Translating Training into Practice

Some organizations faced the challenge of finding a way in which employees’ newly acquired skills could be used. One nursing home reached a point where its organizational structure could not support or utilize the senior level skills of all the CNAs trained through ECCLI. In addition, supporting the higher salaries of the senior aides began to

strain the organization’s already tight budget. As a result, some employees had completed all the training necessary to advance through the career ladder but had not received associated pay raises because the nursing home was unable to utilize their skills. Similarly, the home had difficulty in sustaining a distinction between their entry-level CNAs and those CNAs trained through the career ladder to be mentors. Because of low turnover rates at the nursing home, there were few new CNAs to mentor and, as a result, the skills of those trained as mentors were seldom needed or utilized.

Other organizations, particularly those that had offered advanced clinical training, found it difficult to match employees with newly acquired skills with the appropriate set of residents or clients so they could apply these skills. At least two organizations recognized the difficulty of turning learning into practice and either designated or planned to hire someone who could focus on turning advanced training into everyday practice. However, despite this strategy, difficulties remained due to the aforementioned resistance on the part of supervisors. Without supervisor support for the use of their subordinates’ new skills, it was difficult for organizations to effectively translate training into practice. Finally, some nursing homes faced similar training-to-practice challenges when they attempted to establish career ladders for non-CNA frontline workers, such as dietary aides and housekeepers. Although these nursing homes had good intentions in setting up such career ladders, they soon realized there was little need for advanced skills within the dietary and housekeeping departments. Generally, dietary and housekeeping mangers were already in place and the additional employees with advanced skills were not

necessary and, in some cases, could not be supported by the organization’s infrastructure. Thus, although some employees were trained in advanced dietary and housekeeping skills, these skills generally were not put into practice. For this reason, one nursing home chose to abandon the idea of career ladders for dietary and housekeeping staff and,

instead, focused on training dietary and housekeeping staff interested in becoming CNAs.

5.11 Partnerships

Overall, organizations had positive experiences with their external partners and faced fewer challenges with them than within their own organizations. Those partnership challenges that were encountered were, for the most part, organization-specific and cannot be generalized across all organizations. For example, one nursing home encountered difficulty in working with its WIB because the WIB experienced some turnover, and new WIB employees had difficulty incorporating ECCLI responsibilities into its new positions. Another organization found its WIB to be “not very helpful’ because the WIB wanted to direct training efforts on its own, with little input from the organization. Another nursing home found its transportation vendor to be unreliable and had to find an alternate vendor. A fourth nursing home found the computer training organization with which it partnered to be of poor quality and its partner adult education program to be too small to serve the facility’s needs. As a result, the facility had to establish new partnerships to better meet its computer training and adult education needs. Community colleges

Two organizations—one nursing home and one home health agency—experienced the shared challenge of partnership difficulties with community colleges. The nursing home had partnered with a community college to provide college credit computer courses for its employees. However, the college underwent a change in administration that resulted in an inability of the nursing home to continue its alliance with the college. The home health agency attempted to partner with two community colleges but found both attempts to be unsuccessful. The first community college was “not on board” with what the agency was attempting to accomplish. The second college initially helped the agency to implement a bridge-to-nursing program that would aid CNAs in their pursuit to become LPNs. However, the college later decided not to pursue an RN to MSN program rather than an LPN program. As a result, the agency dropped its partnership with the community college.

Other LTC organizations

Some organizations reported that working with other nursing homes or home health agencies was difficult. One nursing home’s difficulties stemmed from problems in establishing trust and difficulties in coordinating schedules with other organizations, as well as their lack of clear goals and objectives. The nursing home did, however,

eventually establish a successful partnership with another LTC facility, which resulted in additional capacities and expertise for the nursing home. Additional problems included difficulty in working out training times convenient to all parties and differences in geographic location that made it difficult for organizations to share training classes.

5.12 Summary

Although organizations experienced challenges due to CommCorp requirements, the external environment and their partnerships, the majority of challenges were intra-

organizational in nature. Key among these were the unanticipated need for staff ABE and ESOL, difficulties in providing staff coverage during training, supervisor attitudes toward ECCLI and the translation of training into practice. These are challenges that were nearly universal among all organizations and, as such, challenges which may be faced by other ECCLI-funded organizations now and in the future. By addressing these potential challenges in the early stages of ECCLI implementation, an organization is likely to see more positive outcomes of its ECCLI activities and training programs.