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At Legacy Care Home, the families of our residents often ask us how we find such excellent caregivers to join our team. Ultimately it comes down to looking for specific qualities during the hiring process, and ensuring that those qualities remain evident once our staff are hired. These qualities are not necessarily unique to the residential care home environment — they’re relevant to caregivers in the home care, nursing home, and other venues as well — but we find them to be particularly important to maintaining the home-like feel that distinguishes a good care home like ours. Regardless of the care setting you ultimately choose for your loved one, we encourage you to look for the following five key qualities, and we encourage you to visit Legacy Care Home to see how these qualities look in action.
1. Empathy
At the core of everything we do is empathy. A caregiver must genuinely care about the emotional and physical well-being of the people they’re responsible for. That means developing a real appreciation and understanding of the “inner lives” of our residents. This is why we insist at LCH that our staff get to know residents as individuals. You certainly want your loved ones to be appreciated for who they are and the unique lives they’ve lived, and residents at LCH are never viewed as anonymous, interchangeable agents to us.
2. Patience
A caregiver’s job can be both rewarding and demanding, especially when working with individuals with mobility challenges, cognitive impairments, health issues, or all of the above. Those who are easily flustered or exasperated are not well-suited for work in a care home environment. As you can probably see, if a potential caregiver lacks empathy, they will likely also be impatient with their residents, because they can’t genuinely appreciate their residents’ feelings, fears, or concerns. Being patient means staying calm and composed even in challenging situations.
3. Communications
A good caregiver is capable of communicating effectively with residents, their families, and other members of the care team. When we interview prospective employees at LCH, we look for good active listening skills — the ability to listen attentively, take in information and convey information clearly. Communicating effectively with residents’ families is particularly important, because families want to know about the activities and experiences of their loved ones. Forging a strong relationship with both residents and their families is vital, and this requires good listening and communications skills.
4. Professionalism
A caregiver’s sense of professionalism encompasses many things, including reliability and dependability (being on time and following through with responsibilities), attention to detail (staying observant and noticing changes in the care recipient’s health, mood, and demeaner), and maintaining appropriate boundaries with residents (while always showing compassion). Caregivers must always respect the privacy and autonomy of their residents.
5. Experience
The age-old question regarding how someone can be hired for a job that requires experience without prior experience to begin with certainly applies to professional caregiving. While we do at times hire staff who don’t have hands-on professional caregiving experience but demonstrate the first four qualities on this list, we always look for practical, transferable skills. Things like first aid or CPR training, firsthand knowledge of specific conditions (like dementia, hearing loss, memory issues, diabetes, or others) certainly help. Personal experience providing caregiving to an aging parent or other family member can also be helpful. Of course, if you’re evaluating caregivers for a loved one of your own, make sure the facility or organization has deep expertise and a defined process for training newer caregivers. At LCH, we have decades of combined experience across all aspects of care home management and caregiving.
Final Thoughts
There are certainly many other important qualities in a good caregiver — like positivity, strong problem solving skills, resilience, and others — but we think these five encapsulate many of them. If you’re looking for a caregiver, we think these are the traits to look for. Trust your instincts. If a caregiver doesn’t exude these qualities, keep looking. Even if they do, visit a care facility multiple times to confirm your assessment. We encourage families to start their research into care options and facilities early, involve their loved one in the process, and tour facilities together. You can find additional tips here for ensuring a smooth transition into care home living.
Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions. We encourage you to schedule a time to visit, tour our home, and discuss your family’s needs in person.
