A new research brief from the LeadingAge LTSS Center identifies workforce stresses and their impact on turnover during the pandemic.
During the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, the LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMass Boston partnered with WeCare ConnectTM to study the impact of COVID-19 on staff working for LeadingAge provider members, including its effect on job resignation. A newly updated research brief summarizes the study findings.
WeCare ConnectTM is an employee engagement and management system created by Wellspring Lutheran Services, a Michigan-based LeadingAge member. During May 2020, WeCare ConnectTM added several pandemic-related questions, created by LTSS Center researchers, to its employee interview battery. The study questions focused on:
- The challenges and level of stress frontline professionals were experiencing during the coronavirus health crisis.
- How professional caregivers perceived their own preparedness to care for residents/patients/clients with COVID-19.
- How caregivers rated the quality of employer communication around COVID-19.
COVID-19: Stress, Challenges, and Job Resignation in Aging Services, released in December 2021, presents what LTSS Center researchers learned after analyzing the responses to those questions from two samples of employees participating in the WeCare ConnectTM employee interview battery:
- 1,414 direct care professionals who were employed in or had resigned from assisted living and independent living communities, nursing homes, home and community-based services (HCBS) agencies, and health care services as of May 2020.
- 1,730 nursing home staff, including direct care professionals, registered nurses and licensed practical nurses, staff in dietary and environmental services departments, therapists, and social workers. These staff members were either still employed at the end of November 2020 or had resigned between June 2020 and the end of November 2020.
The research brief, written by LTSS Center researchers Verena Cimarolli and Natasha Bryant, presents findings from both samples. The brief examines whether the stresses/challenges and perceptions of staff in the first sample differed by setting and notes the differences between nursing home employees in the second sample who had resigned and those who were still employed at the nursing homes. Researchers also sought to determine if high-quality employer communication regarding COVID-19 influenced whether employees in the second sample decided to remain on the job.
Finally, the brief provides recommendations for how providers can support stressed caregivers.
“This study sheds light on the external and work-related challenges that direct care professionals and other LTSS staff have experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic,” the research brief concludes. “Study findings suggest that providers can help mitigate some of the stress that professional caregivers feel by offering wrap-around services and support for mental well-being, increasing the caregiver pipeline to reduce understaffing and heavy workloads, and finding ways to reduce the demands on professional caregivers during the coronavirus pandemic and during future health emergencies.”
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For more information about the study, read COVID-19: Stress, Challenges, and Job Resignation in Aging Services.