A good leader looks after their staff
Aged care organisations that neglect to look after the emotional wellness of staff put their employee’s health at risk, according to one aged care expert who spoke at a recent AlzAust Vic leadership forum.
Aged care consultant and registered nurse with more than 30 years experience, Deborah McKern
By Yasmin Noone
Aged care organisations that do not care for their staff in the same way they care for their residents and clients are at risk of neglecting their responsibilities as a ‘caring’ organisation and losing the loyalty of employees.
This is the belief of aged care consultant, Deborah McKern, who urged an audience of aged care leaders to value, respect and support the people they employ in the same way they do the older people they serve, at the Alzheimer’s Australia Vic Leadership in Quality Dementia Support Forum this week.
Ms McKern said that currently in the aged care sector, many providers fail to offer strategic services, wellness programs, and support mechanisms for staff working at the coal-face and dealing with life and death issues on a daily basis.
The consequence of this, she added, is a decline in the state of staff health, a greater risk of occupational hazards and an unmotivated, burnt-out workforce with no real reason to continue working for a specific employer.
“If an organisation says the care staff they employ have to care for people [who are ill and dying], then they have to also deal with the care staff’s grief,” said the registered nurse with over 30 years experience, Ms McKern.
“Why? Research says that the self-harm risk for nurses is around 40 per cent higher than that of the general population.
“How does it manifest? Because of the physical demands of the job, long hours and double shifts worked and working through the middle of the night.”
Aged care nurses “also drink too much, smoke, don’t exercise, don’t eat well, don’t have much time [on their hands], and are not cared for in their workforce which basically, doesn’t nurture them”.
“The shift work goes with the job but the rest is bad.
“And what you will then see at the coalface is a lot of people who are burnt out with no capacity to care,” she said.
According to Safe Work Australia’s national 2008/09 workers compensation figures, the ‘hospital and nursing home’ industry rates quite high on the number of accepted workers’ compensation claims (excluding journey claims) that resulted in a fatality, permanent incapacity or temporary incapacity.
The number of serious claims calculated in that time frame was more than 9,100 compared to only 130 serious claims in the defence industry and 5,545 in construction.
The incident rate of occupational injuries and diseases, per 1,000 employees, for hospitals and aged care facilities was almost 17 per cent while in defence it was almost four per cent; and in construction, 21 per cent.
Finally, the frequency rate of occupational injuries and diseases, per million hours worked by employees, for hospitals and aged care was 11.5; defence was 2.1 and construction was over 10.
Alzheimer’s Australia Vic and the Australian Nursing Federation agreed with the workforce compensation statistics and with the current state of the nursing workforce, as described by Ms McKern.
However, Ms McKern said, encouraging staff wellness could help to create a healthier nursing workforce. It would also allow employees to engage with a resident’s/client’s journey through illness to death, for without that connection, the client’s “journey will be empty”.
“That’s the negative side.”
“But what you now see are smart organisations which are recognising this issue.
“When I was a director of nursing for an organisation, we had a gym that the staff could use. We fed our staff well with the food that was cooked on-site.
“…And we made sure all staff got a text message when someone died.
“The organisation was also planning to buy a time-share for those staff who could never afford to have a holiday. It would be a reward for long service and just to give back to the staff,” said Ms McKern.
Staff wellness programs, on-premises gyms or gym membership discounts and other staff incentives are commonplace in many industries.
But, she said, the concept of promoting staff wellness programs is not big in the nursing field as a whole and is not wide-spread in aged care although it is becoming more common.
“If it happens in other professions, why doesn’t it happen in nursing? If it is not acceptable [for staff to deal with grief and emotional issues without support] in other professions, why is it acceptable in nursing?
“The other thing is that organisations with staff who work in a caring role have a principle obligation to demonstrate that they care for their workforce, as well as their clients.”
Ms McKern said that these type of wellness and support programs not only aim to improve the health and fitness of staff, encourage a work-life balance and promote OH&S principles, but they send a message to employees that they are valued and appreciated.
“I see this time and time again –the staff feel valued and appreciated if their emotional needs are supported, and they receive a positive reward, positive feedback and support. Staff will then not only work longer and harder but they will stay on with the organisation.
“Yes – people need a decent wage but, at end of day, if staff are not supported in that workplace, they will go to another workplace for the same money and that organisation will lose the investment they made in that staff member.”
Ms McKern said that given the workforce pressures providers are either experiencing now or are set to experience in the very near future, they must look at what they can do to attract and retrain a quality workforce of caring staff.
“The culture of nursing has never been to nurture staff and there used to be a sense that there will be there will always be staff so organisations never had to try that hard. But now we are facing a tsunami of older people coming into aged care …..
“So the real focus now is on developing and building a quality workforce. It’s about building sustainability in the workforce. It really just comes down to that.”
The Alzheimer’s Australia Vic Leadership in Quality Dementia Support Forum took place in Melbourne on Tuesday.
For further information about the event or to access the speaker’s presentations call 1800 100 500 or email alz@alzvic.asn.au
My concern is that staff are not being told that they are doing a good job. I alway thank my staff when they go off shift and tell them to take care. I feel that if the Government are making facilities install sprinklers they need to be paying for it. The money we pay to comply is taking away from staff and residents. If the Govt continue to come up with these new taxes, I think you will find that everyone will be worse off.
Thank you
I can only agree with this article, however there is much more in the understanding about who we recruit into aged care and how do we retain the ones we need. part of the problem is that people think care workers are angels with golden wings. This is definatley not the case for many homes that take what ever staff they can get at particular times in need. Some of this is social economicaly driven and some of this is industry driven. Never the less the fact remains that clinical leadership and management in the aged care sector needs improvement and empowerment. Creating healthy workplaces in care environments goes a long way to better outcomes for all involved.
The problem with the language ‘a good leader looks after staff’ is that if I lined up all the staff in any organisation and asked them what they needed to be able to say they were being looked after, then there would be as many different answers as there were people. Noone in a leadership role, regardless of how good they are can humanely meet all the ‘looking after staff’ needs that would make up the list.
Let’s get back to basics. Our staff are human beings, as are our managers and leaders. The basics are, let’s start treating our people as human beings; with dignity and respect.
Leadership is a set of personal values and behaviours. How we act according our values and how we behave towards others defines our leadership.
When asked what it is they want from their leaders, there are always common elements. People want to be engaged in their work process, they want to be valued for their experience and their ideas, they want to be acknowledged and encouraged to contribute. These desires are not only common sense, they are supported by research, over and over again, in the past 50 years.
If we want to ‘look after our staff’ let’s start by placing people with appropriate values and behaviour processes into leadership roles. We can teach them how to implement management tasks after we have the right people in place. (www.johncoxon.com.au)