1. Career Development for CNAs
Retaining Your Staff Over the Long-term

2. 3 Different Kinds of Career Trajectories for CNAs
Short-term CNAs who move in and out of the workplace without a career identity (“it’s just a job”)
Transitional CNAs to other professional health care positions
Career CNAs

3. Who are they? 93% Female 70% Caucasian 89% less than 55 years of age
50% under the age of 35
51% with Children at home
76% have completed high school
16 with education beyond high school
58% work full time (our KEY target demographic)

4. Wages
Median New York annual $26,000
Can you live on that?

5. Why Nurse Aides Leave Facility leadership Lack of orientation
No advancement opportunities

6. Varieties of continuing staff development
Mandatory in-service training
Additional training provided by facility
Formal career ladder programs

7. Benefits of a Career Ladder
Provides an incentive for new aides to stick around
Used as a marketing tool for recruiting new aides
Equates raise with increase in skills
Creates accountability and positive work environment

8. Improving Caregiver Morale
Improving self-worth
Give CNAs recognition
Makes CNAs’ jobs easier through improved skills

9. Launching a Career Ladder
5 Steps to Success

10. Step 1) Identify CNA Turnover Data
How much money are you losing?
How many staff are walking out the door?
Overtime and agency usage consideration

11. Turnover Data Do you know the turnover rates in your facility?
9/12/2018

12. Do you know how to calculate it?
{# of terminations/[(begin count + end count)/ 2]} x 100

13. Step 2) Identify Negative Effects Driving Turnover
Employee satisfaction survey
Exit interviews
Nursing meetings

14. Step 3) Evaluating Staff Needs
Not just CNAs
Administrator and DON
Charge nurses
Identify areas that don’t get addressed in CNA certification

15. Frightening Facts Nurse Aides Require? Barbers require 2,000 hours
Maryland dog groomers require 14 weeks of training
North Carolina Cosmotologists require 1200 classroom and 1500 clinical hours
Nurse Aides Require?

16. Step 4) Goals in Creating a Career Ladder
Fine-tune nurse aide skills
Assist in building a team approach in the nursing department and in facility
Builds cohesiveness among the aides
Increase CNA knowledge base because in-services don’t do it alone

17. Step 5) Developing Program to Fit Facility Needs
Administration must accept its needs to make a change
Changing the work culture
Creating a positive work experience

18. Effective Training Curriculum
Safety
Teamwork
Aging and Illness
Communication
Nutrition
Spirituality and Dying
Your Resident’s Quality of Life
Dementia Care
The Importance of Family

19. Facility-wide Buy-in
Must have everyone on the caregiving team involved
Taught by entire caregiving team, not just SDC

20. Create a Career Ladder Committee from All Levels of Staff
Assign a champion out of that committee who is responsible for overseeing the program
Doesn’t have to be the SDC

21. Determine Eligibility, Selection and Evaluation
Set the level of eligibility expectations for your CNAs per your facility standard
Staff should meet or exceed expectations for program
e. g. Experience, competencies, disciplinary actions, evaluations

22. Determine Compensation and Recognition
The hardest part to accept
Token compensation is not enough
Build in graduation and post-graduation recognition

23. Class Logistics Taught on company time, not CNA time
Need creative scheduling, supervisors committed to step in during the hour the CNAs are out.
Hold classes in a concentrated period of time – don’t drag it out

24. Tips for the Instructors
Available
Enthusiastic
Build a relationship with each student
Step back and let students lead

25. Simple Scripted Format
The easier you make it, the more likely it will be used and adapted effectively
Individualize the script for each instructor

26. Learning Experience Variety, variety, variety
Break up lectures with exercises and roleplays
Create content appropriate for different types of adult learners
Draw on participants’ work and life experiences

27. Career Ladder Training Examples
Teambuilding – Untangling the Team
From the Resident’s Point of View (handout)
The Ultimate Caregiver

28. Real World Benefits
$14 million saved in first eight months in large national chain