Are you finding yourself having less patience as a home care leader? COVID-19 has disrupted our worlds, negatively transformed our lives, and turned things upside down in the home care market.
Everyone is waiting for the good news that a Coronavirus vaccine is available and we can get on with things in the world.
Until that time, as leaders, we need to work hard to increase our patience with our teams by recognizing that, they too, have been completely disrupted by COVID-19.
Here are some key strategies you can use to help increase your patience with your Care Team and in the process improve your caregiver engagement efforts and better retain your staff.
According to psychology experts, there are three different kinds of patience:
- Interpersonal Patience – The ability to face difficult people with calmness, composure and evenness of temper (especially in a difficult situation.)
- Life Challenge Patience – The patience to overcome life set-backs. For example: losing a job.
- Daily Irritation Patience – Dealing with the trivial things of every day. Like long lines, traffic, and temporary delays.
The good news is we can all learn better patience without first practising it experimentally.
For example, those who are parents have typically taken advice from their friends, family and community as they learn patience with their kids.
Here are 7 ways you can learn improved patience, which will lead to better listening and higher levels of engagement with your Care Team and staff.
- Empathy – Someone else’s actions connect with you to create impatience. Being empathetic toward the other person’s views puts you in their shoes and gives you a better understanding of how they are feeling. Pay attention to the feeling of that other person, it will give you a better perspective to deal with the current issue.
- Realistic – Some situations don’t have an immediate solution. Accepting the situation as it is and that it is beyond your control will help you deal with the problem at hand. It is also a key lesson of life that you can’t control everything.
- Gratitude – Practicing gratitude when a situation arises that triggers your impatience by remembering prior things that the individual did that were positive toward you. Showing your gratitude will help you build your relationship with them and increase your engagement.
- Mindfulness – Bringing awareness to your emotions and thoughts, being mindful. Increasing your self-awareness of where you are, your actions, your words and how you feel will help you distance yourself from the current events or actions that are impacting you. This self-awareness can reduce impatient feelings.
- Framing – Feeling impatient comes through conscious thought processes. Framing the situation into a bigger picture can help you realize the true scope of what you are dealing with. Ask yourself – Will this matter tomorrow, next week or a year from now?
- Go-to Person – If you have had trouble managing your impatience with an issue or person. Reach out to a trusted colleague, co-worker, or family member to discuss it. Getting a new perspective on the issue can bring light on potential solutions for it.
- Hide It – Hiding your impatient feelings can help calm the situation and give you time to find a solution. It will also help by now triggering a reaction in the other person.
Increasing your own self-awareness and patience will help you move beyond the emotions of the situations and toward increased engagement and a better solution.
Take time and think about how you would react in various situations that may come before you as a home care leader so the next time you are presented with one, you will be ready to respond and not have increased impatience with the situation.
Smartcare Software can provide solutions that will help you and your agency prepare for the future of homecare. Smartcare offers an easy-to-use enterprise solution to manage, schedule, and operate everything you need for your homecare business.
Smartcare is currently offering our COVID-19 Toolset at no charge to all homecare agencies. The Toolset App includes reminders, agency notices, symptom checks, contact tracing and other important virus risk mitigation tools to help you manage your response to the pandemic.
We are in this together. To find out more about Smartcare Software, email covid19@smartcaresoftware.com and let us know how we can help.
To find out how SmartCare™ software and support can help you differentiate your service and strategy, please contact us at 1+ (800) 450-9104 or via email: hello@smartcaresoftware.com