My mom has been in a board and care home for the last year. It’s a small home with several caregivers - two of which are the primary caregivers to my mom (and her 3 other housemates) and a third who is the night person. There are a also a couple very young part-timers in the home at times.
I was planning to give them Visa gift cards. I am struggling with the amounts - I feel kinda weird giving some more than others (because I assume they might compare at some point) but think the two main caregivers deserve more as they do more of the main daily care and get more of the brunt of her “bad” behavior (she hit one and spit food in the face of the other at points in her care). Also, the home is owned/run by a hospice nurse.
They have all been pretty great - especially lately when she took a turn for the worse and we thought it might be the end. The owner/nurse ended up spending some night time there out of concern, and then asked if I wanted to stay there at night to make sure she didn’t pull her IV out. I recently retired, so I was glad to help, especially since they don’t have or charge extra for an “awake” staff at night.
I was thinking $200-300 for the two main caregivers and possibly the night guy, and significantly less for the younger ones since they’re not there much.
What about the owner....do I include her - or not, since she’s the owner? I have no idea how well her caregivers are paid - but they have been with her for a number of years, I think - so that may be an indication. But she seems VERY financially comfortable, and I’m sure the caregivers are not in that same position.
For the owner, I wouldn’t give her $200-300 like her employees get. & yeah I -as a sm biz owner- totally understand she owns it hesitancy / stickiness on this. I’d suggest that you give her a gift card from a better grocery store (& perhaps 1 that has a liquor Dept if you have these in your state) AND a gift tray of goodies from the store. This way she can share something immediately with her staff AND use to gift card to do it again later or just buy for herself & her family if she prefers to.
Also on the VISA GC, some of these have a service fee that’s done atop the card value. Like you as the buyer pay an extra $5.00 to buy a Visa card. I find this beyond irritating. Your bank sell Visa GC without the fee.
My mother had a giant meltdown, of course, b/c she wanted to hand them out to who SHE wanted to hand them out to, and wanted me to 'fix' it for her. Which I can't do. We were actually in the 'wrong' the past few years by doing what we were doing, so............
If it's okay for you to hand out gift cards at YOUR discretion in your mom's place, then do as YOU see fit. I think your ideas sound wonderful, and the CGs should be thrilled at your generosity!
Although not the same thing, we have a couple of services we use on a regular basis that the owner is still somewhat hands-on - although not nearly as much as the people he/she employs. While we tip the workers, we have never tipped the owner, and it hasn't ever been "awkward", if you know what I mean.
Hope this helped.
I am sure that they will appreciate it.