let their credit fall behind. By incorporating financial health and wellness sessions into your training programs, you can show them that you care and are willing to help them out.

Show them how to:

• Fill out tax forms correctly
• How to set realistic savings goals (SMART goal-setting model)
• Gamify their goals and wishes through work

When tax season comes around, it can be hard to shuffle around all of the paperwork. See if your payment processing program has an option to send employees an electronic W2 and show them how to access it.

Whether your staff is saving for Christmas or wanting to buy a house, use the SMART goal-setting model to help them achieve their goals with realistic timeline expectations.

Gamified platforms are generally more successful in participation than other models of training. See if you can gamify your employees’ goals and wishes through their work. For example, see if your staff can set a goal for each quarter. If they are achieved, offer them a gift card or a couple of hours of PTO. Incentivize your employees to achieve their goals by investing in them.

2.   Home healthcare happy hours can be necessary self-care measures

Healthcare is a very stressful environment to work in. Burnout, depression, anxiety, and other circumstances can lead to unhealthy coping mechanisms. By hosting an informational happy hour, you can educate your staff on a variety of relevant topics, while promoting healthy drinking habits and encouraging them to have fun.

Give your staff an opportunity to get to know each other as people, rather than coworkers and supervisors. Do your staff have children? Are they continuing education? Are they married?

You can also use this as an opportunity to educate staff on the signs to look out for in their patients if they are abusing alcohol and what to do about it. Whether you rent out a bar or a vacation spot, make sure your staff knows that you are there for them outside of work too.

3.   Lunch & Learns + Healthy eating cooking sessions

As a part of your caregiver training, see if you can get everyone together in small groups, for an Edu-Eat session. Give everyone lunch and teach them the basics of healthy cooking.

Teach them the basics of meal preparation and how to store food safely for a couple of days. Some of your caregivers may eat in the car or travel long distances and don’t have the time to make elaborate spreads or money to afford to eat out every day. Show them that it’s possible to eat well while saving well.

In addition, give them some tips about patient-friendly cooking and how to make sure that they are eating meals that will manage their health along with their medications. Give your staff opportunities to meet together, discuss problems, and make operations go smoothly. They may have ideas that you haven’t thought of or haven’t tried in a long time.

A work/life balance is achievable in home health care

Although jobs within the healthcare industry have higher than average turnover rates, this doesn’t have to be the case with your staff. By investing in your staff and showing that you’re interested in their life outside of work, you can ensure that your caregivers stay with you.

Give them tips, tricks, and hacks to rule their own lives, instead of letting their jobs get ahead of them. From their financial to dietary health and wellness, you can show your staff that you’re invested in that healthy balance of work and personal life. And they will thank you for it.

Read more helpful blogs on Caregiver Training, Retention & Satisfaction

• Dealing with the shortage of caregivers in homecare
• The ten best ways to show caregiver appreciation
• Caregiver Training – 6 new practices to get caregivers off to a good start
• Five facts about caregiver burnout that will startle you
• How to create magnetic job postings that attract nurses to your home health agency