Hi folks, Steve “The Hurricane” here, and for today’s episode of “A Drink With The Hurricane,” we are going to talk about motivating a burnt out staff. So raise your glass, and let’s toast to your success. Cheers.
So I gotta tell you, folks, the last two years of the pandemic and everything that’s happening, all industries, all business owners, all employees are burnt out and frustrated and tired. We’re sick of Zoom. We’re sick of conference calls. We’re tired of working remotely. Everything is coming back together and opening up, and it’s great, but man, the people who worked through and during the pandemic? They’re tired. We’re tired. Heck, I’m tired, right? It’s great that things are opening up, but we’re kind of burnt out, and there was no industry hit harder than our industry, which is the healthcare industry. I think back to just a couple of months ago, when the Omicron variant came out, and how many people called out. It seems like every single caregiver all got COVID within that six to eight week span between Thanksgiving and the beginning of February. It was out of control. Everybody in my office had it. Every one of my clients’ office staff had it, and you just kind of needed to buckle down and get through it. So how can I run a business when every single person who works for me is burnt out and stressed out and they’re at their wits’ end? Here are three tips that I’m gonna share with you today that can help you to improve morale and get people so that they’re focused again on the task at hand because we have a pretty important mission, all right?
So the first thing that we can do to really help boost morale is to close up shop early. Our businesses are a 24 hour a day, seven days a week business. There’s always somebody on call anyway, but we also know that there are times when it’s slow. There are times where there’s not much happening. There are times when we could let people go home at 3:30 in the afternoon instead of five. That 90 minutes, while it’s like, “Well that’s 90 minutes’ productivity. Every single person I’m paying and how much money they’re making per hour to not pay those… To pay everybody to do the work, but not have them show up at the office. I don’t know if I like that idea.” It’s worth every penny paid to your staff because they appreciate it. Say it’s a long weekend coming up; you have a holiday. Like, Memorial Day weekend is coming up sometime soon, right? If you can let them go at 3:30 on Memorial Day weekend, like on Friday afternoon at 3:30, do you know how grateful they’re gonna be? Literally floating out the door to their car. I love doing that for my staff here, and I used to do that for my staff back at Care Choice, back in the day when I had my home care company, and it made them feel appreciated. They were so grateful. They showed up home early, even if it was something where all they got to do was go and get their nails done or something because they had extra time that wasn’t planned for them to have it. That means the world to staff, and that’s a great way to show that you care about them and help to improve that burnt out feeling.
The next thing you can do, and this is one of my favorite things to do, is buy lunch for your staff. I think back to the days when I had my company, Care Choice, and we used to do a working lunch every single Monday. We would do our weekly meeting; it started at 11:00 AM. We ordered food at the very beginning of that meeting, at 11. The food would arrive around 11:30. We would continue what we were doing. Around 11:45 is when we’d break for lunch. We’d eat for 30 minutes, and then we’d continue to work after that. But everybody knew, on Mondays, and we would argue where we’re gonna order from. “This Monday, we’re gonna do Italian.” “This Monday, we’re gonna do Chinese.” “This Monday, we’re gonna do sub sandwiches from the hoagie shop up the street,” and so on and so forth. But it was a nice gesture that all of my staff appreciated. Fast forward to today, at Hurricane Marketing Enterprises, I still buy lunch every once in a while. And if you don’t wanna do lunch because maybe I say, “Let’s buy lunch,” and everybody brought in lunch already, and they’re ready to go. Then, it’s like, “You know what? It’s three o’clock in the afternoon. I could use a pick me up.” We have an espresso machine here at the office, but sometimes it’s something to be said about having somebody else make you coffee. And so we’ll do a Starbucks run, or we’ll go to a local place. Like, we have California Cold Company, which is a local coffee shop here in the area. And whenever I say, “Who wants California Cold,” everyone’s like, “Oh me, me, me.” That’s a great way to boost the morale of the people who work for you. They appreciate it. It’s an afternoon pick me up. And what does it cost you? $20, $25? That is $20-$25 well spent for a burnt out staff.
This last tip is truly something special. It’s something that I highly recommend employers do. It’s something that I do regularly. Heck, I did it last week, myself. And the rebrand, the whole reason why I’m sitting here right now, talking to you, operating as Home Care Evolution, all came because of this tip, which is spending one-on-one time during business hours with your staff, but talking about them and what is going on in their lives. So I think back to October of 2021. Before I came up with the Home Care Evolution rebrand, I sat down with one of my staff members who said she’d like to make more money, and not make more money because she’s not grateful for what she’s making. She’s making good money, and she’s happy here, but she wants to be able to advance and make more. And I said, “Well, in order for us to make, and for you to make more, we’d have to generate more as a company, but we can figure that out.” So that led me down this whole process of coming up with a new goal for the following year, getting the buy-in and the commitment from every single person on my team, and telling them that, if we hit this goal as a company, you will hit this goal at your personal income. So now, they have to do the work with me, leading it, to get to this number for the company, and you will make what you wanna make. Talk about creating an opportunity to get everybody to increase their performances and be more efficient at what they do, in the same amount of time, to help the company grow. This is what further led us to rebranding it and a new logo and these nice videos and everything. That all came from our commitment to improving what we do for you, our clients, so that we can get more clients and grow the revenue. All from that conversation.
I think about other conversations that I won’t share because every conversation is personal. But when you have these one-on-ones and you realize that your staff member, maybe they’re going through something, maybe they’re going through a divorce, maybe there’s something going on with their children, maybe it’s nothing, but they just appreciate the fact that you took time out of your day to sit down with this person and talk about them and what’s going on and how are they doing. And if you wanna take this to another level, take them out of the office, go grab a cup of coffee. You heard me mention, earlier in this video, the California Cold Company, right? Part of the reason why I love California Cold Company is the setup of the coffee shop. It’s a café, with chairs and couches and lounging areas. And so a lot of times, when I take my staff for one of these one-on-one personal meetings, I take them out of the office. We drive over to the California Cold Company, sit down, have some coffee, and we just shoot the breeze. You know, I have somebody getting married soon, she just bought a house. Another one of my staff bought a house, and she’s decorating. It’s an exciting time. We’re talking about retirement planning and whatnot. Like, this is a great opportunity for me to get to know my staff better, help them to see what is important and what matters to them in their lives, because if I know what’s important to them that matters in their lives, I can do things like let them go home early to take care of something and boost their morale, so that when it comes time to do the actual work, the hard part of the job, getting caregivers, assigning them to cases, they do it with a smile, and they don’t feel so pressured and burnt out from all the things that they’re dealing with. This is huge.
So again, these are the three things. Close up early every once in a while. Treat them to coffee or lunch once in a while. And then make sure you have one-on-one time planned with each employee during business hours, but keep the conversation about them, not about work. Those three things are great ways to improve and boost the morale of your organization. Now, if you liked this tip, folks, if you like the other tips that I put out, you owe it to yourself to come to the Home Care Evolution conference. Think about it from this perspective. If you think that these videos are good, imagine three days with me and my team training you, where you’re actually paying for the services, right? What are you gonna get from that event? Yeah, we’re gonna help you to adapt to the changing circumstances. We’re gonna help you transform both yourself and your business, so that you can thrive for years to come. Do the right thing, click the link below, and register for the Home Care Evolution Conference, where you know I’m gonna give you everything you need to blow away the competition.
