Features
From So-So to So Good
The best performers are indeed different, often because they manage differently. In representing many of the best and the brightest, as well as in conducting interviews of industry leaders for best-practices seminars, we have discovered that the overachievers share many of the same management traits. Here, then, are seven habits of highly effective home care managers.
- They are People-Centric
The best route to performance excellence is effective management of people. Even the capital markets — known for an impersonal focus on revenues and profits — are increasingly scrutinizing “people issues” in evaluating companies. In fact, according to the Herman Trend Alert, “specialists who establish, review, and modify [credit ratings and interest rates for health care companies] now include issues like work force stability and vacancy rates in their evaluations” (“Workforce Issues Moving to the Bottom Line,” Herman Trend Alert, March 26, 2003).
Intuitively, you know this one. But the best home care managers have put people issues at the very center of their strategic plans. They have developed an expanded view of remuneration that, in addition to salary, includes incentive pay, professional development and training, technological support, emotional support and unique perks. To attract the best employees — and retain the good ones they have — top companies are strategically branding their organization not only as a quality provider but also as the area's employer of choice (a designation, by the way, that companies actually compete for in many cities).
To improve the odds of choosing the best potential employees, some firms are using tests to identify candidates with psychological profiles similar to those of their best performers. Others have adopted staffing practices where they hire the “best of the best” when these candidates are available, not just when they have a position open. Such is a service industry where it is as critical to bank good people as it is to bank profits.
