By Geralyn Magan
Jenna Kellerman shared her thoughts about the workforce crisis during an interview with the LTSS Center’s Research Update newsletter.
This spring, Jenna Kellerman became director of workforce strategy & development at the LeadingAge LTSS Center at UMass Boston. In that role, Kellerman will develop LeadingAge’s workforce strategy and lead the implementation of all initiatives tied to that strategy.
“Jenna will help us better coordinate, synthesize, and highlight the work LeadingAge and its state partners are doing at both the national and state levels to strengthen the aging services workforce,” says LTSS Center Co-Director Robyn Stone. “She’ll be responsible for developing two areas that are a high priority for LeadingAge: professionalizing frontline caregiving professionals and developing and supporting a pipeline of managers and leaders in our sector. She’ll be identifying the key gaps in our efforts to date and will help us identify concrete, national initiatives that we can develop and bring to scale. We’re so happy to have her on board for this important work.”
Kellerman brings a wide range of expertise and experience to her new role. In addition to earning degrees in communications and gerontology, she’s also held leadership positions in marketing, hospitality, and management while working in nursing homes and assisted living communities. Before coming to LeadingAge, Kellerman was director of workforce solutions at LeadingAge Minnesota.
Here are some key takeaways from her recent interview with the LTSS Center’s Research Update newsletter:
How did you get interested in workforce issues?
While I was working in resident services at a Minnesota nursing home, I had a manager who really supported anything I wanted to do. With her encouragement, I went through a housing manager certificate program, enrolled in a gerontology master’s program, and later became director of a 187-unit assisted living campus that had about 200 residents and 100 team members.
That was where I discovered how much I loved helping people grow their careers. I encouraged our caregivers to become certified nursing assistants, and it broke my heart that some of the caregivers were intimidated by learning and didn’t feel confident taking the course. They were super smart. They were experts in their jobs. They were fabulous caregivers. Of course, they could do it! When they succeeded, they felt so good about themselves. Seeing these team members realize their potential was special.
But I realized that I could only do so much in my job. I couldn’t give caregivers the wage increases I wanted to. I couldn’t change their scope of practice the way I wanted to. My hands were tied in so many ways. And I had all these big things that I wanted to be able to do. That’s what led me to LeadingAge Minnesota. I loved seeing the individual impact I could have, but what if I could do more?
What did you learn at LeadingAge Minnesota?
LeadingAge Minnesota is a progressive association and the health care system in Minnesota is really fantastic in a lot of ways. There were a lot of opportunities to make an impact.
For example, we taught a course that trained caregivers and other frontline team members on how to manage quality improvement within their scope of practice. We educated them on how to identify solutions to problems they encountered in their jobs. They learned how to gather the team, get approvals from supervisors, craft and implement their solution, track data along the way, and analyze the data to determine if the solution worked. And then they presented their findings to their colleagues. For a housekeeper or a nursing assistant to have that type of power in their organization is important, and I think it helped our members honor the frontline professional caregiver as an integral part of the care team.
The biggest thing I learned was just how capable our professional caregivers are and how undervalued they are. They know so much about the issues and the solutions, and we just don’t honor their expertise or consider it. It kills me that our society doesn’t value the role of the professional caregiver. Because once you know the people who do that job, and you watch what they do, and you see how smart they are, you see the immense value they bring to our lives.
How can our sector elevate the job of the professional caregiver?
We’ve got to be able to pay people a livable wage. Right now, in order to be a caregiver, you either have to have a partner who makes more money, you need to work multiple jobs, and you may also need to receive public assistance. We can’t expect people to be quality caregivers all day, every day, when they’re working 60 hours a week at three different nursing homes, and their kids are home alone, and they’re not quite sure how to put food on the table. Caregivers are doing their best. They are showing up every day. The healthcare system is flawed, and it is our responsibility to advocate for our caregivers and make change.
I also think our own organizations have opportunities to improve the workplace culture. We need to foster a collaborative team approach where professional caregivers are valued for the expertise they bring. This is a systemic issue that goes back decades. We need a paradigm shift that will involve all of us, as well as CMS and policymakers. These are not easy, quick fixes.
Are there any short-term fixes for this challenge?
I’d love to see wage increases take effect as soon as possible, but I know that will be a challenge. If we don’t fix that wage piece, though, we’re not going to be able to address other workforce challenges. People need stable home lives if we expect them to be stable employees.
There are other steps we can take immediately at the organizational level. It’s so hard for administrators to think broadly about strengthening their workforce when they literally don’t have someone to work the overnight shift tonight. So, we’ve got to figure out how we go about attending to the fires that our organizations need to put out every day—while also making progress with onboarding and organizational culture and empowering or upskilling staff.
What is LeadingAge’s role in all of this?
All of these issues are huge systemic issues. We can’t change anything unless we all rally to do it together. And to me, that’s what a national association is for. A single provider can make a little bit of change, but if we want to change the system it takes all of us working together. The power of a national association is getting providers and state partners to speak with one voice, advancing what we need from policymakers, while also agreeing to make changes in our individual organizations so we can achieve a collective shift in how we treat our professional caregivers.
We had a huge shift in person-centered care 15 years ago because we all agreed we needed to make that change. We came together with one voice at the provider level and system level. Now we need to have that same shift for the workforce. We have person-centered care. Now we need a staff-centered workforce.
Where do we start?
LeadingAge is powerful because of our provider members. So, in part, our role in Washington is to get direction from providers, and hear their needs and their perspectives, because they know what works and what doesn’t work in their communities. We need to really hear that. Then LeadingAge needs to bring thought leadership and research to the discussion to help us address what we’re hearing from members and chart our path forward.
I’m starting my job at LeadingAge by looking at strategy. How is the workforce crisis playing out across the country? What is LeadingAge currently doing to address the crisis? What are states doing? What do members need? How can we coordinate our actions and push solutions forward? Where are the gaps that we need to start filling?
We have such strong state partners across the country, and incredible provider organizations. Promising practices abound! I am thrilled to be able to collaborate with experts in our field to address the workforce crisis, to bring dignity and value to the role of the caregiver, and to work together to elevate our profession.