Strategies to Prevent Burnout in Home Care and Fueling Compassion

Strategies to Prevent Burnout in Home Care and Fueling Compassion

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Dennis Gill: Alright, so good morning, Colleen! How are you?

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: Good morning. Good! How are you doing?

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Dennis Gill: Doing really? Well, really? Well, thank you. Thank you. So thank you. 1st of all, for taking out the time today, for this podcast. And

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Dennis Gill: would like to 1st of all, welcome everyone to CareSmartz360 On Air Podcast. This is a homecare podcast. And I’m Dennis, Gill, senior sales consultant at Caresmartz.

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Dennis Gill: So regarding the topic that we’re going to discuss today, preventing burnout in home care is crucial to maintaining the health and the well-being of the caregivers and the recipients. Both

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Dennis Gill: self-care is the 1st strategy which includes regular exercise, a balanced diet and adequate sleep.

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Dennis Gill: So caregivers must also ensure that they take breaks, have time for relaxation and hobbies. Setting boundaries is another important strategy.

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Dennis Gill: Caregivers need to understand their limits, and communicate them effectively to avoid overextending themselves.

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Dennis Gill: Further professional support can be beneficial, such as joining caregiver support groups or seeking counseling to manage stress

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Dennis Gill: training and education can also help caregivers feel more competent

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Dennis Gill: and less overwhelmed.

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Dennis Gill: They should be trained in the specific needs of the person they are caring for, including any medical or behavioral issues.

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Dennis Gill: And finally, respite. Care services can provide temporary relief for the caregivers, allowing them to rest and recharge.

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Dennis Gill: So implementing these strategies can help prevent burnout leading to better care for recipients and a healthier, more balanced life for caregivers.

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Dennis Gill: So guys, today, we have Colleen DelVecchio here on the panel, who is the founder of Maxady, a strategic, strengths-based and equity-focused coaching, consulting, and training firm.

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Dennis Gill: So colleen has been a leadership coach for over 2 decades and guides business teams to maximize each person’s ability to increase impact

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Dennis Gill: performance and job satisfaction.

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Dennis Gill: So welcome to the podcast Colleen.

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: Thanks, Dennis. It’s great to be here today.

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Dennis Gill: Great. That’s it’s we are really grateful that you took out the time for this session today, which we feel and obviously, which you also feel is very important for the caregivers, how their day to day life goes, how they are doing, going on with the work, so it will be a really beneficial thing for them. Thank you. Thank you for your time.

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: Sure.

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Dennis Gill: Okay, so I’ll straight away. Start with my 1st query for that. So.

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Dennis Gill: Firstly, how does caregiver burnout differ from caregiver stress, depression and compassion, fatigue? What do you suggest?

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: Sure. Yeah, you know, the World Health Organization actually included burnout in their 11th revision of the international classification of diseases a few years ago, right? Because they realized that

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: burnout is a special kind of workplace stress, right? It is chronic workplace stress that hasn’t been successfully managed. It becomes a state of physical and emotional exhaustion that involves kind of a sense of reduced accomplishment, and

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: the Mayo Clinic went as far as to say, it is also a loss of personal identity. So I feel like Burnout is almost taking those other pieces which are really important to manage as well, but almost to the next level right? It tends to occur. When people are overwhelmed, they’re emotionally drained, right? They can’t meet the constant demands. And when I think of caregivers.

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: Right, my goodness, right! I could see how quickly this group is a group of folks who can get really overwhelmed and emotionally drained and unable to meet the constant demands of their work.

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Dennis Gill: Yeah, I get that. I get that because for the past 5 years, I’ve been associated with this industry. So I do understand some of the things I won’t say all. So what challenges do they face? Obviously, you are more competent in that thing. And continuing this question so, considering the unique demands of home care, as we were just saying, such as emotional labour and unpredictable schedules, mainly, we can say

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Dennis Gill: what specific strategies can leaders implement to help the caregivers avoid burnout specifically, if you can say?

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: Sure there’s a few things that folks, I think, need to figure out for themselves. One is to start by kind of acknowledging, or even just knowing that you’re burnt out, I think, for many folks they don’t notice those initial signs and those initial signs are going to be different for everybody. When I talk about this I often talk about myself. My 1st initial sign is that I start snapping at my dog right? My dog will do normal dog things. And all of a sudden I’m yelling at him.

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: or I have a hard time making decisions. Decision fatigue is one of those kinds of early signs of burnout that I think a lot of people just don’t realize right? It’s that you’re standing in the grocery store, and you can’t decide which spaghetti sauce to buy, or which box of pasta. Right? You’ve just hit that point that you just can’t make another decision.

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: you know. I think part of it is starting with this, make sure you kind of understand. What are your telltale signs that you’re starting to get burnt out, so you don’t get to the really severe end of it that you kind of

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: kind of put a stop to it at the early stages. The other piece is really learning how to have good conversations with both your boss, your employer with other people on your team being able to communicate these things and to say, you know what, I’m really starting to hit this level of burnout. I need to do something right now.

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: I think one of the interesting pieces is that a lot of the burnout. Advice in the past was always things like, you know. Go get a massage, take a day off, and yes yes, taking a break is important, right? Constant work is not, gonna

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: you know, do anybody good.

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: But a lot of the newer research that has been happening post-COVID is saying that most people, their primary cause of their burnout is how they are managed at work and how they’re experiencing work.

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: So things like they feel like they’re being treated unfairly at work right? They think other people are getting better shifts right? They’re stuck with the shift that nobody wants right. They’re the one who has to work the holiday, and no one else does, or unmanageable workload. They feel like they have too many patients at a time, and can’t handle it right there that it’s it’s too much

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: work, and that feels like they can’t kind of manage it.

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: So I think, you know, starting to think about those pieces and getting that support from their manager

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: right and having and making, I think, the other flip side of that is, making sure that managers in healthcare are trained on how to manage people right. Often we take our very best nurses and make them the nurse manager. And now they’re not doing nurse jobs anymore. They’re now managers of people. It’s a completely different job. So we need to really support our managers. So they can see these signs of burnout so they can support their staff.

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: even when there’s a lot of work right? Even if it feels like the workload is huge. If you have a manager who, you can have a great conversation with that you can get support from

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: employees who agree that they felt supported by their managers are 70% less likely to experience burnout.

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: but so often right. We just don’t train managers on how to do that. We don’t train managers on how to support people. We train managers on how to do manager paperwork.

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Dennis Gill: I understand that I completely get that. That’s everything in every industry, I would say. That’s a very good point. That’s a very good point which should be taken care of.
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Dennis Gill: I do, I do really like that. And continuing with this one like, as you were just saying that bar burnout often stems from feelings of isolation. Right? So that’s what you were also saying. So, leaders, as you were saying. Firstly, what the managers can do. Obviously you were suggesting that part. So leaders in home care foster a sense of connection how, how they can do that, and community among geographically dispersed caregivers.

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Dennis Gill: So I think, that would be the answer for that. Yeah.

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: Yeah, a lot of that. I also think it’s figuring out right. How do you get people to feel like they have a connection? Gallup, the kind of Gallup poll people they do. A lot of this research on workplace Burnout. And one of the questions they ask people is, Do you have a best friend at work?

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Dennis Gill: Okay, right?

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: It’s just an interesting kind of question to get a pulse on how engaged your employees are, and whether they’re at risk for burnout. And so I think, as a manager and a leader. How do you foster that? How do you foster your staff, getting to know each other where people feel like they have somebody that they can

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: kind of complain to have a conversation with. Ask questions of. You know the person who feels like their friend at work, because when people do have that friend at work again, they are less likely to feel burnt out and way more engaged as an employee.

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Dennis Gill: Yeah, that’s completely correct. If I think about it that way, I’m not in the office. If I don’t have a friend, I think it will be difficult for me to. I get the point. I get the point. Yeah. And obviously, the caregiver is obviously their work, which requires more work from them, more time from their side, and obviously the time also in such a way that the other person is completely taken care of. I am trying to understand this point. Yeah, it really.

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: Yeah. Help.

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Dennis Gill: And now, are there training programs or resources available to help caregivers build resilience and coping mechanisms for stressful situations?

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: And there’s a lot of stuff out there these days. I think right, there’s a gazillion programs you could probably find online. But I think I’d also look at the company that you work for? Right? Is there an ability? Do they offer anything for you? Do you have some either one on one kind of coaching or advising, or a therapist that you can reach out to

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: But I think it’s also looking at your particular agency or Home Care Office to see? Do they realize the problem? Right? Making sure that you let them know that this has been a problem and that they’re starting to kind of offer some of this training and kind of work together for it. I know for myself. That’s a lot of work for myself and my colleagues. Do we go into companies and help them put together programs to help people banish burnout and to prevent Burnout from getting there.

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Dennis Gill: Yeah. And I think you must have experienced a few things like, there must be many caregivers or employees who are themselves also not aware that they’re getting burned out, and they’re not sure what’s happening with them. But they don’t like coming to work. Maybe that’s it.

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: Yes, but.

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Dennis Gill: It’s right.

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: Yeah, I think it’s I mean, I see things like, right? People losing concentration on tasks. Right? You. You can’t kind of focus on things. They’re having trouble sleeping at night. Right. They just feel irritated by people. Right? I like it, I said. For me. One of my 1st signs is getting irritated by my dog. Right? I get annoyed by my dog and.

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Dennis Gill: Secure? Right? Yeah.

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: Instantly. It’s like, Oh, okay, there’s, you know, something’s going on that I’m not really happy at the moment, and often it’s right burnout there. So if people get one thing from this, it’s to start to figure out what your tells are right? What are your signs that

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: you are starting to get towards that place of burnout, so you can stop it from getting to a really kind of dangerous point, because, you know, the long-term effects of burnout can be so right, so severe right anxiety, and like what anxiety and stress does to your body? It can be really big, right insomnia, heart disease, diabetes, like all of those things, increase when your body is in a constant state of stress.

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Dennis Gill: There are many things related to this. Yeah, I get that now.

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Dennis Gill: So finally, how can open communication channels be established between Keegan agencies to address the concerns and basically prevent burnout before it happens? If you go to this system, that part.

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: Sure.

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: yeah. And I am for a lot of folks, I think it’s thinking about so I think there’s the individual level. And then there’s the kind of agency level as an individual. Know what you need, right? When you think about what’s causing your burnout. What are the things you need that are going to help

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: avoid that? Is it things like consistency of work, schedule, even if it might not be your favorite shift? Is it better for you to have all nights work, or all weekends think about. Does that work for you? Is it that you need some more flexibility? Because maybe you’re a parent. And right now we’re in the summer, and I always think right as a kid. You think summer’s the greatest time of the year, and as a parent. Summer is like the hardest time of the year. As you’re trying to.

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: you know, Patch all these things together, so maybe you need some flexibility
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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: right? Maybe you need some time off.

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: you know. Think about it, can you use any professional development money that you have? Maybe there’s a burnout class that you find that you want to take, or a class on stress management. But the communication piece, it’s you figuring out what you need and then asking for it

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: right? Your boss isn’t going to know what you need unless you actually tell them so when you are ready to have that conversation, have a plan in place and think of a few options that might help you. You know I always tell people to start the sentence with something like I’ve been feeling really burned out lately, and I have some ideas that’ll help me get back to being a better contributor to the team right? I’ll be a better employee if I can start to

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: get a few of these things that’s going to help me.

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: and if you don’t have any ideas, maybe it’s going to your boss and saying, Listen, I’m exhausted. I’m really feeling burnt out lately, and I want to see what some of my options are to refresh myself, so I can contribute better to the best of my ability. Right? Because you’re bringing it back. I want to be a good contributor to this team. I want to work for you. I just need some help.

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: And then, I think, as an organization

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: from an organization level, from communication, communicate with your staff and make sure they know what things you have in place. I even think of things like time off.

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: There are so many people that I’ve worked with through my career that I’ll start talking to them, and they’ll say things like, Oh, I don’t accrue any vacation time anymore, right? Because I haven’t taken any time off in 2 years.

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: Don’t go. What? What? You haven’t taken a day off in 2 years. Right? That’s terrible.

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Dennis Gill: Charlotte, yeah.

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: Right getting people to figure it out. And I think

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: for many folks, particularly in healthcare. Right? You are there because you care about people, and you have a sense of empathy and responsibility, and you get into the mindset of well, if I’m not here, who’s going to do it? And you put it into like to the detriment of your own health.

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: So know that right? If you won Megabucks tomorrow, Mega millions, if you won, you know 6 billion dollars tomorrow and never showed up to work again.

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: People would be okay, right? They would. They would replace you. So.

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Dennis Gill: Yeah.

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: Right in that same sense. Know that, you know. If you take a week’s vacation, or even better, take 2 weeks and you come back, you’re going to be refreshed. You’re going to feel better. And you’re actually

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: do a much better job. And so for companies make sure you’re communicating to staff to say, like, we want you to take your time off like maybe there’s a week that they can’t, because of whatever reason, right? You can’t have. Every single person cannot have the same week off on your team right?

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: But make sure there’s that communication line to say, let’s talk about how you’re going to use your vacation time.
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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: One company I worked for in January of every year they would have us all sit down and block half of our vacation time for the year. So if we got at that company we got 4 weeks. So in January we were supposed to book 2 weeks right away to say so. We at least knew that we had that time on the.

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Dennis Gill: Time up. Yeah, you’re aware of that in Bradley. That’s good. That’s good. That’s a good thing.

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Dennis Gill: So whatever we had from your side. Communication, I think, is the key for everything. Yeah, even for the caregivers, or even for the managers that are there. So till the time caregivers, they don’t communicate. Obviously the managers. They cannot read your mind, and obviously the managers. They also have to communicate and let them know how they can be beneficial, and how they are ready to assist them.

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: I think the other piece there is that your managers and your leaders also have to model good behavior around this right as a manager and a leader. You need to take your lunch. You need to take time off. You need to model for your staff how people right kind of avoid and deal with and kind of banish burnout. Because if you, as the manager and leader, are completely burnt out, boy, you’re not going to be managing your people well, and it’s just going to trickle down.

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Dennis Gill: Completely right? Completely right?

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Dennis Gill: Right? So, yeah, this was a very good session. Thank you. Thank you for sparing your time and sharing great insights for this, and I’m sure the audiences found these things useful, and thank you all for tuning in until our next episode. This is Dennis Gill, signing off. Thank you, Colleen. Bye.

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Colleen DelVecchio – Maxady LLC: Thank you. Bye, bye.