By Curtis Forbes, MustardHub
Assisted living, memory care, skilled nursing — whatever the care level, senior living facilities exist to help residents live well. Residents should not just survive, but actually thrive.
The secret to making that happen isn’t fancy tech or spa-like amenities. It’s the people on the floor. When staff are trained, engaged and actually cared for themselves, residents receive better care. As staff satisfaction goes up, the number of mistakes goes down.
The inverse is also true. Burned-out staff don’t stick around, and the residents pay the price. Turnover makes consistent care nearly impossible.
So, if the goal is actually delivering quality care — not just talking about it — staff burnout isn’t a side issue. It is the issue.
A Hidden Threat to Quality Care
Grueling shifts and unpredictable scheduling are common in healthcare, but they are also a major cause of burnout. As seen in a paper published in the American Journal of Infection Control, there is a direct link between overworked nurses and instances of hospital-acquired infections. Long hours make it hard to focus and easy to commit simple but fatal mistakes.
Labor shortages make this dynamic even worse in the senior living context. Those employees who do stay have even more on their plate, often working longer shifts, training new staff and handling complex paperwork — tasks they sometimes aren’t even trained for but get assigned anyway. The more slack staffers pick up, the less capacity they have to supervise the seniors in their care.
Personal responsibilities outside of work also bleed into the quality of patient care. In one study by the Harvard Business Review, 73 percent of employees reported that they were caregivers at home. That means three in four employees have the equivalent of a demanding second job. For overtaxed healthcare workers, it might be the last straw.
Many healthcare and seniors housing workers are therefore driven to quit their jobs. The financial cost of recruiting, hiring, training and supervising replacement staff is bad enough. On top of this, when the familiar faces who knew residents’ routines, preferences and quirks leave, those residents lose trust. Continuity of care is diminished, and satisfaction goes with it. Then, the residents leave too.
Why Workers Leave (And How to Re-Engage Them)
Burnout manifests differently for everyone, and each employee that quits has their own catalyst for the decision. MustardHub surveyed 1,000 workers to understand what drove them quit. Expectedly, pay and overall compensation were huge factors in job satisfaction, with 50 percent of respondents saying that better compensation would have made them stay longer.
But today’s employees want more than money. They want to feel seen, appreciated and supported.
The trouble is, there’s a gap between what employees want and what leadership offers. This disconnect widens across generations. Younger workers feeling more disconnected and less supported — only 14 percent of Gen Z employees and 15 percent of millennial workers feel engaged, compared to 43 percent of baby boomers.
Blind spots may keep leaders from making strategic decisions that meaningfully impact staff retention. Based on our survey results, these are some potential approaches that meet employees where they are.
Consistent Feedback and Appreciation Cycles
Forty-six percent of workers have already quit jobs where they didn’t feel appreciated. A quarter (25 percent) don’t even feel trusted to do the basic job they were hired for. Tracking performance and giving kudos can go a long way in curing employee disengagement. If they feel appreciated, workers are more likely to stick around and go the extra mile.
Personalized, Life-Aligned Benefits
One-size-fits-all benefits are obsolete. Workers now expect flexible, personalized benefits. Fifty-three percent of workers agree that life-aligned benefits are “very meaningful” and make them “feel seen.” For leaders, there is an opportunity to provide individually tailored support, such as transportation, caregiving benefits and student debt assistance. Feeling seen through personalized support outranks a sense of purpose (26 percent) and leadership that listens and responds (22 percent) in employee priorities, according to those we surveyed.
Burnout Intervention Programs
Predictive employee support can help identify burnout risks before employees leave. Employees want to feel cared for, and many don’t mind if their bosses step in. In fact, 59 percent welcome their boss’s intervention when they’re at risk for burnout or disengagement (as opposed to 5 percent who find it uncomfortable). They see proactive support as care, not as surveillance.
Predictive Analytics for Workforce Insight
Each employee has different support needs and (and different breaking points). Leaders need to pay attention to these nuances if they want to lower attrition rates and make both staff and patients happy.
It’s hard to tell which employees are unsatisfied at first glance. A promising new hire might not make it past onboarding. The levelheaded resident nurse might quit after a year with no notice. The signs are there — in surveys, schedules, payroll, but senior living leaders don’t put it all together until it’s too late.
That’s what makes predictive employee support so essential to fighting burnout and disengagement. Data from across the business can be used to create a human risk profile. These profiles deliver priceless insights like who is at risk for burnout, how long workers will stay in their role and how to engage employees better. You’ll be able to see burnout before it happens and stop it in its tracks.
Investing in Staff to Transform Care
When senior living facilities prioritize employee well-being, they are directly enhancing the quality of care received by residents. Decent pay and subsidized parking aren’t enough anymore. Today’s workforce needs to feel wholly and individually supported.
It is smart to track employee sentiment and assess workers’ risk for burnout and turnover, which can help you keep the workforce engaged. Tactics like awards and recognition or even regular feedback go a long way in making employees feel valued. If these strategies are applied, senior living will be better because of it.
Curtis Forbes is the founder and CEO of MustardHub, a workforce engagement platform that helps companies reduce turnover, build stronger cultures, and unlock predictive insights into employee well-being. With more than two decades of experience leading teams, Forbes is pioneering approaches to employee engagement, predictive workforce insights and portable benefits.
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