Safe Help In Your Home

Step Six: Setting up a brief feedback system so you stay current with your client's wishes.

Home
I want to hire in-home help
I provide in-home help
I work for an agency that places workers in clients' homes
Checklists
About Us
Contact Us

No relationship is perfect right off the bat, and good hires, like good marriages, can go bad if people don’t address minor irritations as they arise. Older people who are not thrilled about needing help to begin with rarely speak up in the first few weeks when the employee is learning the ropes. Instead, they wait until their unexpressed frustration boils over and they fire the helper. A short checklist giving a little feedback (Am I talking too much? Too little?) each week can improve worker performance and client satisfaction. Give your client several feedback sheets and ask him/her to fill one out at the end of each week and leave it for you in a specified place. This spares everybody embarrassment and confrontation.

Here’s a sample that you can customize.

Directions:
1. Fill in the left column with the tasks and behaviors.
2. Check a box, 1-4, for each task or behavior.
3. Add a suggestion or two below the grid.

Weekly feedback gives you the information you need to help rather than annoy your clients. It’s a good idea to keep a copy of each week’s feedback in a folder--if there are problems down the road you have a record of how things have been going.

Feedback Font Size 12

Feedback Font Size 18