A few weeks ago, we discussed on these pages how to implement an employee mentoring program. It is with good reason, too. The caregiver turnover rate in senior care for 2020 was 65.2%, and that was at the beginning of the pandemic. It is likely much higher now, given the labor shortage at all levels of senior care.
Besides better employee retention, what other benefits can you look forward to seeing in a mentoring program?
The first 90 Days is Crucial for New Employees
As reported in our previous blog, 57% of employees in senior care leave in the first 90 days. Watch new employees in their first three months if you want early returns on your mentoring program.
Breaking the Isolation
Being a new employee can be a lonely experience, especially in senior care. You don’t know your co-workers. You don’t know the residents. You sit alone during your breaks. Having a mentor means you have someone to introduce you to co-workers and colleagues in other departments. If a new hire knows someone in the kitchen, they’ll feel better about relaying a change in a resident’s diet or preferences or making a special request for a resident.
Creating a Bond with the Facility
The criteria for selecting mentors include finding employees who are raving fans of where they work. Part of being a mentor is passing that enthusiasm on to new employees. The sooner employees feel a bond with co-workers, the more they will connect with the community.
Help Through those First Rough Days and Weeks
New employees make mistakes. This is especially true in a memory care or skilled nursing facility when new caregivers are unfamiliar with residents and their preferences. One bad day can be enough to convince a new employee to resign. A good mentor can help ease a new hire through a bad experience.
Mentoring as a Recruitment Tool
This is a jobseeker’s market. If someone is applying at your facility, chances are they have applied at a few others in the area. If your HR people can boast about a mentoring program, your facility looks attractive as a potential employer. In addition, when a new hire sees that mentoring is part of the advancement process in your facility, it makes an impact.
More Thorough Training
Those initial days for a new employee are often a blur. It isn’t easy to retain information. You can work with your mentors to develop a checklist of duties the employee needs to master. This allows the mentor and the mentee to work towards a goal. It also ensures that new employees are adequately trained.
Develops a Sense of Pride in Your Veteran Employees
Everyone is as concerned with keeping veteran employees as they are with retaining the new ones. A mentoring program is a great way to tell your long-time employees that you recognize their work and value their contributions. In this time of fierce competition for employees, senior care facilities need to nurture their employees at every level.
CareWork Can Help
CareWork is a software platform developed specifically for the skilled nursing operator and the broader senior care market. CareWork ties in the various aspects of your operation, affording leadership and management a 360-degree view of everything—labor, scheduling, outcomes, census, financial health and much more.
CareWork empowers leadership so that they can manage operations in one place and do so strategically. Automated tools provide data that increases quality, controls costs, tracks compliance, manages labor, reduces waste, and gets jobs done faster. We make care work easier.
Just as importantly, we are committed to the senior care industry. To learn more, visit our website.