A manager's thanksgiving

It's your job to work with people; to get them to do what you need them to do. To behave responsibly and to complete the tasks assigned to them. To work with their coworkers in an adult manner, encouraging and not belittling; supporting the team rather than working for personal glory.

Some days, it feels like a thankless job.

And then - whoops - it's Thanksgiving.

Another holiday to find staff to cover. Another payroll that's higher than budgeted, due to holiday pay and overtime.

What's to be thankful for?

Try these things:

• A chance to model the best in providing care to the neediest of individuals;
• A chance to give someone a boost up and to mentor, nurture and bring out the best in a person;
• A chance to give a family hope for a good night's sleep and relief from continual worry;
• A chance to make a difference.

Happy Thanksgiving. We do, indeed, have much to give thanks for.

Training Passion - aQuire Training Solutions' perspective

In my work I have the privilege of talking with senior care providers all over the country. One theme is constant: there are not, today, enough trained and skilled workers to meet the caregiving needs in senior care.

We all know that today is the easy stuff; its tomorrow and the coming years when we enter into the nightmare scenario for staffing. As one Administrator commented at a work group the other day, “Today’s newspaper has statistics about how many of us will live to 100 – what are we going to do, people?”

As I’m listening to people talk, one thing I hear that surprises me just a little is how many new hires don’t complete their initial training or drop out of the workforce very soon after beginning.

I think what’s been missing in some of our early approaches to training is instilling a “spark” – a seed of the passion that the very best senior care workers have. They may not have it during the first weeks or months of their work, but they may develop it over time if they give themselves that opportunity by staying in the field, and learning to love the people in their care.

I know I didn’t have that spark of passion when I first entered the field. In fact, as my parents were both in senior care, I’d been exposed to nursing homes and residential care as a child. I was determined to do anything BUT work with seniors.

I graduated with a social work degree and began working in the community mental health center in my town, enjoying my work with a variety of individuals and age groups. When our center was awarded a grant to develop mental health outreach programs in the local nursing homes, no one else wanted to do it.

I said, “I’m comfortable in nursing homes – I’ll take the job!” And I found myself, at the age of 22, developing an entirely new program with staff, policies and procedures, and organizational needs with a large group of individuals.

It was a blast. I loved not only the work but also the people. I discovered that I truly loved the seniors, and found that I could make a difference in their lives, every single day.

When I headed off to graduate school a year later my career path was fixed: I was working with seniors, focusing on developing quality programs and services to meet their unique needs.

And here I am, 20+ years later, finding new ways - with new technology - to instill that passion in a whole new workforce of young – and not so young – individuals.

My own daughter, newly graduated from college with a passion and skill in creative photography and communication, spent the past year helping us add “ahhaa” moments into each of our courses – moments that are filled with music, visual images, and inspirational messages, designed not just to educate the brain, but to touch the heart of the learner.

Because if we don’t touch the hearts of our newest, freshest employees and help them get a glimpse of the emotional rewards that come from caring for seniors, we may be missing out on the perfect opportunity to build a passionate, capable workforce to meet the needs of the coming years, not to mention the very real needs we have today.

Dignity through Connection - an administrator's gift

The following is a guest article written by a friend and colleague, Mark J. Cimino. Mark and his family own and operate Cimino Care, an assisted living company in California. I hope you enjoy Mark’s perspectives.

I recently observed one of our administrators conducting a tour with a prospective resident. Sometimes when we stand by and observe from a distance, we see things more clearly than we had before.

As I observed, I could see the interpersonal exchange going on. I saw connection, empathy, genuine interest and concern displayed before my very eyes.

I was awestruck. At that moment, it came to me clearer than ever before. Most of the families and residents move into a facility not because of the fancy chandeliers, bells and whistles, but because of a personal bond with the staff, a comfort level and trust with the people working inside.

Yes, we like to have a nice physical plant, but genuine connection with people trumps all other things.

I recently visited another facility (not one of mine) where the staff was so on edge you could cut the tension with a knife. No smiles, no lightness, no eye contact; sadly no connection with the residents.

I witnessed two ladies sitting on a bench with their hands folded and a melancholy look on their faces, and by nervous reaction, I asked, “Are you having fun?”

I suddenly realized that was a misplaced question.

“About as much fun as yesterday!” one quipped back with sarcasm in her eyes.

We strive for constant clinical and operational improvement even though we realize that such operational perfection often eludes us. But we can achieve a perfect connection with those we care for if we truly stay “in the moment”, with our eyes focused in dignity upon our clients and guests, and our hearts tuned to the notes of empathy and genuine caring.

Holiday gift ideas from my team to yours

Are you the boss they LOVE or the boss they HATE?

Did you know that the number one reason people LOVE or HATE their job is because of their boss?

You can give people more money, more time off, more challenges, but it they don’t like their boss, they’ll be gone.

So how do you be a good boss, and gain the loyalty and respect of your employees at the same time?

You’re the Boss – believe it
One of the biggest mistakes we’ve seen over the years is the person, newly promoted to team leadership, who is still trying to prove him or herself.

There was Delilah who would change people’s schedules just to show them that she could.

There was Nancy who would talk to the people on her team in a confrontational, hostile manner.

There was Bob, who simply laughed and joked with people – he NEVER corrected anyone about anything.

Bad bosses, every single one of them.

None of them had yet accepted the true meaning of being a boss: an opportunity and a privilege.

Being the boss doesn’t mean wielding power in the way someone may have done in your life.

It doesn’t mean being tough – or too nice. It DOES mean seeing your role in a totally different way. Looking at the big picture, instead of just the job. Thinking about what you want your team to become, and how you want to build higher quality in every aspect of the job. It means having the opportunity to help the people who work on your team become better at what they do.

It means feeling gratitude and a sense of responsibility that you have the power to make people love their job – or hate it. You have the power to give someone a job – or take it away. You have the power to make work a rewarding, challenging, great place to be – or a place with constant turnover because it’s boring and unrewarding. Take the time – NOW - to build your skills to become the kind of boss people want to work for – a great boss!

Building the Perfect Team, Part 3

Building the perfect team isn’t a one-step job. It’s a process that takes time, focus and little incremental steps.

Let’s look at some other tips from Disney in building the dream team:

• Tapping into each person’s passion means knowing that person. As you get to know each employee better you’ll get a sense of whether he or she is in the right job – the job that truly fits. Are work assignments one that the person loves? Are they tasks the person feels he/she does well in? Researchers have found that the tasks we say we love are most likely the tasks we’re best at – so pay attention to those complaints and those success stories you hear about.

• Knowing your staff members also means knowing what will reward and motivate each of them, too. One manager tells a story about getting McDonald’s gift cards for everyone on staff and feeling proud that she had a great motivation/reward tool at her fingertips at all times. One problem – about half of her staff didn’t go to McDonalds. For those people, this was less a motivation and reward than a clear indicator that their boss didn’t know them very well.

• Make work fun. Yes, working at Disney seems like it would be fun anyway, until you think about the actual tasks involved. How fun would it be day after day helping people into and out of rides? Serving popcorn and soda pop? What makes it fun is the atmosphere. Is your work atmosphere fun? Do people laugh – or at least smile – throughout the day? Are you being a leader in creating a fun environment for work?

Building the Perfect Team, Part 2

We've talked about the importance of sharing your dream with your team.

Let’s look at how we can develop a dream that the entire team is a part of creating. Here are some ideas to get you going:

Finish this sentence: “I dream of working on a team where:”

You might take a minute to answer this question yourself first. What’s important to you? You might list:

• Everyone puts forth their best efforts
• We reach – and exceed – our company goals
• We have extremely satisfied clients
• We all feel like good friends

How does your team finish the same sentence? Try it – and then be open to a full, rousing discussion about how the team will work together to become the “dream team” we all want to be working with.

Ask your team to finish a couple more sentences, too, and see where that discussion leads. Here are some you might try:

I want to work for a manager who:
I want to work with coworkers who:
I enjoy my work most when:
I wish there was more: here at work.

Get the conversation going – engage your team in the journey and in reaching for the dream!

Building Your Dream Team, Part 1

One of my favorite current books is Fred Lee’s “If Disney Ran Your Hospital:9 ½ things you would do differently.”

I heard Lee speak at a conference a couple of years ago, and was completely sold. If we could capture the team – the energy – the enthusiasm of Disney in our building, people would not only want to live there, people would want to work there, too – in droves. What a nice mental picture that makes!

In the conclusion of the book, Lee poses this question:

“Have you ever worked very hard along side other people and absolutely loved every minute of it, even though you were physically exhausted at the end of the day? Is so, what made it so enjoyable?”

Lee goes on to answer the question for himself, sharing a story of backbreaking work side by side with family members, repairing his mother-in-laws house. Using precious vacation time to do it, too. And loving every minute of the work.

At the end of the story, Lee remarks,

“…I would describe the perfect work environment as finding an unsurpassed level of joy in hard work with good friends, doing something important for someone else who cannot do it for themselves. What comes closer to this picture than being a caregiver in a hospital [or senior care community]? The question is, how does one create such a team, and maintain such a spirit?”

Lee goes on to share some of the ways he believes this can happen.

One of the lessons we can learn from Disney in building the dream team of caregiving staff is simply this: Have a dream.

When either candidate for President today articulates a dream for this country people flock to listen. Whether you are a supporter of that candidate or not, it’s hard not to feel the passion of the dream. One example of this is the Youtube video that Obama supporters created - whether you're a supporter or not, you can feel the passion.

In days past, Martin Luther King shared his “I have a Dream” speech – a speech that lifted our national discussion about race and relationships to an entirely new level.

Goals, objectives and mission statements don’t really motivate people to stretch outside their usual behaviors. Dreams do.

Some days, your dreams may simply include having every shift filled and never having to pull a night shift yourself again.

But to truly motivate your own team to work at their highest level, share the dreams you had when you first began in this field. Did you dream of creating a caring environment that felt like a home? A team that loved every single person in your care? A place where people came together to accomplish more than they could do on their own – and had fun, laughed and hugged freely?

In our office, we’ve written the dream on the wall – literally. Through an inexpensive website we ordered vinyl lettering and carefully applied our dream (borrowing from the words of John Quincy Adams) on the wall: “If your words inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”

It is our dream to become leaders by inspiring others to do all of those things.

What are your dreams? How do you share them with your team?