Successful Leadership of Your Homecare Agency During a Crisis

So, what should you be doing as a leader of a homecare agency during the Covid-19 crisis?

Challenge Your Thinking

Delivering care during a crisis like the Covid-19 outbreak requires thinking in new ways.  While many areas of your operation may continue to function well with minor tweaking, other areas will require rethinking, particularly if they involve risk to your Homecare team or clients. 

Challenge your team to look for new solutions and consider multiple potential options before making a decision.  Actively considering more than one solution opens up creative thinking and has been shown to increase the likelihood of success six-fold.    

Seek Out New Perspectives

When you are challenging your thinking, seek out input and feedback from your usual sources, but also reach out for new perspectives, e.g. seek out input from introspective team members individually – they may not speak up in group settings, but may have great ideas. 

You can also have your team gather information from your clients and other stakeholders. 

Understanding the needs and concerns of these stakeholders can help make your plans more successful too. Brainstorm with your team before querying clients and other stakeholders and develop talking points/questions to discuss so they are well prepared for the conversations.

Seek out and participate in peer-group activities to see how others are handling the situation. Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networking sites are a good place to start to find peer groups.

Display Confidence

People follow others who inspire confidence. It is important for you to model confidence and commitment in your words and actions if you want your team to trust and follow your lead.  Once you have determined a course of action, you must communicate the plan to your team in a positive, clear and confident manner. 

Remember to continually restate and reinforce the key points to make sure people retain the information and see your commitment to the plan. Use the commutation tools that are part of your homecare automation software platform like Smartcare.

HIPAA Secure text, email and chat messaging and mobile point of care apps make staying in touch with your team easy. Remember to keep the message and plan simple and remind them of it frequently. 

Don’t Forget About Your Homecare Team

Remember, your primary job as a leader is to create and maintain an environment where your team can be successful.  It’s easy to get focused on other things during a crisis, but it is during this time that paying attention to your team members is more important than ever. 

Engage your team as often as possible in groups and individually.  Ask them questions to help them express their concerns about the current problems and provide opportunities for you to help them address their concerns.  Recognize their commitment and accomplishments often and in different ways.  Earn your team’s trust by being open, honest and transparent in all of your communications. 

You also need to show them that you are reliable too, by following through on what you say you will do in a timely fashion. Use your automation platform to help remind you, communicate progress and accomplishments, and engage your team. 

What’s in It for You?

Following these steps can help your team be successful during this challenging time period.  Being there for your team when times are tough and they need your leadership will not only help your team, but you will also generate trust and loyalty for the long term as their leader.  Earning your team’s trust and loyalty will help you retain your team members.  

To find out how SmartCare™ software and support can help you lead your team more effectively during this crisis period, please contact us at 1+ (800) 450-9104 or via email: hello@smartcaresoftware.com