A few weeks ago I read an article entitled: Care
Manager Criticises Negative Attitude of Care Professionals Who Say 'I'm Just a
Care Worker by Richard Howard, news editor for homecare.co.uk. In the
article, Howard quotes the manager concerned, Rachel Bryan, marketing and communications manager at AJ Social Care Recruitment Ltd:
“You are never
‘just a care worker’”, she says. “These are comments that are regularly used by
people when introducing their profession. Social care support includes more health
care related tasks than what people remember as “Home Help”. Care workers
naturally learn more about medication, nutrition, health and safety,
safeguarding, etc…”
I couldn’t agree
more. In any business, everyone has a part to play. If there is no part to play
then there should be no position in the business for the person with no part. It makes no business
sense. Everyone is important. Having said that, every domiciliary care manager
knows that the company that he or she works for is only as good as the
quality of care that is delivered by the front line care staff.
That’s not to say
that managers are not important: of course they are. That’s not to say that
administrators are not important: of course they are. It is saying that without
first class care staff who are manifestly MORE than just care workers, high
class domiciliary care cannot be delivered. Businesses often pay lip service to
the idea that their staff are their most valuable assets: domiciliary care
companies do this at their peril.
The
Corrosive Corruption of Powerlessness
“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts
absolutely.” You must have heard that quotation before? Its author was Lord
Acton - John
Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton was his full name – a nineteenth century
historian. He was talking about absolute monarchies and he wasn’t the first to
utter something about how power corrupts; however, his quotation is, perhaps,
the best known.
What is the opposite of the
possession of power? Obviously, not possessing power is the answer. Thus,
Rosabeth Moss Kanter, with a clear nod in the direction of Acton: “Powerlessness corrupts: absolute powerlessness corrupts
absolutely.” Kanter holds a professorial chair at Harvard Business School. She
first wrote those words some years ago and has returned to this theme in a
recent Harvard Business Review Article:
“Power corrupts, as Lord Acton famously said, but so does powerlessness. Though
powerlessness might not result in the egregious violations associated with
arrogant officials who feel they are above the law, it is corrosive. For years
I’ve observed its destructive impact on organization.”
http://hbr.org/2010/07/column-powerlessness-corrupts/ar/1
If you have worked in an organisation where power is
concentrated in the hands of a small number of people you will appreciate how –
to use a word of Kanter’s - corrosive this can be. If you, unfortunately, have
been or are powerless, you will know that getting things done is next door to
impossible and the environment in which you worked or are working is bad for you, your managers, your customers
and just about anyone who comes into contact with the business.
In the worst case, everyone in the organisation
becomes a little jaundiced about everything. Managers get to the point where
they simply go through the motions because they know they have no influence to
change things. Linda A Hill, writing for Forbes.com, is right to regard this as
playing a game:
“Many managers
understand that dealing with the political dynamics of organizations is part of
their jobs, but they’re reluctant to “play the game,” as they call it. They
dislike conflict and competition and consider the political give-and-take
mostly an ego-driven waste of time.”
http://www.forbes.com/2010/12/20/office-politics-power-boss-forbes-woman-leadership-management-negotiation.html
A home care company
deals with some of the most vulnerable people in our society. If we as domiciliary
care providers get things right we can deliver a level of service that is
nothing short of transformative in the effect it has on our customers’ lives.
To do this, we need high quality care staff who feel that they can make a difference
and are able to make a difference. This will not happen in an organisation
where they feel that they are just care
workers.
Empowerment
For some years now
empowerment has been a part of the manager’s lexicon. However, it has to be
said that it is often viewed with a good deal of cynicism by employees, and
sometimes for good reasons. It is often felt that managers say one thing but do
something very different.
A story is often
told at management conferences – the story I think originates from Rosabeth
Moss Kanter – about the employee at a textile factory who solved a longstanding
snag with the manufacturing process with a simple suggestion. The new chief
executive, who had invited employees to make suggestions, asked the problem
solver when he first came up with the solution. The answer was “about thirty
years ago.”
That’s one extreme.
Of course, at the other extreme there will be those people who do not want to
be empowered. There will always be those who come to work with the attitude
that it’s “only a job”. In a culture where empowerment is encouraged, this
attitude is less likely to spread. Shawn Grimsley defines empowerment like
this:
“Employee empowerment
is giving employees a certain degree of autonomy and responsibility for
decision-making regarding their specific organizational tasks. It allows
decisions to be made at the lower levels of an organization where employees
have a unique view of the issues and problems facing the organization at a
certain level.”
http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/employee-empowerment-definition-advantages-disadvantages.html#lesson
Where leaders
create a culture along these lines the attitude of it’s “only a job” is one
that will become the exception. Managers in domiciliary care organisations
should appreciate that it is their care
staff who day in day out deal with customers. They have experience and
expertise that is impossible to gain without that level of contact. Care staff gain
a wealth of experience that home care organisations should avail themselves of.
Advantages of Empowerment
Empowerment has to be something more than merely
having managers asking employees what they think about something. No doubt,
encouraging suggestions can be a manifestly positive thing – as in the textile factory
employee example above. But empowerment, in its true sense, has to lead to
greater engagement with the business of the company by everyone (perhaps not
quite everyone, because there will always be those who do not want this level
of engagement) in the company. Empowerment has to make a difference for the
company, for its staff and for its customers.
As David Lipscombe says empowered employees are
“Happier than
employees in other companies, empowered personnel tend to be more proactive and
willing to embrace change. A team full of workers feeling in control of their
destinies is far more enthusiastic about their roles and passionate about
achievement, which is all good for the company.
There will always be the naysayers who will tell you
that empowerment is a load of old nonsense. Any talk of empowerment, the
naysayers point out, is just a way of managers trying to convince their staff
to do more work for less pay with fewer resources. I’m not so naïve as to
believe that there is not an element of that that exists. Just as there are
those employees who have the attitude that it’s “just a job” there are those
employers who believe they are entitled to their pounds of their employees’
flesh and a little bit more.
Empowerment has to be a two way process. Those who
do the empowering must do it because they want it to make a difference; those
who are empowered must want to make a difference. On the whole, in my
experience, employees embrace the idea of empowerment, for the very simple
reason that they want to feel that they have some control over what is
happening.
The greatest advantages, perhaps, of developing a culture of empowerment is that it creates an environment that is alien to the it's “only a job” mentality and its management counterpart, the micromanager. Few things prevent an organisation from functioning better than a micromanager, because, as Jennifer Nakao observes, micromanagers
“… spend a significant amount of time not doing
their job and instead doing the job of the people they are supposed to be
coaching, developing and mentoring. Micromanagers don’t oversee projects but
instead monitor tasks with the expectation that everything is done exactly how
they themselves would do the work.”
Creating a culture of empowerment is a true act of leadership. It takes courage. Not all people in leadership positions possess that courage because they are relinquishing some of their control. In my experience, businesses in general and domiciliary care companies in particular, benefit enormously from empowered workers.
Domiciliary care providers need care workers who
believe, and have this belief affirmed daily, that the jobs they have are some
of the most important in society and manifestly not “just jobs”.
Garry Costain is the Managing Director of Caremark Thanet, a domiciliary care provider with offices in Margate, Kent. Caremark Thanet provides home care services throughout the Isle of Thanet. Garry can be contacted on 01843 235910 or email garry.costain@caremark.co.uk. You can also visit Caremark Thanet's website at www.caremark.co.uk/thanet.
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