In this episode of Caring Conversations, hosts Liz Lewington and Melissa Therrien discuss the intricacies of starting a career in caregiving with HR manager Heather Connors from Ohana Care. They explore the various roles within caregiving, the hiring process, the importance of company support, and the balance between work and personal life. The conversation also touches on growth opportunities, the impact of technology, and the challenges faced in recruitment. The episode emphasizes the value of agency care over private hiring, highlighting the support and resources provided by companies like Ohana Care.
Transcript:
Liz Lewington, LPN (00:06)
Hello everybody and welcome to Caring Conversations. Today is episode seven. Can you believe it, Melissa? Yeah. Lucky number seven, I know.
Melissa Therrien, RN (00:12)
Wow. No, I really can’t. It’s crazy how far we’ve come.
From our first recording to today. Improvement? I don’t know. But we’re getting there. Yeah. I feel better about it.
Liz Lewington, LPN (00:23)
Yeah, we’re gonna call it improvement. I’m gonna call it improvement. Yeah, because I’m too ashamed.
So welcome, everybody. And thanks for joining us today. We are going to be talking about how to start your career as a caregiver. We’ve got an amazing human being and a phenomenal HR manager here. Her name is Heather Conner. She’s with OhanaCare. She’s going to help talk us through
Melissa Therrien, RN (00:32)
Yeah.
Liz Lewington, LPN (00:52)
Tips from her on how to start your career in in caregiving and home care She’s gonna get yeah
Melissa Therrien, RN (01:00)
Yeah, and what makes Heather’s
tactics different? Because that’s important, right? Because it’s really hard to hire in healthcare these days. So what are her tactics?
Liz Lewington, LPN (01:08)
Yeah,
and what’s she looking for? What, I mean, we’re going to speak to all of that, Heather. I know you have a vast knowledge of the whole thing. And frankly, if you weren’t here, we wouldn’t be able to function. So thank you so much from the bottom of our heart. And we’re happy to dig in to see how you can help guide future caregivers down the road. Today, we’re going highlight that growing demand of healthcare professionals and the impact that it has.
Melissa Therrien, RN (01:11)
Yeah.
Hehehe
Yeah, thanks, Heather.
Liz Lewington, LPN (01:37)
on getting the right person in for our families. So can you tell us a little bit about what you look for when you’re starting out in hunting for the right person for the right role?
Heather Connors, BBA, BBA (01:51)
Yeah, I mean the first thing is definitely looking at what role you’re looking for. There’s different categories of caregivers, whether the client that we’re looking for is looking for a companion, healthcare aide, if they’re looking for nursing care.
That’s kind of starting ground. And then the biggest thing is we want to look for people that have the same values as our company. We obviously highly value the compassionate care for our clients. So we want to look for people that have those same compassionate views, are able to offer that compassionate care for our clients.
meet the client’s needs, if a client has specific needs that they have, such as dementia care, looking for someone that has experience with dementia care or has completed any dementia specific training, things like that are really important.
Liz Lewington, LPN (02:37)
Yeah. So how does a
Melissa Therrien, RN (02:37)
Excellent.
Liz Lewington, LPN (02:40)
companion differ, you know, based on, and we’ve got the HCAs or registered, there’s so many different names for CHWs, community health workers, community support workers, and then you have companions. So what’s the difference there? What are you looking for in a companion versus an HCA?
Heather Connors, BBA, BBA (02:59)
Yeah, one of the biggest difference is a healthcare aid does provide a lot of personal care, whereas companions aren’t involved in personal care. So a lot of the time for companions, it’s things like late housekeeping, meal preparation, assisting clients on going to outings, going to recreational activities, appointments, things like that. Whereas a healthcare aid, there’s a lot of personal care involved that hands on care. So that’s one of the big differences. Companions don’t have to have any specific educational
to be a companion caregiver, whereas healthcare aides need to have completed a healthcare aid or equivalent program. And then there’s different licensing bodies in different areas. So for Alberta, we look at caregivers that are registered with the Alberta Healthcare Aid Directory. For BC, we look at caregivers that are registered with the BC Care Aid.
And same with LPNs and RNs. LPNs, look at caregivers that are either registered with CLP &A here in Alberta or the BCCNM for BC. It’s the same licensing body for the RNs and LPNs for BC and then CARNA for RNs in Alberta.
Melissa Therrien, RN (04:05)
Excellent. Heather, yeah, I think you touched on a really good point. Like it’s very dependent on what the care the client needs. Because I think, you know, in Liz and I’s job, it’s important for us to be able to predict in the future what their care needs may be so that we can not have to change up the caregivers or the companions as their needs change. And I think, you know, that takes a little bit of magic. But I think most of us are able to
Liz and I are able to kind of anticipate what those needs would be, which means that as a client continues to increase their care needs or even decrease their care needs, that doesn’t necessarily mean we have to change out the care team. And so I think understanding the difference between companion, healthcare aid, LPN, licensed practical nurse, registered nurse, and what the scope of practice is, is really important for people as well. I think a lot of people want to nurse, just
because that’s a common thing in healthcare. We look to nurses, but I really encourage my clients to think more of like, what are the needs and can they be met with the most economical and qualified still caregiver? And most of the time that’s not a nurse, surprisingly.
Heather Connors, BBA, BBA (05:23)
Absolutely.
Liz Lewington, LPN (05:25)
Yeah. So what
Melissa Therrien, RN (05:25)
Yeah.
Liz Lewington, LPN (05:27)
is something on a resume that you’ll see come across your desk? What’s something that you think, that’s an education that we need to snap up for OhanaCare for us to bring on board? Is there something that triggers you when you see it to follow up immediately with a caregiver or potential caregiver?
Heather Connors, BBA (05:45)
Yeah, I
mean, there’s oftentimes like keywords like things like dementia care or oftentimes we have clients with very complex care needs such as clients with Parkinson’s, ALS, things like that.
And so whenever I see things like that as experience listed on a resume, that’s obviously something that that caregiver wants to highlight. That’s a skill, that an achievement that they’re really proud of to be able to offer. So those kind of key words are really, really important and things that I often look for, just that we are able to provide the best care for our clients. At the end of the day, we do try to provide the best care available and we really focus on finding who is the right caregiver for each individual client. So that’s really important.
Thank
Liz Lewington, LPN (06:27)
Yeah, there’s a lot
to be said for personality match, especially in the home care industry. In nursing, you know, it’s skill based, primarily skill based, you know, you hope the person isn’t a horrible character, obviously. But as far as as far as having
It’s more about the match between the two individuals as well as their capability and their training because they grow to be part of the family often, so finding that they’re right.
mix of sense of humor or, you know, and definitely their capacity, capability, availability is also another big part of it. But, you know, there’s so many different pieces to consider when we are hiring into a role specific to a person and an individual.
Heather Connors, BBA (07:17)
It’s like finding the right
puzzle piece in a puzzle. Finding the right person for that client.
Liz Lewington, LPN (07:20)
Yeah.
Melissa Therrien, RN (07:20)
Yeah, it’s.
Liz Lewington, LPN (07:23)
Yeah.
Melissa Therrien, RN (07:24)
Yeah,
and it may change, right? Like we may have a discussion as we do every morning about all of our new clients or anticipated clients. You know, we chat as a group about like who we think would be a good fit based on what each of us knows about each of the caregivers or the clients. And it’s very much a collaborative effort. But
as humble as we may be. Sometimes we get it right and sometimes we don’t. I like to say most of the time, we do pretty well in matching our clients and caregivers, but sometimes we don’t. I really pride myself and I’m proud of our team for being flexible in that because if it doesn’t work once, we can change it up. That’s a really valuable function of what we have created in our team is that we can mix it up.
Liz Lewington, LPN (07:49)
Thank
Melissa Therrien, RN (08:14)
until we find that right match. So, yeah.
Liz Lewington, LPN (08:17)
Yeah,
that feeds into the whole aspect of private, know, hiring a private person that you don’t know that you can’t really do a good job vetting versus the type of care that we can offer or, you know, an alternative company offers. So focusing on
you know, when you’re calling a company, do you ask them questions? Like, do you have vulnerable sector police checks? Do you have first aid and CPR? Are their food safe? there, you know, any…
Clear drivers abstracts, insurance liability, all of those things that sets a business, a company apart from a private caregiver. I think there’s something to be said for that. And I know that Heather, you highlight that as part of your onboarding processes that, you know, when you when you’re coming on with us, it’s it’s not just an individual, you know, it’s a team. So if it isn’t a good fit with a private person, it’s a lot more difficult to find somebody new or
or even to feel confident enough to remove them from that role. working with a company like us, we have alternative caregivers handy. We have people that are just as skilled and capable and we can honour the fact that, you know what, not everybody gets along with everybody.
especially I want to say in this political climate, but you know, we don’t get along with everybody. That’s just the way that human beings are. knowing that there’s alternatives there that we’ve vetted and we have, you know, we have all their documents up to date on file and they’ve gone through the interviewing process and the intake process and all of that. It’s a really important part of what is being provided by us. And I know, Heather, you’re the keystone for all of that to be set up.
You are an invaluable person to like you are the foundation of how we can actually move forward as this, know, successful company. thank you. It was not a question. That was a statement.
Heather Connors, BBA (10:27)
Thank you.
Melissa Therrien, RN (10:27)
Yeah.
So Heather,
what is your process that maybe sets the Ohana Care and you apart? What does that process look like for you when you do recruit and make the decision to onboard someone? What does that look like?
Heather Connors, BBA (10:49)
Yeah, I mean there’s a lot of factors that go into deciding on a candidate to move forward with. Whether their availability matches what we’re looking for, if they have certain skill sets that match something that we’re looking for. There’s no limit to the things that you have to look at when determining a candidate to move forward with.
And a big thing is just like a variety of skill sets helps. We often look at different levels of care, different skill sets that clients or caregivers have, different education they’ve obtained, and the experience. So someone has lots of experience working in home care with a diverse group of clientele. They have, it’s not just limited. That can be really beneficial and make them stand out that they’re not just limited to one type of clientele.
willing
to have experience with a vast majority of different clients. All of our clients have such different care needs and we focus on catering to each of those different care needs. So just different things that caregivers have experience in is one of the key things that I tend to look for. And just looking for the compassionate caregivers that are willing to put in the work for their clients.
Melissa Therrien, RN (12:07)
And I think work, sorry Liz, I think work is a really good thing to touch on because I think our process is a little bit not exhaustive, but I think it’s a really involved onboarding process. And there’s reason behind that, right? You know, I think everyone would agree that we want someone who’s going to be committed and that actually means an investment from them at the forefront, not a financial investment necessarily.
Heather Connors, BBA (12:21)
Yes.
Melissa Therrien, RN (12:34)
but a time investment because we do ask a lot in that onboarding process. What does that onboarding process look like for you?
Heather Connors, BBA (12:42)
Yeah, it’s a very extensive process, like you said.
We ask for quite a lot during the onboarding and there’s a lot that caregivers need to come prepare with and provide to us. So we do check very extensively on things like criminal record checks. So we do criminal record checks and vulnerable sector checks. Because not a lot of companies do check for vulnerable sector checks nowadays, I know, but working in the vulnerable population, that is something that is very important to us. We want to make sure that we are protecting our clients at all times.
as well as making sure that all of our caregivers, whether it’s a healthcare aide, a licensed practical nurse, an RN, they have that they’re licensing up to date. And CPR, everything like that is really important to check. We oftentimes look for caregivers that can provide transportation to our clients. So looking for caregivers that can offer transportation, they’re comfortable transporting clients in their vehicle, and they have the liability insurance that is required.
Liz Lewington, LPN (13:46)
Yeah, yeah. Where do you see, you know, home care and the providers moving to in the future? Because I know that technology is definitely integrated into your end of it. Do you see that moving into the caregiver side as well? Is that something that you would be looking for as a positive for them? Or does that weigh at all?
Melissa Therrien, RN (13:46)
Mm-hmm.
Heather Connors, BBA (14:06)
It’s definitely something to consider, especially as you said, like everything is always changing and healthcare is always growing, always changing, always expanding. So if someone is not really willing to continue to grow as technology grows with healthcare, then that kind of puts a hindrance.
We use an online software for all of our scheduling needs. So caregivers that are able to use that software are willing to kind of even play around with software when they first get onboarded, just so they can understand how it works. That’s really, really beneficial because then it helps even speed up their onboarding process and just being willing to continue to grow as technology grows and learn how to use the different technologies.
Liz Lewington, LPN (14:51)
Yeah. with hiring new people, are you seeing any changes in… Because I saw a report. I’m just going to go a little off. Stick with me here. Another thing that our Gen Z population values more of the work-life balance than previously. Are you seeing that cropping up in a lot of your folks that you’re bringing on or have you seen any changes in that sort of presentation?
Heather Connors, BBA (15:19)
Absolutely, it’s you
definitely can see a difference in the general different generations of that work-life balance a lot of times from like Jen Gen Z that kind of more interested in maintaining that work-life balance. They will limit the availability just to maintain that work-life balance whereas Different generations often will they just want to work work work?
time there’s differences with their availability, just putting themselves in more shifts, things like that. But that is one of the nice things with home care is there is that flexibility for work-life balance and there’s that flexibility in this casual positions or work-life balance while still being able to meet the needs of your clients.
Liz Lewington, LPN (16:12)
Yeah, that’s
think that’s the beautiful part about working in home care is that if you if you have flexibility in your schedule and you are upfront with us on on that starting out, you know, we can accommodate, you know, most of the time we can offer hours outside of what, you know, your normal run of the mill nine to five job would would be.
Melissa Therrien, RN (18:23)
So I totally agree, Heather. I think that work-life balance creeps up a little bit more, but I don’t want that to deter someone when we say it’s exhaustive and we say that flexibility is really important. I think people that are looking for a second job also may find that home care is a great option for us or for them, where they can only work once a week and we might be able to find a client that’s once a week client that is
Maybe the client’s more flexible based on whether we find the right companion for them or not. Well, they only need one visit a week. And we’re looking for people like that too. So, you know, I don’t want people to feel like you have to have, this will be your full-time job and you have to commit everything to us. You know, there’s a lot of flexibility in what we offer as well. And that transparent, open communication.
We encourage some of our caregivers to have a second job and maintain that security because we don’t have the security in our clientele necessarily to guarantee full-time work long-term. Some of our clients are palliative. Some of our clients may be moving into different care levels. So I think it’s really important to, we appreciate the flexibility, but also if you are limited to your availability, we want to accommodate that for the right caregiver as well.
Liz Lewington, LPN (19:49)
Absolutely. Yeah, it’s a two-way street flexibility goes race and it’s and again, it’s all about communication I like to think that we’re not scary people So just like letting just let us know speaking for myself. Yeah But but knowing that if they share with us hey I’ve picked up a new job and I work from Monday Tuesday to Thursday, whatever it is
Melissa Therrien, RN (19:52)
Yeah.
you
Bye.
Mm-hmm.
Liz Lewington, LPN (20:15)
And
then we just update their availability. And if they want to work and they’re capable and willing, and they want to pick up some extra hours, it is, like you say, it’s a great second job. It’s a great primary job. But yeah, really, that flexibility does go both ways for us all. So communication is always is key in healthcare, as well as with Heather, of course, creating schedules with poor Monica, our scheduler, know, she’s phenomenal.
Melissa Therrien, RN (20:41)
Brilliant.
Liz Lewington, LPN (20:44)
Yeah, yeah, so Heather, between Heather and all of us, you know, we’ve got it buttoned up pretty well as far as that. Yeah, definitely. Yeah.
Melissa Therrien, RN (20:52)
Yeah, it’s an art for sure. Yeah.
Heather Connors, BBA (20:55)
yeah.
Melissa Therrien, RN (20:58)
So like, I guess in the flexibility, it’s a good segue to talk about like growth opportunities in home care. like, do we support growth opportunities?
Heather Connors, BBA (21:08)
absolutely. Yeah, it’s, we are always happy to help support our caregivers with pursuing things like higher levels of education to advance their career. Even caregivers that are just starting out as an HCA, we can help support them with pursuing an LPN license or another great opportunity that just at recent years has come about is if you’re in school to become an LPN or an RN, at least in Alberta, know.
Melissa Therrien, RN (21:10)
healthy.
Heather Connors, BBA (21:38)
You can get registered with the Alberta Health Care Aid Directory if you’ve completed the first year of an LPN program and you’ve completed the practicums. Or if you’ve completed the second year of the RN program with the practicums, you can get registered with the Alberta HCA Directory. And then you can start working as a health care aide and get that hands-on experience, that real-world experience that will help you further down the line with your career. Oftentimes we’ll have caregivers that will start out as companions that then pursue their HCA. And we’re happy to help support our caregivers.
with pursuing that education and then gaining the experience that they need for that education.
Liz Lewington, LPN (22:14)
Yeah, I love watching a companion go through the process to become an HCA. It’s just, I love it. It’s just such a family feeling when they actually graduate and they’ve got that piece of paper in their hands. I feel like a proud mama. Yeah.
Melissa Therrien, RN (22:24)
Yeah.
Heather Connors, BBA (22:28)
Absolutely.
Melissa Therrien, RN (22:28)
Yeah, there’s a
lot of pride in it. we, not that we did anything really, but to be able to support them, whether it be like with a part-time job or that allows them the possibility to continue to go to school or maybe it’s a bursary. We have offered some funding for education to some of our caregivers that have really showed commitment and loyalty to us. So nothing’s off the table if you’re looking to continue in this health.
career. I love hearing about it.
Heather Connors, BBA (23:03)
And even things like online education that we provide for our caregivers. We provide online education that’s available at all times for our caregivers. And oftentimes they’re very specified for different things like dementia care to help support our caregivers with providing the best care that they can for their clients and to advance their own education.
Melissa Therrien, RN (23:03)
Yeah.
Liz Lewington, LPN (23:23)
Mm-hmm, that ongoing support. Yeah.
Melissa Therrien, RN (23:24)
Yeah, that’s a good point.
Sorry. Just about like the, I know we look specifically for like dementia care experience, but someone coming to us that doesn’t have that experience, also like, you know, that’s okay. Like we can, with the extensive plethora of education and experience that we all bring to the table, and readily prepare someone for, you know, a client with dementia and supporting them through the care planning.
and the meet and greet process, all of that. think it can be daunting maybe to take on a new client without previous experience, but it can also be really exciting and potentially a very long-term client as well.
Heather Connors, BBA (24:06)
And I mean, you have to start somewhere to get that experience. So no matter what, it’s always going to be scary starting a new venture, a new care that you have never done. But it’s going to be a great experience to be able to learn how to do it.
Melissa Therrien, RN (24:16)
Okay.
How do we support our team in the field? I know we’re always here, but what support do we provide our team once they’re out in the field with their clients?
Heather Connors, BBA (24:34)
Yeah, one of the biggest things is we do have our 24-7 team available. So any member of our admin team takes on our 24-7 line and is available at all times to help support our clients and caregivers at any time of day for things that are just.
everyday things that aren’t an emergent situation. Obviously we ask that it’s not messaged at two in the morning or something like that, but our team is happy to help caregivers at two in the morning if they are in a situation that they’re not sure what to do, they need some support. Any of our team members is happy to help really at any time of day for situations that they need help in.
Melissa Therrien, RN (25:01)
left us.
Liz Lewington, LPN (25:16)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that support is so integral into making people feel comfortable. Because if you’re not used to going into a home, can be, it can feel daunting. So that support at the start of your career, and then, you know, taking on a new client, that’s so important to make people feel comfortable as well as the clients, not just our staff. yeah, lines of communication always open 24 seven. Yeah, reluctantly at some points, but always open.
Melissa Therrien, RN (25:16)
Awesome.
Heather Connors, BBA (25:21)
Yeah.
Melissa Therrien, RN (25:34)
Thank
Liz Lewington, LPN (25:45)
So anybody else have anything you want to add to the conversation?
Melissa Therrien, RN (25:50)
I’d to just touch on again, what is the benefit to hiring an agency versus someone off of the street or Kijiji or whatever? Can we just touch on why someone would opt to maybe choose a more expensive route, but what are the advantages of going that direction?
Heather Connors, BBA (26:12)
I mean, one of the big things is for someone just looking privately for care.
You might not know all the things to be even looking for to make sure that you’re finding the best care for your own loved one. Things like, they licensed to be providing this care? Are they certified with CPR? Do they have a clear criminal record check? Whereas going through a company, that is all off of your hands and it’s on the company and you can trust that that company is checking all their crossing all the DTs, dotting all their I’s to check everything
to sure that the caregivers are fit to provide the level of care needed for their loved one.
Liz Lewington, LPN (26:52)
It’s important
Melissa Therrien, RN (26:52)
you
Liz Lewington, LPN (26:54)
to ask the company that you’re interviewing, know, when you are talking to them about your loved one.
what’s your vetting process? Because I know we’re proud of our vetting process and it doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily going to be one size fits all for all companies. It may be very much different for other companies. So asking those big questions like the liability insurance and how do you vet your caregivers? How do know this person is safe to come to the home? What if they’re driving? All of those questions that are specific to that person, ask the questions. A company that’s reputable is going to be able
to give you the answers right away. not going to be, you know, trying to circumvent the conversation. You want straightforward answers and preparing that sort of a question sheet because you’re interviewing the company as well. So knowing that we’ve done our due diligence or, you know, whatever company it is that you’re interviewing has done their due diligence to make sure that the staff member that’s coming out has been vetted, there’s insurance in place, etc., etc. Just to make sure everyone
feel safe about it and then hiring private you know you’re not getting sick coverage so if there’s an injury or an illness for the caregiver you don’t often have anybody back up you know
Hiring a company to be a backup is also something that we’ve experienced as well. So a private caregiver will be the primary and when they’re away on holiday, because you don’t have somebody that has holiday pay, they will go away potentially at the drop of a hat. I know that people with like Cecil funding out in BC, they need support. These are people with very high needs and they have to, as their mandate from the government, hire privately. So when their caregiver
drop off the map and sometimes that does happen. They need to get somebody that is reliable and supportive and capable to sort of jump in and that’s sometimes where we can be that punctuated assistance is in in between when sick calls vacation or someone is quit at the drop of a hat or accidents whatever it is that’s why it’s nice to have a company like us either providing the primary support or
providing support in the background ongoing.
Heather Connors, BBA (29:17)
And mean, getting care at home is a scary thing at first for most people. You don’t know what you’re looking for. You don’t even know where to start. It’s a very daunting task to get care in for a loved one. being able to find a company that you can kind of, okay, this is what I need. Can you help me? It can be a lot less daunting than having to do it all yourself.
Melissa Therrien, RN (29:17)
Yeah, and I think
Liz Lewington, LPN (29:30)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Melissa Therrien, RN (29:42)
And ensuring that your worker is protected too. I think that WCB or NBC that works is really important to have. It’s very physical work that we do. We know that in healthcare there are lots of injuries. We do our best to kind of mitigate them, but it does happen. so being sure that the company that you’re looking at carries those sorts of liability insurance workers, injury coverage is really important as well. Because you hate to be in a position
where that becomes something that you have to deal with in your personal life. We don’t want that.
Liz Lewington, LPN (30:18)
Yeah. And then with that, have, you know, the musculoskeletal injury prevention training comes with our caregivers as well. So we’re reducing any risk that they have as well as providing that backup liability insurance that probably or may not be provided by a private caregiver. It’s hard to hard to vet everybody, know, sort of minutia of care. we, know, we Heather does it.
Melissa Therrien, RN (30:24)
Thank you.
Good.
Yeah, yeah, and having someone to go to if something does go wrong, like knowing that you have a team that’s going to support you to kind of walk through an issue, whether it be, you know, God forbid, a missing item or a car accident or a workplace injury or even an anticipated vacation. It’s really nice to have to know that you’re not working necessarily just one to one with someone, but
you have a team that’s going to back you up and make sure that those care needs are still met.
Liz Lewington, LPN (31:17)
Yeah, it’s that safety net, right? You need that. Yeah, you want to be able to enjoy your time in Mexico and know that you’re not being cared for. I know. It’s very thoughtful, I guess. Yeah.
Melissa Therrien, RN (31:19)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely.
Yeah.
So I wanted to ask one more thing of Heather, if you don’t mind. What, like, how do you ensure that you have the staff support the growth that we’re seeing and the demands that we’re seeing in our clients? What, what do you do? How do you find the staff and how are you constantly like, how do
How do you do that? How do you put all those pieces of that puzzle together?
Heather Connors, BBA (32:00)
Yeah, it’s definitely about finding that fine line of you want to have enough caregivers to be able to support the clients that you have and any clients that are coming on board without having too many caregivers that they don’t then have enough hours and then they’re not interested in picking up shifts with you anymore. It’s a very, very fine line of having enough but not too many caregivers. I things is just that open communication between our entire team.
Thankfully, we do have very, very good communication with our whole team. And any time there is any staffing concerns or if we know that a big holiday is coming up or Christmas time or summertime where you know it’s usually a tougher time for staffing, people are taking time off, just kind of anticipating those kind of needs and reviewing applicants and looking for caregivers before something comes up.
that all of a sudden you’re in a jam and you have nobody. So it’s really that finding that fine line. sometimes it’s a lot more difficult. Sometimes it’s smooth sailing. With healthcare especially and home care, every day is a different day. So yeah, the biggest thing is just that open communication with the team of everyone knowing kind of what’s going on, where we have any staffing concerns.
Liz Lewington, LPN (33:10)
Absolutely. absolutely. Buckle up.
Heather Connors, BBA (33:22)
and being able to plan ahead for those.
Melissa Therrien, RN (33:26)
Yeah, I think that planning a headpiece is really important. Like, as I can’t speak to your excellence and how you do it, but I know for me, like, projecting is really important. And, you know, I know as a collective we decided on, we need to be hiring a minimum of five caregivers a week. Like, that’s our goal, that’s what we want to meet. Tried and true-ish, it seems to work for us.
Heather Connors, BBA (33:30)
Yeah.
Melissa Therrien, RN (33:54)
It just seems like there’s that constant cycle of needing people, clients come and go, caregivers come and go. We want to be able to support people. And in doing that, I think we also are trying to keep people engaged, anticipating that in the future we will have more needs and changes in schedules and things like that. So what does that engagement look like? How do you keep people on your roster interested?
Heather Connors, BBA (34:24)
Yeah, I do try and reach out even myself personally with
as many caregivers, if not all of our caregivers as possible. We send out things like we try and do town halls with our staff or if we’re not available to do a town hall, we’ll put together like a PowerPoint or a PDF just to send it to our caregivers, let them know we still know that they’re with us. We are still looking for hours. We might have hours coming available. We’d love to have them working, things like that. If there’s any changes coming within the company or things like if there’s
HCA renewal coming up, LPN renewal, keeping that constant communication with all of our caregivers is very important. Just making sure that they know that we still know that they’re there. We haven’t forgotten about them.
Melissa Therrien, RN (35:02)
.
Heather Connors, BBA (35:15)
There’s a lot of communication between all levels of our team with our caregivers, which is nice. It’s not just our scheduling coordinator contacting them. It’s not just one person. It doesn’t matter who is on our admin team, whether it’s Melissa, our general manager, Liz, care manager, our office manager, Jen, everyone is in communication with our caregivers and caregivers know all of our admin team. So having that communication with our caregivers, I find really makes a difference.
Melissa Therrien, RN (35:43)
Yeah, I mean we’re all known as Monica because she’s our scheduling coordinator Nobody wants to talk to anybody but Monica because she’s the gatekeeper to all the hours, but
Heather Connors, BBA (35:46)
Yes.
Liz Lewington, LPN (35:49)
You
Melissa Therrien, RN (35:56)
Yeah, I agree. think getting to know each of our caregivers and appreciating that even though we don’t have any hours, like just reminding them that we are working hard. I think even through that process of like them staying in touch with us or saying like, look, I have this amount of time, I’m off of my other job or I’ve taken vacation and I’ve got this. Again, it all comes back down to that communication piece and letting us know what their needs are.
I think we get to know our caregivers sometimes on a really personal level as well, where they’re dealing with something in their family life and so we want to support them in that. But when they are ready to come back, we want them back. We’ve invested that time, they’ve invested that time into us and so we definitely want to bring them back and flexibility and transparency I think are really huge for us.
Heather Connors, BBA (36:47)
Yeah, it’s important to for us that we treat our caregivers like people, not just like a number. A lot of times in the bigger companies, it’s hard for caregivers to feel like they actually are a valued team member, whereas we really, focus on valuing our caregivers. And we want to make sure that they know that we value them and everything that they do. Without our caregivers, we wouldn’t be able to provide the care that we do for our clients. they are our frontline people.
Liz Lewington, LPN (36:47)
Google, Google.
Melissa Therrien, RN (37:14)
Yeah.
Heather Connors, BBA (37:17)
who our clients see every day. So making sure that our clients, our caregivers sorry, feel valued and feel like they’re an important member of our team is super important.
Melissa Therrien, RN (37:29)
Yeah,
because they’re loved by our clients. They truly become part of the family. yeah, I mean, we don’t see our clients half as much as they do. And I love that they are so important to each of our clients. That’s just such an amazing experience that we get to be a part of too.
Heather Connors, BBA (37:33)
there.
Liz Lewington, LPN (37:49)
I know. Yeah, it feels good to get that phone call. And you can get the phone call once a week or even a couple times a week where it’s somebody that has a particular caregiver and they really just love them to bits. And they’ll call and tell every single person on our team, you know what, look how much I love this person.
Melissa Therrien, RN (38:06)
Yeah.
Heather Connors, BBA (38:07)
Which
Liz Lewington, LPN (38:09)
this is what they did for me today, or this is what they did for my dad today. Like that feedback, really does go back into the reason why we’re nurses, why we’re in the healthcare industry. yeah, and being proud of the care that we’re putting out there, super selfish. I love it. It fills me with pride to be part of a team that can be so supportive to people that really truly need it and families that are struggling and creating that
Melissa Therrien, RN (38:16)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Liz Lewington, LPN (38:38)
that sort of safety net, backbone to allowing these people to live this fulfilling life. And, you know, it’s not, I mean, it feels like smoke and mirrors just having somebody arrive at your door that is phenomenal and capable, but really, Heather is there facilitating the creation of these.
Melissa Therrien, RN (38:59)
Yes.
Heather Connors, BBA (39:00)
Thank you.
Liz Lewington, LPN (39:01)
amazing
human beings and supporting them through it all as well. mean the whole team is but yeah I don’t know. I don’t know how you’re so magical Heather but keep doing what you’re doing. Please never stop. Yeah.
Heather Connors, BBA (39:10)
You
Melissa Therrien, RN (39:14)
No, no,
you can have a baby, that’s allowed, but you must come back. That’s all there is to it.
Heather Connors, BBA (39:17)
I did.
Liz Lewington, LPN (39:21)
requirement of the baby.
Heather Connors, BBA (39:22)
I would definitely say.
Melissa Therrien, RN (39:24)
Yeah.
Do you face any challenges when it comes to recruiting or once we have recruited and we’ve onboarded caregivers? Like are there any commonalities or trends that we’re seeing as far as challenges?
Heather Connors, BBA (39:43)
That’s a good one. I mean, sometimes we’ll face, that’s okay. Sometimes we’ll face challenges such as if a client or sometimes caregivers take a bit to get onboarded, whereas sometimes a caregiver will onboard it immediately and trying to.
Melissa Therrien, RN (39:45)
caught you up guard.
Bye.
Heather Connors, BBA (40:00)
figure out where we can fit that caregiver in in schedules or if they’ve onboarded really fast and we don’t have any hours available for them because the client we were looking for, if there was a very specific client, they’re not ready for another week or two. We want to make sure that that caregiver still feels engaged and we want them to still be.
actively excited and ready for work, whether it’s a week or two weeks away. So finding something for them in the meantime, or a caregiver that if they’re not able to get onboard it as soon as we would expect, and then trying to then find other caregivers available for clients just to at least make sure that we’re able to meet those clients’ needs without having any…
discrepancy in visits, things like that can sometimes cause a challenge when onboarding is just, and everyone works at different paces to get things onboarded. Things like vulnerable sector checks take quite a while. So sometimes there is unfortunately a delay in onboarding. So that can be one of the challenges.
Melissa Therrien, RN (40:47)
Mm-hmm.
If I may, I think another one of the challenges that we face, though technology is supremely valuable to us, sometimes technology is a hindrance. Do you want to touch on that?
Heather Connors, BBA (41:18)
Absolutely.
Liz Lewington, LPN (41:22)
I don’t want to talk about it.
Heather Connors, BBA (41:23)
Yeah.
Melissa Therrien, RN (41:24)
No.
Heather Connors, BBA (41:26)
Absolutely, with the changing technological use that is always growing, we do utilize technology for all of our onboarding, especially because we are in a lot of different areas. We’re all throughout Alberta, we’re in Vancouver, we’re in Vancouver Island. We’re often not able to have one of our admin team members able to meet with a caregiver in person to go over all of the onboarding. So we do rely heavily on technology for that.
And sometimes that can definitely cause a barrier for onboarding. If a caregiver isn’t as technologically savvy as someone else, it may take them a bit longer to onboard. But we always are able to find a different way, whether it’s talking over the phone and helping them go through the onboarding, sending them a paper copy instead. We always find a way to mitigate that challenge.
Melissa Therrien, RN (42:20)
Mm-hmm. Well, I mean, I have to thank you, Heather. You and I have been working together for some time now and truly every day you bring talents to the table that I previously wasn’t aware of. So you’re definitely multifaceted and I so appreciate your support. I truly believe that, you know, through this process of us working together and all that you bring to the table, you’ve really changed how we do things to create some efficiencies,
and to really make it a place that you want to work. Like I think that personal touch that you bring every single day and the reaching out to caregivers to keep them engaged is so valuable. It’s valuable to me, but I know for a fact it’s valuable to our caregivers as well. So I’m so thankful that you’re a part of our team and that you’ll continue to be a part of our team forever.
Heather Connors, BBA (43:13)
Thank you.
Liz Lewington, LPN (43:17)
Sign here, here, and initial here, you are now your fricker. Yep.
Melissa Therrien, RN (43:18)
Yeah.
Heather Connors, BBA (43:18)
you
Bye.
Melissa Therrien, RN (43:23)
Any final notes, Liz or Heather? I think this was really good. I I always love talking about recruitment.
Liz Lewington, LPN (43:31)
Yeah, I mean, Heather, keep doing what you’re doing, of course. Never leave. But, you know, it is it’s something that people need to keep in mind when they are bringing on a company is how do how do I know that this is a reliable person and we know because we have Heather. So hopefully, you know, if you’re out there looking, just know that
Heather Connors, BBA (43:35)
you
Melissa Therrien, RN (43:37)
Ugh.
Liz Lewington, LPN (43:54)
It’s more than just a phone call. There’s a whole big team behind it to make sure that this is the right person for your loved one. And if anybody else has anything they want to add, can say goodbye to everybody. So you can find us at ohanacare.ca. You can find Heather at indeed.ca. Search ohanacare.ca.
Melissa Therrien, RN (44:01)
Well said.
Okay.
Liz Lewington, LPN (44:16)
your jobs. She will happily take your resume if you are looking for any work in the Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver area, Greater Vancouver, and all across Vancouver Island as well. Yeah, come back next week.
Next week we’re going to have an amazing new topic coming up. I know that we’re talking about medical assistance in dying coming up. Yeah, and I’m sure there’s going to be a lot more to discuss. If you have any questions, you can leave a comment below. But yeah, follow us, reach out, subscribe, like and subscribe. That’s the thing. You think seven episodes and I figure that one out.
Melissa Therrien, RN (44:55)
like and subscribe.
All
right, guys, take care. Lovely to chat with you again. Bye-bye.
Liz Lewington, LPN (45:05)
Thank you so much. You bet.
Bye.
Heather Connors, BBA (45:09)
Thank you.
