Hiring a home healthcare employee can be challenging. You may have a ton of roles that you need to fill, but you have to be careful about who you hire in these positions. Home healthcare employees have a huge responsibility on their shoulders. You want to make sure that you hire people who can excel in these positions.
Today, we wanted to look at three key traits you should look for in a successful home healthcare employee. We also shed light on how you can identify these traits in an interview.
Trait #1: Empathy
Successful home healthcare employees must display some level of empathy. Home healthcare employees are often taking care of a variety of people they may not personally know. It’s essential for your employees to be able to step outside of themselves and view their clients with respect and dignity. Empathetic people can make better decisions and be there for the people who are in your care.
How Do You Identify Empathy In An Interview?
- Ask scenario-based questions. Put your potential employee in the shoes of a home healthcare employee. Test their empathy by asking open-ended questions based on situations your other home healthcare employees have been in.
- How do they behave with your interviewer? Does this interview feel like a conversation filled with listening and talking or does it feel more like they are just waiting for the next time they can speak up? If they are focused more on themselves than listening and carrying a conversation, they may exhibit those signs when working with their clients.
- What are their career goals? Asking questions that get to know who they are and what they want from their time at your company will showcase their empathy. Are they excited to work because they’ve always loved helping other people or is there some other motive?
Trait #2: Maturity
Next, successful home healthcare employees must show a level of maturity. Your workers are often one of the only decision-makers tasked with taking care of your clients. They need to be quick on their feet and able to make decisions on what needs to happen next. Your employees should be able to own up to decisions and give mature reasons for why they made certain decisions while taking care of patients. Everyone doesn’t have the same level of maturity, so it’s vital to look for these traits while you are recruiting.
How Do You Identify Maturity In An Interview?
- Facing failure. Mature people handle their failure differently from immature people. Ask your candidates about a time when they failed at something. Do they take responsibility for the failure? How did they come back from that failure? Did they let the setback set them back, or did the bounce back from it?
- Asking for help. Mature people ask for help when they need it. Working in home healthcare can be trying at times, so you need workers who are willing to step up and get the help they need without feeling bad about it. Let your potential employees tell you about a time they asked for help at work. How do your candidates react to this question? What do they say?
- Who inspires you? When you ask a potential employee about who inspires them, it shows their maturity. Get them to go a little deeper on who inspires them by asking why that person motivates them. Do they give a superficial answer or one that’s more in-depth?
Trait #3: Patience
Last, but not least, successful home healthcare employees need to show patience. Patience is necessary because your employees will probably have to explain things multiple times, help people do things that people can usually do easily, or have to slow down and wait on clients to do things throughout the day. In a society where everyone is always moving at a fast pace, your employees will have to slow down, and that can test some people’s patience. You want to make sure that your employees have the patience to deal with the various scenarios that may come their way.
How Do You Identify Patience In An Interview?
- How do you keep it together? Patience is not a trait that everyone has. Ask them how they manage to stay patient in tense situations. Are their responses believable?
- Are they easily flustered during the interview? Sometimes patience is worn thin quickly, even with minimal testing. Do they keep their cool throughout the interview process? Do they show any significant signs of impatience?
- Can you pause during an interview? It’s not always about endless chatter. Sometimes you need to take things slow. Can you pause during an interview without the silence needing to be filled with chatter? You don’t want to unnecessarily elongate an interview, but your interviewee shouldn’t be jumping at the chance to fill slight pauses, interrupting too much, or finishing sentences.
Conclusion: These Three Home Healthcare Employee Traits Are Fundamental
With any business, your employees set the tone for your success. When picking a home healthcare employee, you need to be careful with who you decide to hire. Your employees reflect your company, and they interact with your clients on a daily basis. By considering these traits as you hire, you can be sure to employ amazing workers every time.
Do you need specific questions to ask in an interview? Check out our resources for job interview questions you should ask every candidate.