Tag: workforce

6 Gift Ideas for Your Caregivers This Holiday Season

Tis the season! CareAcademy, a leader in home care education, has some ideas for ensuring that your caregivers feel valued and connected with your agency.

CareAcademy Logo

Guest Post by CareAcademy

There are some big benefits to holiday gifting, but how do you know what your employees want? Let’s look at some ways you can navigate the gift-giving season to make your caregivers feel valued and connected with your agency.

Caregiving is a demanding job, and staffing turnover from burnout can be high. You know how much you value your employees, and with the challenges your team faces, they need to feel recognized and appreciated for their work.

2022 has continued to bring challenges to the caregiving industry. Agencies looking to increase their retention rate pay attention to employees’ needs for support and know the risks that burnout brings. Think about a holiday gift as another way you can show your support.

Effective Gift Giving

81% of employees who received gifts felt appreciated by their employer. They reported an increase in positive regard towards them after receiving a gift and felt more connected and loyal to their company. In the year of the “Great Resignation” and “Quiet Quitting,” employers can stand out by recognizing their caregivers with thoughtful, meaningful gifts.

Gift giving can feel stressful; you don’t want to misstep and give a gift that makes your employee feel undervalued or like an afterthought. Start by establishing a budget that works for your company: $50 to $100 in value is a typical range that employees feel is the right amount.

Here are 5 suggestions to brighten your caregivers’ holidays:

  • Money. The tried-and-true gift, this is what a majority of employees say they would appreciate during the holiday season. Many agencies also find it helpful to use an end-of-year bonus as an incentive to complete required annual training.
  • VISA gift cards. These are always a top choice, they’re easy to use and accepted almost everywhere, even online.
  • Store gift cards. Choose something that will appeal to all your employees; gift cards for larger brands are best.
  • Swag. If you’re considering a gift with a company logo, make sure it’s on an item that will get a lot of use. Insulated water bottles and fleece vests or jackets are popular choices for company gear.
  • Pamper the helpers. They care for others every day, now you can take care of them. A spa gift basket or gift certificate can provide some welcome relief. (Hint: Gift certificates should be for an easily accessible location and should cover the tip.)
  • Mix it up! Consider giving a holiday bonus or gift card along with a physical item like a gift basket.

Whatever you choose, adding a personalized note will maximize the impact of your gift. By next year they may have forgotten what the gift was, but they won’t forget how you made them feel. A gift in the holiday season is a great way to show you support your caregivers and wrap up the year on a positive note.

CareAcademy is the only portable, online educational platform used by home care agencies across the country to certify, onboard, and in-service caregivers. It has prepared over 40,000 workers to meet the greater complexity of care, challenges, and opportunity in the home care industry. Our classes are video-based micro-learning, easily accessible on a caregiver’s smartphone, tablet, or computer. Its live support team proactively reminds your caregivers with smart-reminders based on their due dates to complete training. To learn more, visit www.careacademy.com or reach us at (866) 227-3895 x3 for sales.

Talking Home Care: Marijuana and the Workplace

Pat Kelleher speaks with Layla G. Taylor about what employers need to know about marijuana.

Taylor and Kelleher

With many states (including Massachusetts) decriminalizing marijuana in recent years, home care agencies and other employers find themselves having to answer questions they never thought to ask. How do I protect my clients? What are my employees’ rights? Am I still allowed to issue drug tests and, if so, under what circumstances?

For the 13th episode of the Talking Home Care podcast, Pat Kelleher explores these and other questions with Layla Taylor, a partner at Sullivan, Hayes & Quinn and an expert in employment and labor law.

(If you’re a return listener from iTunes, please subscribe to the podcast; we moved the feed to a new location last year).

You may listen to the podcast by clicking any of the platform images above, clicking “play,” or downloading it directly (Length: 25 minutes; Size: 19 MB). If you enjoy the podcast, please give us a five-star review so others can find it.

Host: Patricia Kelleher is the Executive Director of the Home Care Alliance of Massachusetts.

Guests: Layla G. Taylor is an attorney with Sullivan Hayes & Quinn who focuses on labor and employment law.

Return to www.thinkhomecare.org.

Full 2019 HR Management Conference Agenda Announced!

HCA will host an HR Management Half-Day Conference on Tuesday, October 29 at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA. This conference is an excellent resource for HR Managers, CEOs, COOs, and Clinical Directors.

HCA will host an HR Management Half-Day Conference on Tuesday, October 29 at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA. This conference is an excellent resource for HR Managers, CEOs, COOs, and Clinical Directors. Topics will include the following:

  • Attracting a Talented Workforce, Sheri Heller, PHR, SHRM-CP, Senior HR Advisor MassPay HR & Services
    Attracting and keeping talented employees in today’s job market is more difficult than ever. Learn about best practices to ensure successful talent acquisition efforts that will lead to a high-performing workforce. This session will include topics on talent sourcing vs. recruiting; finding the right talent pool; building your employer brand; the candidate experience; and creating the perfect job ad.
  • Discrimination Law Issues for the Home Care Industry, Layla Taylor, Esq. Partner, Sullivan Hayes & Quinn
    Employment discrimination laws have been established to prevent discrimination based on race, sex, sexual orientation, religion, national origin, physical disability, and age. Learn from Taylor the important key points relating to patient choice and anti-discrimination case law for your employees. Topics such as employee religious and disabiliaty accommodations to vaccinations will be covered.
  • The Step-by-Step HR Department Checklist, Julie Brinkman, COO, Hireology
    Whether you have a staff of 5 or 500, clear HR policies and consistent processes are essential to success on the people side of your business. This presentation will review a comprehensive HR checklist developed by Hireology and BambooHR designed to help home care agencies establish a new HR function or improve the HR systems and initiatives that are already in place in your agency. This checklist includes key elements such as an overview of important HR policies and processes, recruitment best practices to attract quality candidates, and tips for developing and maintaining a successful HR team.
  • Home Care Alliance Workforce Initiatives, HCA of MA Staff
    The HCA Board has identified Workforce Development as a critical priority issue under its current Strategic Plan. A Board working group had identified a number of initiatives for the Alliance and Foundation to expand our member support on workforce issues, addressing staff development at all levels: executive, management, supervisory, and all levels of direct care. This session will review results to date on some of the projects already in progress, preview future objectives, and solicit member input on new initiatives to help ensure a skilled and motivated workforce for the future.

Registration is only $50/Person for HCA of MA Members!

Download the Brochure/ Registration Flyer Here

Talking Home Care: Building (and Keeping) a Better Workforce with Technology

Pat Kelleher is joined by CareAcademy’s Helen Adeosun and HouseWorks’s Andrea Cohen to discuss tech solutions to the workforce issues challenging the home care industry.

Helen Adeosun, Andrea Cohen, and Pat Kelleher
Helen Adeosun, Andrea Cohen, and Pat Kelleher

For the 11th episode of the Talking Home Care podcast, we are joined by two home care leaders to talk about solutions to one of the industry’s biggest challenges: recruiting, educating, and retaining care givers in a competitive market.

Helen Adeosun and Andrea Cohen both started their careers in home care as caregivers. Later, Helen would launch CareAcademy, an online learning platform, while Andrea would found HouseWorks, one of the largest private pay home care agencies in Massachusetts. In addition to their personal insights on workforce issues, the two also discuss their companies’ recent collaboration.

(If you’re a return listener from iTunes, please re-subscribe to the podcast; we’ve moved the feed to a new location).

Listen on iTunes
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You may listen to the podcast by clicking either of the podcast images, clicking “play” above, or downloading it directly (Length: 39 minutes; Size: 31 MB). If you enjoy the podcast, please give us a five-star review so others can find it.

Specific topics include:

    • How agencies can attract and keep their best employees by offering a career path to all positions.
    • How a mobile education platform can serve a mobile workforce.
    • How online education streamlines on-boarding and makes time available for hands-on training.
    • How technology — whether for training or other purposes — can give agencies actionable data about their operations.

Host: Patricia Kelleher is the executive director of the Home Care Alliance of Massachusetts.

Guests: Helen Adeosun is the co-founder and CEO of CareAcademy. Based in Boston, CareAcademy is one of the most innovative online training platforms for the home care industry. Andrea Cohen is the CEO and founder of HouseWorks, one of the largest private care home care agencies in Massachusetts.

Return to www.thinkhomecare.org.

Home Care Month 2018: Building a Workforce for the Future

Today marks the start of Home Care Month. This is the first of several blogs post reflecting on the current issues impacting the industry.

Every day in this country, 10,000 baby boomers turns 65. This new generation of “elders” are unlike any other to come before it. Economists suggest that these baby boomers control 70% of all US disposable income, yet a large percentage are not well prepared financially for retirement, with savings far below what they are projected to need to “sustain their quality of life.” Thanks to medical advances, these aging boomers should have a longer life expectancy than even the generation before them. They are more educated. They are accustomed to speaking up about their health care needs and they are technologically savvy. And without a doubt, they will be looking for a long-term care delivery system that meets their needs, allows them to age in place with some degree of financial security and with little dependence on their children (whom many boomers are still supporting!).

In short, they will want a high-quality, cost-effective, technologically-advanced home care delivery system. As we celebrate home health care month in Massachusetts and around the country, let’s look at some of what we need to do to make sure we have that in place.

Starting with Workforce Issues

This chart from a recent report from global health care consulting firm, Mercer, depicts what many have written about: There is a huge gap between the availability of a home health aide/personal care workforce and patient need. Massachusetts is among the states expected to feel it the most, and the graphic speaks to how much has to be done in this area.

Home health agencies – dependent on heavily regulated Medicare and Medicaid funding for most of their services – are increasingly unable to offer wage and benefit packages that allow them to compete within the health-care or service-delivery sectors. Added business costs such as the state’s EMAC assessment and mandated paid sick leave make it harder for private home care companies to keep costs affordable and attract workers. Already, many report more demand than they have the workforce to meet.

To ensure an available, productive, and healthy workforce we support:

  • Repealing the onerous EMAC assessment on agencies whose workers access public insurance (Medicaid);
  • Providing premium assistance or pooled purchasing of health insurance for direct care workers;
  • Adequately adjusting Medicaid reimbursements to cover living wages and benefits; and
  • Investing now in the creation of a meaningful, long-term care workforce training, with nurse and aide training funds.

Looking at Technology

There are many who think some of the workforce demand can be offset with the new technologies emerging to support aging at home. These include sensor devices that can detect a multiplicity of conditions and situations including missed meals or medications, a problematic change in weight or blood pressure, or a fall. According to a recent report by the MA state Auditor’s office:

The potential for technological change to impact the labor requirements for home health/direct care workers is considerable. As low cost technologically-based products become available it is likely that these emerging products and services will serve as both substitutes for and complements to home health/direct care occupations.

Most of these technological devices require a receiver to get and act on the collected data. While in some cases this may be a family member, it should also be noted that home care agencies are appropriately poised to be the monitor of remotely transmitted systems, sending a nurse or aide to visit only as indicated. As workforce issues intensify, we would like to see and support:

  • More insurance coverage, including Medicare and Medicaid for remote monitoring devices
  • More modeling of partnerships between private home care companies and technology vendors to test the market for, and price, care extender technologies as part of a private home care plan of care.

Home Care Month is a time to honor the contributions of home health workers who are the lifeline to health care for some many home-bound elders, for isolated and struggling families and for the disabled. Let’s also use this opportunity to listen to and respond to their needs.

Return to www.thinkhomecare.org.

Talking Home Care: Eric Scharber on Workforce Challenges: “Whoever Has the Talent Is Going to Win”

Exact Recruiting’s Eric Scharber joins us for a discussion about how to recruit and retain the best workforce from every age-group.

Eric Scharber of Exact Recruiting
Eric Scharber

For the sixth episode of the Talking Home Care podcast, Pat Kelleher talks recruiting and retention with Eric Scharber, a principal of Exact Recruiting. Topics include:

  • The advantages to employers of focusing on retention as much as recruiting
  • How small changes in retention can make a real difference to an agency’s bottom line
  • Why offering staff development is sometimes more important than pay increases
  • The challenges (and opportunities) of hiring Millennials
  • How to get graduating nurses and therapists to consider careers in home care and hospice
  • The specific challenges of retaining non-medical caregivers such as CNAs and home health aides

You may listen to the podcast by clicking the play button above, downloading it directly, or subscribing through iTunes or Google Play. (Length: 28’30”; Size: 15 MB).

Host: Patricia Kelleher is the Executive Director of the Home Care Alliance of Massachusetts.

Guest: Eric Scharber is a principal at Exact Recruiting, a Simione Talent Solution, where he leads talent acquisition and employee retention for the home care and hospice industry. He oversees executive search and non-executive recruiting services, as well as recruitment process outsourcing, compensation analysis, and employee satisfaction survey services.

Talking Home Care LogoDon’t want to miss the next episode of Talking Home Care? Subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, or enter the following in your podcast app: https://thinkhomecare.wordpress.com/category/talking-home-care-podcast/feed/

Return to www.thinkhomecare.org.

Alliance Testifies on Home Care Legislation to Committee on Elder Affairs

The Massachusetts Legislature’s Joint Committee on Elder Affairs held a public hearing on July 31, 2017. Several of the bills heard are of interest to home care.

The committee heard testimony on bills relating to:

  • Home Care Licensure/Worker Registries:
    • S.364/H. 341 An Act Strengthening the Massachusetts Home Care Program
    • H. 344 An Act Relative to Consumer Protection and Home Care Services
    • H. 1187 An Act relative to home health and hospice aides
    • H. 2068 An Act Establishing a Home Care Aide Training Registry
    • H. 2889 An Act Strengthening Home Care Services
    • S.343 An Act Establishing a Home Care Aide Training Registry
  • Home Care Workforce Bill (Enough Pay to Stay Initiative)

The Home Care Alliance of Massachusetts and some of its members testified on all of the bills, and you can read that testimony at the links below:

If you have any questions, or would like any further information about these legislative proposals, do not hesitate to reach out to Jake Krilovich at jkrilovich@thinkhomecare.org.

Talking Home Care Episode 3: Andrea Cohen on Challenges and Successes for Private Home Care

Pat Kelleher and HouseWorks’s Andrea Cohen discuss the challenges facing private duty home care agencies.

Andrea Cohen
Andrea Cohen

The Talking Home Care podcast returns after a summer hiatus. In this third episode, Pat Kelleher talks with Andrea Cohen, co-founder and CEO of HouseWorks, one of the largest and most successful private care home care agencies in Massachusetts. Topics include:

  • A primer on private care home care (what it is, who it serves, what it offers, is it affordable, etc.);
  • How private care agencies earn their clients’ trust;
  • How technology empowers agencies and families alike;
  • What private care agencies are doing to overcome workforce challenges; and
  • What the future holds for the industry in the post-Baby Boom years.

You may directly download the podcast here (Length: 27’54”; Size: 13 MB).

Talking Home Care LogoHost: Patricia Kelleher, Executive Director of the Home Care Alliance of Massachusetts.

Guest: As the co-founder and CEO of HouseWorks, Andrea Cohen’s vision crystalized over 20 years ago when she took care of both of her parents. HouseWorks’s fundamental innovation has been an entrepreneurial approach to service delivery that returns a sense of control to adult children and their parents.

Don’t want to miss the next episode of Talking Home Care? Subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, or enter the following in your podcast app:

https://thinkhomecare.wordpress.com/category/talking-home-care-podcast/feed/

Links:

  1. Secora Care.  A secure, passive, and private remote-monitoring platform.
  2. The Conversation Project. Talking about elders’ wishes for end-of-life care.
  3. Laurie Orlov’s Tech-Enabled Home Care Report.

Return to www.thinkhomecare.org.

Advocacy Alert: Budget Amendment to Support Home Care Workforce

MA-State-HouseWhile demand for home based health and supportive care continues to grow in Massachusetts, the home care industry struggles to recruit and retain essential front line caregivers. New data collected last fall through a survey of home care agencies that contract with the state’s Aging Service Access Points (ASAPs) found that on average 25% of a home care agency’s direct care workforce changes every three months leading to intense instability within the organization.

Please click the link below to write or call your Representatives urging them to sign onto Representative Aaron Vega’s amendment #148 which begins to address the underlying causes for the growing home care worker shortage in Massachusetts and takes steps to assure that their will be workers to meet the demand.

Take Action Here

Massachusetts has been successful at rebalancing the long-term care system, and appropriately diverting consumers from nursing facilities to community care. Between FY12 and FY16, MassHealth has experienced a -5.8% reduction in annual bed days. The movement of care from nursing homes to the community has not been been met with the necessary reinvestments in workforce to ensure the workforce is available to support consumers in need of services. MassHealth has not raised the rate of reimbursement for a home health aide in almost a decade.

Return to www.thinkhomecare.org.

What the Senate’s Economic Development Bill did for Home Care

Late Thursday night, the Senate wrapped up debate on more than 200 amendments to legislation promoting economic and workforce development and the Home Care Alliance was active on several issues.

Senate Bill 2423, “An Act relative to job creation, workforce development and infrastructure investment,” created a a special commission to investigate and report on barriers to meeting labor market demands in the commonwealth. The commission’s report can include a broad range of industries, but according to the legislation, it must consist of cyber-security, high technology and biotechnology, early education and care, home care and home health. Despite this focus, the “labor commission,” as it was labeled, did not have a member that represented the home care industry.

Working together with the Home Care Aide Council, and Senator Patricia D. Jehlen’s office, an amendment was adopted to get a home care agency representative on that commission. If the Senate’s legislation advances and is passed, this commission will be shining a light on home care workforce issues on a level of importance that places it with other industries.

The other amendment, which was of great concern, was an effort that would have created a publicly-available registry with the personal information of home care workers. It was the same provision that showed up in legislation and FY17 budget amendments – all of which were defeated.

In this particular iteration, the result was a redrafted amendment to create a registry of home care workers that does NOT include personal information, but rather certifications and whether that worker has ever committed abuse, mistreatment or neglect of an elderly patient or consumer.

The Alliance thanks the many agencies that weighed in quickly with their state senator by phone and email on both of these matters.

The Senate’s legislation now must pass a conference committee process where differences between S.2423 and the House’s version of the bill must be worked out.

Further updates will be shared when they become available.

Return to www.thinkhome.care.

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