Supporting Healthcare Assistants: Strategies for Leadership

Assessment

Short Essay
You are leading a team of two other Healthcare Assistants, are working in a fast paced and stressful environment, and are responsible for providing care to 10 clients with varying needs.

Following handover from the night staff, you facilitate a morning meeting with your team to run through your expecations for the day and outline who will be responsible for what.

One Healthcare Assistant is time efficient and highly experienced, and the other has worked in healthcare for two months and has received only basic training.

1. As a team leader, consider the duties and subsequent needs of both Healthcare Assistants for the day ahead. Choose one of the following support methods (buddying, coaching or mentoring) for each staff member and discuss how the application of your chosen methods and associated techniques will support their individual needs.

2. Choose a minimum of three practices from The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership (model the way, inspire a shared vision, challenge the process, enable others to act and encourage the heart). Reflect upon and discuss how you will apply each of your chosen practices in order to support your team throughout the working day. Provide contextually relevant examples to support each practice chosen.

(LO1, LO2)
Please attach a reference list to acknowledge the literature sources used to complete this assessment. To support you with formatting your reference list, please refer to the NZTC APA Quick Guide

Buddying

One of the most common opportunities for leadership in a healthcare setting is to support new or low performing staff with integrating and adjusting to their workplace environment. This type of partnership can be described as buddying.

Sometimes, whether someone is new or simply floundering a little, some added reinforcement can be just what they need. Whether it is to calm their nerves, or draw their attention back to the tasks and responsibilities at hand, buddy systems provide an opportunity for the creation and sharing of knowledge (Ledlow & Stephens, 2017).  It is a time to learn and improve, and when working at its best, operates as a two way dialogue.

Buddying involves the intentional pairing of a high performing staff member, usually an advanced or senior Healthcare Assistant, with a low performing or new staff member (Ledlow & Stephens, 2017).  This usually happens during a new staff member’s orientation week, or at any point that an existing staff member requires additional support. The relationship is formally established and expectations are laid out including a timeframe.

Support Methods: Buddying, Coaching, and Mentoring

Buddies are not always responsible for the individual’s performance or skill development, nor are they expected to be an expert on everything. Instead, they have a focus on cultural integration and providing operationally necessary information (Cooper & Wight, 2014).

The role of a buddy usually includes:
Providing insight into the day-to-day activities and responsibilities pertaining to the role and environment
Conducting a tour to identify facilities such as bathrooms, the staff room and job-related resources
Reviewing procedures and policies such as a falls incidents, earthquakes or fires
Cultural integration, exploring what is normal, right or wrong in that environment
Socialising the individual to their environment

Mentoring

Mentors are key individuals who facilitate professional learning and development within a practical environment. This is done through nurturing, role modelling, teaching and encouraging (Gopee, 2015). Mentoring may exist through a formal mentor and mentee arrangement, or by default based on the varied levels of experience within a team, and the organisational needs.

Developing and empowering mentors to support others creates opportunities to exercise and refine leadership qualities, and fosters the development of competent leaders in the workplace (Ledlow & Stephens, 2017). Benefits to the organisation include improved care delivery, improved risk management and workplace safety, increased staff knowledge, and improved employee retention (Seisser & Brown, 2013). Overall, mentoring promotes a workplace culture of learning and improvement (Ledlow & Stephens, 2017).

The aim of a mentor is to train those who are less experienced than themselves, in all areas of their profession (Ledlow & Stephens, 2017). This primarily relates to their job competency, professionalism in the workplace, and role related knowledge. Mentors and mentees should be paired according to their personality and attitudes to ensure a quality and trust-filled relationship is formed.

Key attributes and skills of an effective mentor include active listening, empathy, related skills and experience to support the teaching and learning process, and the ability to communicate clearly and concisely.

The Teaching and Learning Environment
Because mentoring has a focus on teaching and learning, in a mentor and mentee relationship, it is important to consider the learner. Adult learners tend to be self-directed and goal-oriented, and come with a wealth of knowledge and prior experiences which should be seen as a learning resource throughout the mentoring process (Knowles, Holton & Swanson, 2015)

Seisser and Brown (2013) propose the following considerations which can support the establishment of an effective mentor and mentee relationship, and what is needed to empower them moving forward.

The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership

Which skills and strengths are already present?
What needs to be learned?
What existing skills require further development?
What is the expected outcome?

Mentoring Clients
Many of the principles and skills discussed here can also be applied within the context of providing care.
Healthcare Assistants play a key role in empowering clients to manage their own health conditions and related symptoms. There is a responsibility to teach and encourage clients to achieve their goals as outlined in their care plans, make positive health-related decisions, and effectively manage their condition long term.

Coaching

Coaching is the process of evaluating and critiquing a person’s current efforts, identifying areas that can be improved, and then motivating them to achieve greater outcomes (Berry, n.d.).

Coaching is different from mentoring as it is not teaching someone how to do something, instead it is helping someone to get better at what they already know how to do (Berry, n.d.). As an example, consider the coaches role for your favorite sports team. They are not teaching the team how to play, because it is clear they already know how! The coach simply watches, and offers feedback on what they see, and suggests alternate ways of doing things to improve game play and outcomes.

The coaching role in a healthcare setting aims to improve quality. Quality of care, workplace safety, processes, professional relationships, client outcomes, complaints procedures and the list goes on. The important thing to note is that one is generally coaching an already established professional, this means that immense respect needs to be shown. This means refining the art of asking questions to help someone reflect on their own behavior, rather than telling or instructing them on what to do or change (Berry, n.d.).

The role of a coach is generally a senior Healthcare Assistant, team leader or manager, and should be someone who is experienced, established and respected. This individual takes a step back from the day to day and considers care provision from a distance. 

The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership
One model that can be used as a framework for leadership development is the Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership created by James Kouzes and Barry Posner. The model was initially developed following 30 years of research around the common practices of exemplary leaders. Five key practices consistently emerged and, as Kouzes & Posner (2003) point out, these practices are relevant to anyone who aspires to be a great leader regardless of position and when they are applied well, they can enable the development of strong leadership qualities.