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Our friends from Compass are sharing their strategies for training. Written By – Emma Norton and Dr. Alicia Woodworth, Psy.D
Training is more than a requirement; it’s the basis for exceptional service delivery from our direct care experts. Our meticulously designed training programs serve as the foundation for setting clear expectations, instilling fundamental principles of outstanding care, and translating our values into actionable steps. By prioritizing staff development, we elevate our care to an art form, ensuring that each client receives a uniquely tailored experience for their individual needs. So, what’s our secret? It all begins with our three key approaches to developing successful training plans: leveraging technology, fostering engagement, and aligning values with the skills we teach to empower our direct support professionals. Now, let’s delve into each of these strategies.
Technology Partnerships
With technological advancements happening at such a rapid pace, embracing new innovations has provided significant advantages for our company’s training initiatives. QSP’s sophisticated platform offers a simple, user-friendly process to streamline our training needs and goals easily and effectively allowing us to empower our direct support professionals.
We integrate our training content into QSP by uploading our virtual lessons, then simply assigning these materials to our staff. Additionally, we have the capability to bundle lessons together, allowing us to assign all required training to new staff members within seconds. Some of our lessons even incorporate quizzes at the conclusion of the video to ensure that our care professionals grasp and retain crucial information effectively. With QSP we can also have staff review written training documents and sign off using the digital signature they already have stored in QSP, making the acknowledgment and storage of important training documentation quick and efficient. If there’s ever any doubt about a staff member’s training status, we can easily generate a report to see their progress and any outstanding requirements—all with just the click of a button. By uploading our content and letting QSP handle the rest, we make training a breeze to access for our team members and even easier for our supervisors to monitor.
Additionally, each member of our team has access to the mobile application for QSP, allowing them to complete training with ease, regardless of their location. With all this information readily available at the touch of their fingertips, our direct care professionals are equipped with everything they need to deliver exceptional care.
Empower Direct Support Professional (DSP) Engagement
Training is less effective if our employees aren’t fully engaged in their own development. While the primary beneficiaries of trained DSPS’s are our clients, it’s crucial for our staff to find value and fulfillment in their learning journey.
We prioritize employee engagement through innovative methods, one of which involves our unique incentive system: DSP-Bucks. We give DSP-Bucks to recognize and reward the hard work of our care team, especially with supplemental training and workplace development completions. Employees can choose how they wish to redeem their earned DSP-Bucks, whether it’s for branded merchandise, gift cards, or other rewards available on our online store.
We also believe in creating continuous personal growth opportunities for our lifelong learners to further promote employee engagement. For administrative staff, we host “Lunch and Learn” sessions, while for field staff, we organize “Lunch+” sessions once per month on a virtual platform. These gatherings aren’t just about food; they’re about feeding the minds of our team. Our sessions cover a diverse array of topics, spanning from essential administrative skills, like mastering Excel, to personal development and sleep hygiene. This allows every member of our team to have opportunities to explore their interests, expand their knowledge, and engage with others around them.
Additionally, we conduct All-Hands training three times per year, where all staff come together either in the office or virtually to learn and discuss important topics. These All-Hands meetings serve as a cornerstone of our community-building efforts. By bringing together our entire organization, we reinforce our shared purpose, learn new content applicable to care work, and foster a sense of belonging among our staff members. Through our collaboration and appreciation efforts, we ensure that every individual feels valued and supported in their role.
Integrating Values with Training Philosophy
Establishing a training system that embodies our company’s fundamental principles is paramount to ensure consistent service delivery. Our comprehensive curriculum begins with foundational courses on our culture and philosophy, ensuring staff understand our company’s core values and the “why” behind our practices before progressing.
Should staff encounter any challenges during their training journey or encounter technical difficulties, our dedicated Training and Excellence team stands ready to assist and troubleshoot as necessary. Emphasizing our value of community, we facilitate group learning sessions and host virtual meetings multiple times per month to accommodate staff participation from various locations. Whether attending from another client site or remotely from home, we offer personalized pathways for staff development, catering to diverse learning styles. Our training team also regularly reviews and updates our training materials to ensure our products maintain the level of excellence our staff and clients deserve. Just as we prioritize individualized care for our clients, we customize each training pathway to align with the specific role of the employee. This task is made especially simple given the capabilities of QSP for our training delivery.
Our direct care workers are equipped to deliver personalized care tailored to each client’s needs. This process begins with efficient training planning, which involves our partnership with QSP, enhancing engagement, and aligning company values with training strategies. We look forward to continuing to provide our employees with the excellent quality training and support we have implemented into our company’s daily operations and hope to see others join us in elevating the standard of care delivery for direct care workers everywhere.
