Recognizing your caregivers is something all home care owners and supervisors strive to do on a regular basis. During this holiday season, many caregivers work long, hard hours away from their own families. Appreciating your employees is especially critical when caregiver turnover is so high. When a caregiver feels unappreciated, the care your clients receive will end up being less than satisfactory. If you haven’t already, the holidays may be a perfect time for you to implement a caregiver recognition plan. Not only could this help boost your business, but it will make your caregivers feel appreciated and loved this season.
Methods of Recognition
While looking at the 2017 Home Care Benchmarking Study, the top five ways caregivers prefer to be recognized included:
- Company-wide recognition
- Recognition by a client
- Pay raise
- Vacation time, bonuses, perks and gift cards
- Verbal recognition
These are great ways you can show your employees recognition all year round. When the holidays happen, you may want to think about including some additional ways to show recognition.
Company Parties
Parties are a great way to boost morale and to learn more about your employees and caregivers. You could go see a movie as an office, reserve a room at a restaurant. Or simply have a potluck at your office after hours. The key to throwing a party is to make sure to leave the office talk behind. Don’t discuss numbers or the latest report. This is a time to relax and show your employees you have appreciated everything they have done in the past year.
If you are a supervisor and want to do something special for your department, consider doing a potluck for a lunch hour.
Holiday Bonuses
For most individuals, the holidays can be a very stressful time financially. Giving your employees a little boost during this time will show them you care. If you own or run a smaller home care business, you can still recognize your caregivers with smaller bonuses or even gift cards. This is still something they will remember and be grateful for in the new year.
A great example of a fantastic gift card for a caregiver would be a gift card to a local gas station where they could fill up their tank for free. Caregivers mostly drive from location to location. Other ideas would be a gift card for an oil change or for their tires to be rotated. This shows you see the hard work and sacrifices caregivers put into the business.
Make It Fun!
On Inc.com, an article asked employees of different companies what their favorite gift they ever received from an employer was, the answers were surprising. None of them said large bonuses or raises. Most of the suggestions were movies tickets for them and a significant other, a gift certificate for nice dinner, a gift card to the local grocery store and even a fleece blanket. Remember, you don’t have to break the bank on the holidays for your employees to enjoy the season. Get to know your caregivers to find out what would benefit them most during the holidays.
When you are thankful for your caregivers and appreciate them during this holiday season, you will have happy clients during the holiday season as well. Find out how using a satisfaction management program will help you know which caregivers are going above and beyond for the holidays and all year long.
