Developing a professional means fostering positive career choices and ensuring that your employees feel that you are invested in their capabilities and want to see them grow. Are you setting them up for success?

I’ll admit it: I went down an internet rabbit hole searching for an inspirational quote related to professional development to start off this month’s blog. Usually when I go down these rabbit holes, I just find fluff and maybe one quote that isn’t unbearably cheesy, and surprisingly I found one inspirational quote that really stuck with me.  

Go where you are celebrated, not merely tolerated.” —Paul F. Davis.  

When I was leading teams of home health and hospice staff, I always made a point to celebrate my employees. Whether it was a birthday, a positive CAHPS score, a compliment from a patient, or some sort of career advancement, I made it into a big deal. Everyone likes to be acknowledged, right?  

The words in the quote resounded to me because that term, professional development, has changed for most organizations. It is the title for mandatory training and seems to have morphed to focus less on the growth of an employee and more on the completion of their mandatory course transcript.  

Professional development has become the token term for the education that you are required to give your employees, occasionally expanded it to additional training and certifications that may or may not be optional based on your organization. The term is commonplace and employees may have a reflexive eye roll when they hear professional development (or visions of a falling asleep in front of a boring power point presentation with an accompanying quiz).  

Professional development is not the same as developing a professional. There is a difference.

Are you making efforts to not just tolerate the existence of your employees and hand them a paycheck after a week or two of work, but are you molding them into an asset, a celebrated piece of your organization’s collective puzzle? 

Further, what does developing a professional really mean? How do you do that?  

I believe the answer is to pay attention to the skills that employees already have and identify what else can be done to make them better.  

Activated Insights has learning paths meant to grow the skillset of the individual caregiver or clinician, and therefore the entire organization. We want our learners to not just earn a certificate for taking a course, but earn a professional education that further develops them, and enhances them in their current profession.  

Developing a professional means fostering positive career choices and ensuring that your employees feel that you are invested in their capabilities and want to see them grow. You want yourself and your employees to not just pass a quiz and have a completed transcript on file. You want them to be skilled workers that enjoy their profession and value being in your organization as much as you value employing them.  

TEST your professional development 

So TEST yourselves and ponder whether or not you think you can or maybe already have implemented these tips to develop a professional in any healthcare arena:  

Teach

Engage

Support

Trailblaze

Think about TESTing yourself and your organization as a whole, especially when it comes to training and developing true professionals.  

Employees will stay and be loyal if they feel more than just tolerated as filling space in a given role. An employee who feels like they are just getting by with the mandatory training for the year “because they have to” will not feel valued. An employee who knows that an organization wants them to be successful, skilled members of their team will embrace training opportunities and have that feeling of value. Don’t forget, the people that feel valued will deliver a higher quality of care.  

Let Activated Insights help you provide that value by using our training catalog to it’s full potential! Above all, go out and TEST yourselves to develop professionals! 

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