Employer Quotes

The quotes below are about this issue:
Other program improvement suggestions include having more hands-on training at the beginning of the program; providing the option of a financial track; standardizing CNA requirements; and working with non-traditional students on career development.

Employer Quote	Region
"This is going to be a challenge for the educators just because there's so much to be taught, but the students need leadership skills. And, you know, maybe financial training could be a special track in the BSN or MSN programs."	Metro
"One of my hopes would be if schools could be very stringent and really look closely at their curriculum and who they're letting through into internships and beyond and graduating. I've heard of at least one program that has changed grades—and this is speaking to CNAs not lab techs—but I have somebody who works for me that teaches at a school, and grades have been changed to get somebody through the program. It's a huge disservice. But I've also hired somebody who really never should have made it through. This person chose the absolute wrong career, and it broke my heart because it's a very nice person. But, you know, they just couldn't cut it in the lab."	Metro
"I was thinking about trying to do some of that coursework in the beginning instead of all in the end. I mean, they do all their hands-on things towards the end of the training. If they did the hands-on piece at the beginning, they could see if this is really what they want to do before they've invested all this time and effort into the coursework. And sometimes they feel like, 'This is what I have to do because my mom and dad just paid all this money for me to get this degree, even though I found out that it isn't really a good fit.'"	Northeast
"Employer 1: This is an economically-depressed area. And the only way many students can become RNs or get their baccalaureate degrees is through the process of completing a nursing assistant program. And then, in time, doing their LPN, and then—in time again—doing their RN. And doing it in their spare time because so many of them are married, have children, and have jobs. It's unbelievable what these people are living with in order to go to school. And that's a real issue here. Employer 2: So, there might be ways higher education can link up with the schools and identify—maybe there are people that are trying to re-integrate after being out of the workforce for a while. No different than integrating someone who is a homemaker that is coming back and has kids and things to take care of. So, maybe higher education needs to look at how they would they offer the programs. Someone mentioned the possibility of online, but I can't imagine doing that with little kids around..."	Northwest
"I don't know what the businesses feel about this, but when students get into that path in college, if the economy changes, if requirements change on occupations, then that needs to be very transparent. Because students need to be able to shift, rather than start back at the beginning, so we keep getting them in that pipeline."	Northwest
"Relative to the degree piece of it, I think a lot of that is about career development, too. So, wherever you start, we have to look at how we help people develop over the course of their career and what's their next step. And so, if you start with an aide, and then you move from LPN to RN, what might be that trajectory? Some of it's traditional, and some of it's non-traditional kinds of things—and I think some of that might play in there a little bit more. So, I think, as we stratify more of that to where some of that fits in with people—typically professionals are still looking for both career and personal growth."	Southeast
"Employer 1: We've talked about three important abilities—verbal communication; intergenerational communication, whether that's within the workforce or whether that's a 20-something nursing staff who is working with a 70-year-old patient or family members; and the critical conversations. Somebody's very ill, a baby is very ill, the anxiety level is high, and the family energy is high. Those are different kinds of dynamics, but they're all about communication. Would you put equal importance on those three areas of training? Do you think they have to be implemented separately? Or could they be embedded in one training component in a curriculum setting? Employer 2: Not at the same time. They're not done that way in the real world so you may as well separate them."	Southeast
"I don't know if all programs have the same curriculum as far as nursing goes, but I do know that the local technical colleges require that nurses be CNAs. I've heard from other schools like [MnSCU college] and bigger ones that you don't have to be a CNA. Maybe they could be streamlined so that everybody has the same requirements? That would be good, so that they have the CNA experience when they come in."	Southeast