In yet another sign that the needle is moving in the right direction, two major trade publications for long-term care providers ran features last month on how to empower direct-care staff so residents and organizations can benefit more from their input.

In Provider magazine’s “Working on CNA Empowerment,” (pdf) author Joanne Kaldy advocates both classroom and on-the-job training to develop clinical and leadership skills. She also quotes experts on the importance of actively soliciting and acting on CNAs’ input - and then making sure they see how their ideas have been implemented.

“When DONs and other interdisciplinary team leaders encourage and empower CNAs to report their insights and to take an active role in care planning and quality assurance, patients benefit, nurses have more time to do their jobs, families are happier, and facilities function better,” she writes.

Meanwhile, in Nursing Homes Long Term Care Management, Susan Gilster and Jennifer Dalessandro write about transforming organizational culture. Workers need a shared vision to work toward, they say. They also need respect, information in the form of a thorough orientation and ongoing education, and recognition for a job well done.

“Leadership is critical in the recruitment and retention of staff,” they write in “Creating a Successful Workforce Culture.” An organization’s top leader need not lead the change, but he or she must genuinely champion it. And everyone on the staff must be involved. Organizational culture change, they warn, is more than just a philosophy or a mission statement. “It must be more concrete, with a global, systematic, organization-wide plan involving leadership and all staff, all departments…. It is, in essence, a collective leadership model.”

To make it work, you have to hire the right people to begin with and then give them the tools they need to operate autonomously. “All too often, we talk about empowering employees, but rarely about preparing and educating them to be empowered,” they write. “An empowered employee can be a tremendous asset-an extension of leadership-but an uneducated yet empowered employee can be a nightmare.”

Elise Nakhnikian is PHI’s Senior Online Editor