Tackling staff turnover: a novel approach; This innovative program helps entry-level employees surmount life's roadblocks to stay on the job

Nursing Homes, March, 2004 by Linda Zinn

Nicole started as a nursing assistant working the night shift. This allowed her to be at home during the day with her newborn child. However, over time, the grueling schedule became too much for her, and she applied for a Unit Clerk position. The welcome change in schedule was accompanied by another, unwelcome change: She and her husband separated, and he left her with a mountain of debt. Facing significant transition in both her job and family life left Nicole feeling stressed and insecure. She felt she didn't fit in at work. As one of the original participants in the Achieve program. Nicole took advantage of the one-on-one advising sessions to talk about her concerns and chart a course for resolving some of the challenges she faced.

The first major challenge was financial: how to get out from under the debt her exhusband had left her with. Achieve was able to help her access resources to clear her credit and worked on budgeting exercises to help her establish a money management plan for the future. Her second challenge was getting comfortable in her new position. Getting along with coworkers was not always easy. She worked with her Achieve Advisor to develop ways to communicate her concerns in a professional manner. "My Achieve Advisor is my confidence booster. He helped me to initiate the 3S rule that I have grown to live by: Set Goals, Stay Focused, and Support Your Decisions. Weekly he would ask me, 'Have you done what you wrote that you would do [in your Achieve planner]?' And if it wasn't complete, he stayed on me until it was."

Now that Nicole has settled into her new position, she plans to enroll in school to obtain a social work degree. She also works tirelessly to recruit new employees into the Achieve program. "I don't think anyone is really aware of the gold mine that we have come across by having the Achieve program and such great mentors by our sides. I want to be the first to say 'thank you for being there.'"

Angela. Angela has been taking care of others since she was 13 years old--first as a volunteer in a nursing home after school, then as a home health aide, and now as an STNA. She also cares for her two young children, one of whom has chronic medical problems; a husband, who after 10 months of unemployment has only recently started working again; and a father who is undergoing chemotherapy for cancer. Recovering from recent surgery on her own knee, Angela says she can't wait to get back to "her residents." "The job is difficult, for sure, but it is all about caring for them," she says, smiling.

Angela had been working six weeks at the nursing home when she learned about the Achieve program. During one of the first Lunch & Learn sessions, she completed a "Time Wheel," an exercise designed to illustrate whether one's work-home life is in balance. "I held it up and it was all red--all about work--totally out of whack." She had been working full-time and going to school five nights a week since September 2002 for her Medical Assistant certificate, an additional credential that would allow her to earn more money and work better hours. While there wasn't much room to maneuver in her schedule for as long as she was in school, an awareness of the imbalance as a cause of stress helped her to better cope with it. She recently graduated from the program. "I never could have done it without Achieve. My Achieve Advisor guided me through the stress and wouldn't let me quit, although I thought I wanted to many times!"