Prior to joining Epoch Elder Care, I had worked as a HR professional mainly in the corporate sector, for 7 years. Joining as HR Head at Epoch was not accidental or incidental. My reasons for choosing Epoch were two-fold (1) It was definitely a natural call from the human inside me, as I am a firm believer that “Blessed is the society that has oldies”. I felt that the job offer from Epoch (Assisted Living Homes for the elderly) will help bring me closer to my morals, ethics and social services, based on the blessings received from the elders. (2) Along with that, I will also grow as a HR professional, given the environment at Epoch and the diversity of the job. So, with my heart-and-mind, I chose Epoch, even though I had other lucrative corporate job offers in my hand.
Epoch has helped me bring to the forefront my hidden potential, and to develop a key trait in myself-which is Emotional Intelligence. I personally feel that any HR Professional, especially in health care setup, must possess Academic Intelligence + Emotional Intelligence, so that there is a good balance between the human side and work side for all of us.
After joining Epoch, I was overwhelmed with all those who work in this elder care organization. Our team at Epoch is not a group of ordinary people, but a young energetic team. The care expertise, love, affection and emotional support that they give to the elderly is amazing, and they have settled with the elders as a happy family in the Epoch homes. It gives me immense pleasure and motivation to work with them. My focus is to ensure that this wonderful team feels empowered, motivated, supported, and we have a high retention rate.
Their induction and orientation is important to make them feel that although they have come from smaller towns and are away from their homes, Epoch is just like their home and we all are a family. On an on-going basis, I and the respective managers have one-on-one meetings with them to listen to their concerns and issues, and conduct regular counseling sessions. I also guide the managers, so that they are oriented to always be attentive and we all ensure that we often praise and compliment this young and energetic team.
Another major issue which we deal with is caregiver burnout. The job which these young caregivers are doing daily requires a lot of patience and ability to empathies. Also, currently due to pandemic, there are restrictions of staying inside. All these take a toll on a person, especially when team members are young and impressionable. I constantly focus on training and equipping our managers to identify the burnout signs. We have an “Employee Wellness Programme”, under which we do lot of activities for team such as cooking competition, quiz competition, role play, competition on creativity skills etc. These activities help them unwind and develop a bond with each other.
At the end, I would like to say that based on my learnings over these three years, I have made a thumb rule at Epoch: Happiness of Elderly internal conflicts; grievances, inter-personal issues. I feel proud to be a member of this Epoch Family, where all team members passionately believe that caring for the elderly ensures Epoch’s success, their success. This is very important for me as an HR person, that the team members are both happy and professionally successful.
