I do consulting work at nursing homes, assisted livings, and memory care communities. And sometimes it’s a hard crowd.

Employees don’t want someone to come in and tell them what they are doing wrong. That’s not my goal, of course, but when someone has to come in for a training on their day off, they are a little wary of me.

One of my goals is to make their jobs more fun. It’s that simple. When we have fun at work, we are more productive. Not just direct care workers….everyone.

Think about jobs you’ve had. Think about how productive you were at jobs you enjoyed versus jobs you didn’t enjoy.

At a facility, enjoying your job leads to better care and less turnover. It’s worth it to invest in finding ways to make work fun for your employees.

I would never say that it’s not challenging to work with those living with dementia. (And, I should add, that it’s challenging to live with dementia.) But I’d argue that there has to be some challenge to enjoy your job….because enjoyment at work increases when we have the satisfaction of overcoming obstacles and creating solutions. It feels good to pick up those wins.

And employees should get to celebrate those wins! That’s part of the fun, right?

One of the questions I ask senior living employees is: Within your job, what brings you joy?

Usually someone answers that getting paid brings them joy, and that’s okay. Senior living employees deserve to be paid for the hard work that they do. We know that those who are paid more generously provide better care to residents.

What else brings employees joy?

Connecting with someone.

When I help someone do something that is fun for them.

Making someone smile when they don’t smile a lot.

Helping someone achieve a goal, even if it’s like walking to the bathroom alone.

Calming someone down they were anxious.

These are all responses I have gotten. And I love these responses!

Why? Because we can work on strategies to do these things — things that are enjoyable — more!

How do we make residents smile more? I love the idea of making residents happier, but if we can work on strategies to help staff make residents smile more, it’s great for the resident and also staff. Let’s talk about how to make that happen.

How do we calm down those with dementia when they are anxious? I can teach skills to make staff more effective in alleviating anxiety. That means residents are less stressed, and it also means staff get to celebrate a win. Let’s talk about some methods of anxiety reduction.

I am not sure I’ve met anyone that enjoys every single task they do for their job. Think about jobs you’ve had. Maybe you didn’t like the paperwork, or perhaps you didn’t enjoy the public speaking you had to do. But it’s usually something, right? (And if you’ve had a job where you enjoyed absolutely everything you did, email me at dreshbaugh@gmail.com. I might consider a career change.)

I tell the college students that I teach that you are doing well in life if you like 70% of the tasks you have to do as part of your job. If 30% of your tasks are not enjoyable, you can typically tolerate that because you enjoy other tasks.

The more you enjoy those other tasks, of course, the easier it is tolerate the rest.

Let’s face it. There are parts of working in senior living that aren’t always pretty. It can be difficult and exhausting work.

How do we help staff provide better care and keep them in the field?

We focus on supporting them in finding joy in their workdays.