Wellbeing


How to promote an engaged culture of care


As a care leader it is up to you to help your staff and residents by encouraging the open exchange of views. This may be through training, but most of all it will come through building active engagement, says Jo Geraghty, co-founder of Culture Consultancy


How much do you care? No, forget the instinctive response and indulge me by taking a few moments to think. You see, I know you work in the care sector and therefore your job is to care, but that doesn’t automatically mean that your approach, your outlook and your actions are centred around an engaged culture of care. Perhaps the easiest way to explain is in


terms of driving a car, although the same could apply to any activity. When you first learn to drive, you have to concentrate quite hard as you consciously co- ordinate every movement and action. After a while muscle memory takes over and your actions become automatic. When you become very experienced


your responses become so instinctive that you may well find that you don’t even remember part of the journey, and there is a good reason for that. Think back to a time when people


were as likely to be the prey as they were to prey on other animals; back then survival depended on recognising the unusual. Our senses were tuned to pick up the twitch of a tail, an odd noise or a patch of shade that shouldn’t be there, and because our brains were tuned to the unusual, we also learnt to fade normal surroundings and routine into the background. So, when we drive we almost do so unconsciously, with our minds sharpening into focus only in response to a non-routine situation.


Active engagement This switch on/ off awareness mode has not only helped in the development of the human race, it also acts as an important survival mechanism today. By allowing our brains to run all the routine stuff, we can get on with concentrating on more interesting activities such as learning, developing and interacting. However, the danger is that


sometimes we can shuffle too much into the autopilot box, going through the


motions rather than being actively engaged in the task in hand. When that happens we may carry out all the routine tasks that are necessary to providing care. We may even talk to and interact with those in our care, but because we are doing so on a subconscious level we are missing the important elements that turn providing care into really caring. It is important to mention at this


stage that the care sector is not alone in finding that staff are not as engaged as they might be. Research undertaken by Engage for Success1


reveals that only


about one-third of UK employees say that they are actively engaged at work. What that means is that some 20 million workers across the UK are not delivering to their full capability or realising their potential. What that means for businesses is that they are missing out on skills and talents being developed, on the increased profitability that comes from engaged employees, and on the


January 2017 • www.thecarehomeenvi ronment .com


potential for innovative developments and high levels of customer satisfaction.


Developing leadership If an increased focus on employee engagement can deliver all that and more, why isn’t every business making engagement their priority? Putting aside those leaders who believe that engagement is just a way of pandering to employees, in all too many cases the problem comes down to the day to day pressures that result in leaders having to ‘manage’ when they should be delivering leadership. The irony is that many day to day


pressures are the result of a lack of attention to leadership traits in general and employee engagement in particular. This can put businesses in a downward spiral as leaders find themselves spending more and more time fire fighting, which gives them less and less time to create the conditions that will deliver ongoing success.


15


©Ocskay Bence/Fotolia


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44