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Posts Tagged ‘caregiver jobs’

Senior Care Franchise Owners: Signs It’s Time to Let a Caregiver Go

Posted by homecare

As a senior care franchise owner, you have a passion for helping elders to thrive at home. From the beginning, you have worked hard at building a business that puts senior care and safety first. Part of that process is hiring qualified and retrained caregivers for the elderly whom you serve. A lot of time and effort must go into selecting the right candidate and making sure that they are providing the highest possible level of care. 

Each caregiver you send out is your representative. This means that their actions can not only help or hinder the lives of seniors, but they are also reflective of the reputation and integrity of your business. Therefore, as a franchise owner, it is imperative to recognize the signs that indicate trouble. Sometimes, letting a caregiver go can be one of the important decisions you make. But first, you must be aware if a problem is present. Here are some common indicators to watch out for. 

Complaints 

Families need caregivers they can trust. And they want to rely on the fact that you trusted them first. Often, seniors benefit greatly from the assistance of a home care provider. However, when complaints begin to arise, pay attention. In a busy world, it is easy to dismiss problems or simply apologize for them. However, if you are consistently receiving complaints about a caregiver, it could mean trouble. In other words, if seniors or their families are frequently at odds with a specific caregiver, it might be time to let the caregiver go. 

Unreliability 

When it comes to senior care, unreliability can cause an elderly person to be left unattended. In fact, if a caregiver shows up late or leaves early, serious consequences can occur. For example, this can increase the risk for falls, medical emergencies, and other disasters. If the caregiver is in charge of cooking, their absence could mean that a senior might go without eating or drinking. For a bed-ridden patient, the consequences could be dire. 

Temperament 

Those who take on caregiver jobs should be patient and even-tempered. Be vigilant about changes in a home care provider’s behavior. If they begin to exhibit angry outbursts or lack patience when you are speaking to them, consider their treatment of vulnerable seniors. Employees who are disrespectful to their superiors can be even more likely to treat their patients poorly. This is a cause for concern and something about which franchise owners should be vigilant. 

Burnout 

For caregivers to care for others, they must care for themselves first. Unfortunately, burnout is one of the most prevalent issues in elderly caregiving. And it is important to recognize the signs. For example, exhaustion is often an indicator. Furthermore, a caregiver experiencing fatigue can place seniors at risk. Falling asleep on the job or administering medications improperly can have deadly consequences. Additional symptoms of burnout can include a lack of care for oneself. Therefore, if you notice related changes in appearance or emotional state, intervention may be necessary. 

Senior care franchise owners must be vigilant about recognizing any form of elder abuse. Whether the maltreatment is accidental or purposeful, they must stop it immediately. One of the ways to put an end to improper caregiving is to know the signs. While they can vary, the aforementioned signs are among the most common. And if left unnoticed, they can lead to even further neglect. Because senior care is your passion, it’s important to have resources. At A Better Solution in Home care, we offer a variety of tools to help seniors and their families. Our agents are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week to answer any questions you might have. Please call (877) 585 9011 or visit our website to learn more. 

Senior Care Business Owners: How to Help Caregivers to Excel at Work 

Posted by homecare

Did you know that there are approximately 39.8 million caregivers in the United States? That is a lot of people, and if you are one of them, you know it can be challenging to juggle family life and caring for others. So, what can be done to help people excel in caregiver jobs? While it may be difficult to find the time to care for patients and still meet your work deadlines, there are ways to help caregivers excel at work. 

Get Organized

Being a caregiver is a tough job. You have to juggle managing your own life and responsibilities with your role as a caregiver. Not only that, but you also have to keep up with the needs of your loved one. It’s essential to find ways to manage your time and energy so that you can be the best caregiver you can be.

One effective way to be more organized is to keep thoughts, ideas, and tasks in one place. In addition, caregivers can use an online task management tool to track items that need completing and share them with others with whom they work. 

Caregivers save time when trying to find something or someone or complete a particular challenge because everything that needs doing is in one convenient place for you. This method also works if you’re looking for a system to stay on top of your daily activities because it allows you to track each day’s goals and minutes spent working on them.

Be Honest and Assertive

Many caregivers take on more work than they can realistically handle. Encourage elderly caregiving workers to be honest about their capabilities. How many hours can they work? How many patients can they realistically handle? Finally, what do they feel they cannot control when it comes down to their day-to-day responsibilities? It takes a lot to care for someone who finds themselves needing daily assistance, but that doesn’t mean it has to affect your performance in other areas of your life.

Create a Contingency Plan

Life happens, and even the best-laid plans can go awry. This is why it’s essential to have a contingency plan, and perhaps even a contingency plan for your contingency plan! Reach out to people in your network and let them know about any unforeseen challenges. Having a support system in place is ideal so that when there is a crisis; they’ll be ready and willing to help!

This means that before the unexpected happens, you’ve already thought ahead about how you’re going to deal with it! Think about the most likely situations that would throw your day off course and put together a plan on how to manage them if they should occur.

Enjoy Some Me Time

As a caregiver, you must be highly aware of your time being a precious resource. It’s likely in short supply for you. 

However, don’t let that make you hesitate to do what’s right by yourself. Caregivers want to be comfortable enough with their roles as people who take care of others, and that means ensuring they have enough energy and mental health to do so.

So take some moments out of life to do things you enjoy and bring happiness into your life. Set some realistic goals and realize what kind of work-life balance is most ideal for you at this point.

Why Choose Us

A Better Solution provides professional senior care management for individuals, businesses and communities. Our Burbank senior home care services are provided by trained, qualified professionals to guarantee your needs are perfectly matched with the senior solutions available for you or your loved ones.

Senior Care Businesses: 5 Mistakes to Avoid When Recruiting Caregivers 

Posted by homecare

When it’s time to hire caregivers for your senior care business, you can be easily overwhelmed. It takes a special kind of person to be a caregiver, but it’s not the most lucrative career. Therefore, there can be significant turnover. Also, other issues can arise if you don’t do your due diligence in the hiring process. Here are five mistakes you should avoid as you recruit caregivers for the elderly. 

Failing To Prioritize Recruiting

Hiring caregivers is a difficult task. It’s even more troublesome when it’s not a priority. Having vacancies for caregivers usually means that you’re short staffed. As a result, you’re likely overworking your existing staff and running the risk that they will soon suffer from burnout. Symptoms of burnout include anxiety, depression, irritability and more. The shortage in caregivers is expected to get worse in the coming years. Therefore, it’s imperative that you appropriately staff your home care agency to retain the staff you already have. 

Providing Insufficient Training

Caregiving doesn’t require degrees or state licensure. Training for these jobs rests mostly on the employer. As a result, the training you provide new caregiving employees is critical to the long term success of your business. Releasing employees who lack the experience to provide a service on behalf of your business is setting you both up for disaster. The stress experienced by overwhelmed employees fielding requests that they don’t know how to fulfill increases the likelihood that they become unhappy with their jobs. This increases the chances that you will need to hire caregivers again in the near future. 

Skipping A Background Check

Seniors are a vulnerable population that gets targeted at alarming rates. Rampant elder abuse in nursing homes is why many families prefer for their loved ones to engage with in-home caregivers. When you hire caregivers for your home care business, it is your responsibility to ensure that they don’t pose a threat to either your clients or your existing staff. Even though it can be costly, performing background checks on all of your employees can flag people who have a history of preying on elderly people. 

Offering Low Wages

Caregiver jobs pay less than $11 per hour on average. Many quality employees will not accept wages this low, especially in and near metropolitan areas with high costs of living expenses. As a result, these wages can attract young people without job experience or people who have no other job prospects. In some cases, this means that you end up having to replace the young people who leave to pursue higher wages after they’ve gained experience. In other cases, it means you run the risk of needing to replace the low quality employees you hired because of their poor work performance. Either way, this can lead to high turnover rates which can decrease employee satisfaction and increase overhead costs as you scramble to replace employees. 

Not Providing Opportunities For Advancement

One way you can combat high turnover from young people who leave after gaining experience is by establishing a pattern of promoting employees from within your organization. Failing to offer opportunities for advancement like these all but ensures that you’ll have to bear the costs of hiring new employees frequently. 

If you’re ready to begin your home care franchise journey with A Better Solution In Home Care, you need to develop a fool proof recruitment strategy. We can provide your senior care business with training, and coaching. Also, we can provide management support to help them grow their staff and business. Visit our website today to learn more about how you can open a franchise location!