Labor Day: Celebrating Workers by Helping Them Succeed

We all succeed only when we all succeed. This adage from U.S. Department of Labor Secretary Tom Perez found a fitting place this summer on Labor Day 2015 , a site hosted by the agency. It belongs there. Ensuring the success of the people who work for us really should be a central focus of every Labor Day celebration. After all, Labor Day isn't just a day to mark the unofficial end of the summer vacation season. Instead, it's a day to acknowledge the fact that workers are the lifeblood of our organizations. I'm proud of the way I celebrated Labor Day this year. I didn't be attend a parade.

I didn't even go to the beach. Instead, I participated in the release of two very important, evidence-based competency development guides outlining the complex skills that are required to be a successful personal care attendant and a mid-level manager in nursing homes , assisted living communities, home health care agencies, and other organizations that provide long-term care services to our growing older population. Personal Care Attendants One competency development guide outlines the complex set of skills that are needed to provide hand-on, personal care to older adults. These are the skills that we should expect from the nursing assistants or home health workers on whom we depend to help an older friend or relative who needs assistance. These workers assist older adults with bathing, grooming, dressing and eating. They may help the individual start the day and get ready for bed. They might also:

• Prepare nutritious meals.
• Do housework, shopping and laundry.
• Help arrange transportation to events and appointments.

Often, they do their best work when they simply sit a while to interact with and offer companionship to an older person who feels isolated and alone. The best among them carry out their work while building on the older person's strengths and capabilities. Personal care attendants have complicated jobs that involve daily, and often intimate, support for an older population that is increasing in numbers and has increasingly complicated health and social care needs. To do their jobs well, these workers need a variety of technical skills. And they also need:

• A well-grounded understanding of aging and what it's like to grow old.
• The interpersonal skills required to relate well to older people and their families.
• The ability to take care of themselves so they can continue to carry out their physically and emotionally demanding jobs.

Mid-Level Managers

The second competency development guide outlines the set of skills needed to manage the frontline workforce in a variety of care settings. A mid-level manager might be the director of nursing in a nursing home or the activities manager at an assisted living or retirement community.

He or she might direct an adult day health program or manage a home health team. Whatever the specific job title, these managers really are the backbone of aging services organizations. And, as such, they need a distinct set of skills, knowledge, and behavioral characteristics to do their jobs effectively. A big part of that job involves managing personal care attendants. Mid-level managers must ensure that these workers receive proper training, support, coaching, and encouragement. That's no small feat. Good interpersonal skills are a critical prerequisite for the mid-level manager. But these managers also need to possess operational expertise, a keen understanding of financial and legal issues, and a wide variety of human resources skills. Labor Day: A Time to Celebrate and Support Workers Labor Day is the perfect way to celebrate workers -- not by throwing them a party, but by giving them the tools they need to succeed. How? First and foremost, the guides I mentioned earlier send a very important message that the public needs to hear:

Personal care attendants and mid-level managers are professionals who should be valued both by their employers and by the people they serve. Equally important, the competency development guides help aging services organizations stand behind that message. Organizations can use the guides to help them recruit, train, and support the workers who carry out their organizational missions day in and day out. Finally, I'm hopeful that the guides will help transform the way we educate and train workers in long-term care settings.

We are already working with community colleges and other educators to incorporate the skills identified in the competency guides into the curricula they use to train personal care attendants and mid-level managers. Why You Should Care All of us have a stake in ensuring that personal care attendants and mid-level managers are valued and successful employees within our nursing homes, assisted living communities, home health agencies, and other aging services organizations. Their success is important to everyone, including the workers themselves, the aging services organizations that employ them, the older people and families who depend on them for high-quality long-term care services, and a nation and world that grows older every year. We're all in this together, as Tom Perez's 7-word maxim so aptly points out. We all succeed... only when we all succeed.