"Trust and Respect"

In the caregiving industry, trust is everything. I am mindful every day of the trust that our clients and their families place in us.

When we send a caregiver into a client’s home, we must absolutely trust that the person will handle the responsibility with skill and empathy. And the family must trust us as well. They trust us to send a caregiver who will show up, on time, with the right skills, a caring attitude and sometimes a lot of patience, especially with clients living with dementia who may be difficult at times.

As CEO, my challenge is to set up and guide the business to make sure that all works.
As I see it, it’s a qualitative issue. It’s about empowering our staff. Earning and maintaining trust must be ingrained in our culture. That’s why I’ve tried to model a culture of respect.

I attend orientation for new staff every week. My comment to them is, “My reputation is in your hands. I don’t ever meet our clients. You have your hands on our clients every day. From my standpoint, as the owner and operator, I want you to always be in the right state of mind. I want you to feel like you want to perform at the best of your ability, because you want to be here, and because we treat you differently at this company.”

I’ll also tell the new staff, “I’m the boss, and that means you have to respect me.” Right away I see a lot of heads bob up and down, because everybody understands the need to respect the boss. Then I say, “But I have to respect you every bit as much. And everybody here needs to respect each other.”

Most caregiving agencies will boast that they hire good people. We say that too, but we can back up that claim. It is a fact that we invest in training. It is a fact that we offer good pay and a full complement of benefits for every caregiver who works full time. It is a fact that we simply treat our caregivers differently, and respectfully.

It’s no secret that people living with Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia can be uncooperative or difficult. When that happens, our caregivers must be that calm in the storm. We want them to feel confident and supported. As we like to say, we treat our caregivers well so that they can provide good care to our clients. That’s why we’ve developed a culture of respect in our company.