How to Improve Employee Morale in Nursing Homes, Career Near Me
How to Improve Employee Morale in Nursing Homes, Career Near Me
Nursing homes often work very hard to improve the satisfaction of residents and family members. However, employee satisfaction is also important in maintaining high standards and quality of care. Employee morale and staff turnover rates have a direct impact on they type of care and attention that nursing home residents receive. With many nursing homes freezing salaries, cutting staff and trimming benefits for employees in this tough economic climate, staff morale might be low. Improve employee morale in nursing homes by making sure staff feel appreciated, paying attention to their needs and providing low costs incentives to help them feel motivated and valued.Steps.
1. Conduct a satisfaction survey. In order to appropriately boost morale, you must understand what the greatest complaints are among your staff.Keep the survey anonymous and voluntary. You will not get an accurate response if employees are forced to complete it, or if they will fear retribution because of their answers.
Ask about what they like and dislike about working at your nursing home. Include questions about salary satisfaction, work environment, resources available to help them do their jobs, scheduling and staffing, communication with management and relationships with co-workers and the people they serve.
2. Schedule shifts consistently. A recent study of nursing home employees revealed the frequency of changes in shift rotations contributed to low morale.
3. Consider workload. While your hiring budget may be tight, try to keep the number of residents each staff member is responsible for reasonable. This will increase morale in your staff and nursing home residents.
4. Recognize employees for good work. Whether it is perfect attendance, a compliment from a family member or a career milestone reached, applaud your employees when they do good work.
Send a personal email or note of congratulations and thanks. Copy anyone who supervises or manages the employee, including the nursing home administrator or CEO.
Create a bulletin board where "star" employees are recognized and celebrated. Allow peers, residents and others to leave notes of encouragement or share positive acts that have been witnessed or received.
5. Keep the lines of communication open. Nursing home employees should feel comfortable and encouraged to communicate with their administrators and managers. Be transparent and keep your employees informed.
Create a suggestion box, or something similar, where employees can leave suggestions. This might help empower those employees who are too shy to have a personal conversation with someone in charge.
6. Offer training. Employee morale is dependent on your staff feeling capable and confident in their abilities to do their jobs.
7. Bring in food. Bagels for breakfast once a week or a pizza for lunch or dinner will give employees something to look forward to other than their microwaved leftovers or what is being served in the nursing home cafeteria.
Find out if vendors can host these food festivities if you do not have the budget and your ethics policies do not prevent the companies you work with from providing occasional treats.
Organize a potluck once a month. This will help your employees contribute to their team members and give them a chance to eat together while working.
8. Pitch in when you can. If you are short staffed or something needs to be done, help out. Nursing home managers, supervisors and administrators who will cover for employees when necessary will earn a more highly motivated workforce.
9. Make the workplace fun. Hold contests, do raffles and offer unique learning experiences. For example, help employees learn Spanish by posting one new word or phrase daily, subscribe to magazines that might be entertaining during breaks or designate a wall where employees can post personal pictures.
10. Remove negative influences. Give constant complainers and perpetually negative employees a chance to reform and if they do not, consider terminating them. One bad employee can disrupt the culture of a nursing home and its staff morale.
Community Q&A.
Question : What kind of contest can I have for employees in a nursing home?Answer : I had each employee fill out a random question form, for example, favorite smell? What would they do if they won the lottery? Who was the most influential person in their life? What superpower would they choose? I used the answers and every 2 weeks I'd put clues up on the board in the break room in the form of a funny story. Employees had to guess who it was. Every correct answer gets a small prize or if I have a lot of winners, I put them in a drawing for a larger prize. This encourages employees to talk to each other about life and their interests instead of just work related topics.
