Honor Those Who Make Your Facility Feel Like Home
There’s no better time than National Nursing Home Week to show your appreciation for everyone who makes your facility special. Be sure to celebrate all of them—staff, volunteers, and residents—with memorable events and thoughtful gifts.
1. Toast your staff to say “thanks” during National Nursing Home Week. In advance, determine your staff members’ favorite nonalcoholic beverages. Then, surprise each person at a special luncheon by serving his or her drink of choice in a tumbler or water bottle. When all have their drinks, give a toast and tell them how much they’re appreciated.
2. Celebrate the week with great tunes from the past. For each day, pick a decade, such as the 1920s or 1930s, and play songs from the era throughout common areas of your facility using bluetooth speakers. Hold a raffle at the end of the week to distribute the bluetooth speakers among employees. Pass out travel mugs to those who don’t win one.
3. Create a special scrapbook for National Nursing Home Week. Take pictures of all staff and residents (if privacy laws allow) and put them in a scrapbook. Give employees T-shirts the week before and ask them to all wear the T-shirts on picture days. Have the scrapbook ready at the beginning of the week and set it in a common area of your facility.
4. Use this year’s National Nursing Home Week as the time to introduce a new Employee of the Month Program. Add a special twist by naming an Employee of the Month for each department during National Nursing Home Week. Present each honoree with a special gift.
5. Add a little extra excitement to National Nursing Home Week by distributing surprise gifts to staff members. At the beginning of the week, put everyone’s name in a hat. Then, draw a name or two each day. Give the lucky winners an item from a raffle pack.
6. Make your nursing home staff famous! Give all your employees T-shirts to wear on a specific day the week before National Nursing Home Week. Snap group pictures of staff in their T-shirts, doing your best to capture every employee. Then, submit the photos to a local newspaper to be printed during National Nursing Home Week.
7. Help your skilled nursing staff relax and take a break this National Nursing Home Week. Surprise them with an extra 15-minute break during their shift one day. Invite them to stop by your office during that extra break. Have special gifts waiting there for them, such as treat packs.
8. Pick one day during National Nursing Home Week to focus on your volunteers. Ask residents and employees to sign thank-you cards for them. Then, present volunteers with their cards, plus a special token of appreciation.
9. Have a “garden” party in the dining room(s) of your facility. Decorate tables and counters with vases of sunflowers, daisies, or other cheerful flowers. Serve up a special lunch for residents, with picnic foods such as potato salad and hot dogs. When the meal is over, be sure each resident gets to take some flowers back to his or her room.
Need assistance appreciating your amazing nursing home staff?
Speak with a Positive specialist today, call 877-258-1225 or complete the form here.
