By Geralyn Magan
Two Competency Development Guides identify the skill sets for mid-level managers and personal care attendants working across the full continuum of staff positions and settings in the field of long-term services and supports.
The LeadingAge Center for Applied Research (CFAR) and the LeadingAge Workforce Cabinet recently released 2 new Competency Development Guides that identify the skill sets for mid-level managers and personal care attendants working across the full continuum of staff positions and settings in the field of long-term care.
The Personal Care Attendant Competency Development Guide can be used to support workforce development efforts and prepare frontline workers to deliver high-quality services and supports to an aging population with increasingly complicated health and social care needs.
The guide features 4 broad competency areas:
- Technical skills.
- Applied understanding.
- Interpersonal skills.
- Self-directed care.
The competencies become more specialized and require higher level skills over time.
The Mid-Level Manager Competency Development Guide can be used to help mid-level managers acquire the skills, knowledge, and behavioral characteristics they need to collaborate with and effectively manage frontline staff.
The guide focuses on the interpersonal, operational, financial-legal, and human resources skills that mid-level managers need to train and support these workers.
Development of the Competency Guides
The Workforce Cabinet was charged 2 years ago with developing and strengthening the aging services workforce across the full continuum of staff and settings. After discussing the challenges facing this workforce, cabinet members decided to focus their work on developing competencies for 3 staff positions:
- Mid-level manager.
- Personal care attendant.
- Care coordinator.
Work on the care coordination competencies was suspended after the cabinet realized that this complex area would require another 2 years of work, says Workforce Cabinet Co-Chair Frances Roebuck Kuhns.
Kuhns, who is president and chief executive officer (CEO) of WRC Senior Services in Brookville, PA, recently told LeadingAge magazine that the competencies are designed to elevate key staff positions in long-term care settings to professional status.
The competency guides send a clear message to the public that “there’s a level of professionalism and skill development that’s necessary, and a very sophisticated set of competencies (that workers) must demonstrate in order to care for elders,” says Kuhns.
The Workforce Cabinet relied on CFAR staff to frame its work, which was based on the current literature focusing on worker competencies, says Kuhns.
“We also (had) a broad membership in the cabinet,” she said. “We had people from operations, education, and a lot of the different components of the aging services field who could bring their individual expertise and experience. It was a marvelous group offering diverse backgrounds and experiences.”
2 Related Positions
While the 2 competency guides address different staff positions, they are closely related to one another and to the critical need to build a strong direct care workforce across a variety of long-term care settings.
“It’s a very complicated job,” says CFAR Executive Director Robyn Stone about the personal care attendant position. “Providers really need to take a competency-based approach to understanding what it takes to do these jobs, identifying workers who are qualified for these jobs, and investing in training for incumbent workers who aren’t up to these tasks.”
The first step in ensuring that personal care attendants have the skills they need to succeed is making sure that middle-managers “get it,” says Cabinet Co-Chair Barry Berman, CEO of the Chelsea Jewish Foundation in Chelsea, MA.
“This is about the people we’re recruiting as the direct care workforce, but if the middle managers who they’ll be working for don’t have the buy-in and understanding of all this, then what you’ll try to do won’t be effective,” says Berman.
Defining competencies for the middle manager is also important because this position is “one of the main drivers” in all aging services organizations, says Kuhns.
“As a provider, you just can’t take that really good nurse and say ‘Now we’re going to make you the director of nursing, or the team leader in this department,’ and not equip them with the skills and knowledge they need to be able to truly do that,” she says. “If you look at that middle-manager core competencies document, that’s a pretty extensive list of all the competencies that person has to have.”
Using Both Guides for Continuing Education and Performance Review
Both sets of competencies can be used to design continuing education programs or conduct performance evaluations within aging services organizations.
For example, providers can use both the mid-level manager and personal care attendant competencies to:
- Identify the skills that are critical to the organization’s success, and the skills that need further development among specific staff members.
- Design continuing education programs that address the learning needs of both workforces.
- Conduct performance reviews that are competency-based.
Developing and Recruiting Mid-Level Managers
The mid-level manager competencies can be used to help individual mid-level managers, and the organization’s Human Resources department, design professional development plans and select specific courses and programs for skill enhancement.
While the mid-level manager guide is not designed to be a screening tool for hiring or promoting mid-level managers, it can be used as a framework for assessing the relative competence of individuals applying for jobs or being considered for promotion.
Designing On-The-Job Training and Coaching for Personal Care Attendants
The personal care attendant competency guide can serve as a resource for frontline supervisors who want to craft learning activities that build the skills of personal care attendants.
Frontline supervisors can use the personal care attendant competencies to:
- Identify any gaps in the skill set of individual personal care attendants.
- Teach and motivate personal care attendants to improve their performance in these areas.
- Identify and capitalize on teachable opportunities for staff.