Retaining Home Health and Hospice Caregivers with Work-Life Flexibility
Author: Hunter Sorensen Posted: Dec. 28, 2019
Between 2016 and 2026, US home health and hospice providers will need to find a projected 2.9 million more home health aides and personal care aides to keep up with skyrocketing demand, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The importance of retaining top team members has never been more critical.
While there are many facets of team member retention and recruiting, one aspect many businesses are focusing on, including MHA, is work-life flexibility. That’s the area we’re going to address in this post.
When employers think about work-life balance, they think about their employees balancing their work lives with their personal lives. Work-life balance is like a teeter-totter -- personal life on one side, work-life on the other. To maintain ultimate balance, the employee must self manage by deploying time management, scheduling, prioritization and other skills.
So what can the employer do to help?
Most employers offer paid time off, unpaid time off and more to help team members recharge their batteries and balance their lives, but is that enough? There has to be more that employers can incorporate throughout their work cultures to enable balance.
When thinking about the teeter-totter example, the teeter-totter is usually outside and therefore subject to weather and other elements outside man’s realm of control. Similarly, there are many uncontrollable factors that affect work-life balance like an employee’s child falling ill, car breaking down and/or overall burnout from the traditional 8am - 5pm work schedule.
This is where flexibility comes in. When outside uncontrollable factors affect employees’ state of balance a flexible work culture is key.
A flexible work culture is more than just flexible work schedules. Breaking away from the traditional work hours has proven to improve work productivity, however, it’s more than that.
“We build flexibility within our culture so that our team has the ability to reconnect to their home, community and families to recharge and regenerate,” said MHA co-founder Jennifer Maxwell. “We know that when our team members have the flexibility for ample self-care, they’ll be in the best position to provide the best consulting services to home health and hospice clients across the nation.”
Many employers are opting for work-life flexibility instead of work-life balance so that the responsibility to “flex” and “balance” doesn’t all fall on the employee. Employers can help make space for the unexpected so that team members can still find balance and ultimately improve productivity and avoid burnout.
In today’s fast-paced world, employers, especially healthcare employers, need to ensure their team members’ can care for themselves so they can best care for others