Is Being A Personal Support Worker (PSW) A Good Job? (Pros and Cons)
Personal Support Workers are a type of healthcare personnel employed specifically to take care of people with limited capacity to adhere to the common daily activities.
Such a job is therefore seen as a medium that lets you do your bit for the betterment of society.
It in one of the careers that makes a difference in people’s lives. Ahead of these, there are a series of practical advantages and downsides of the profile.
The following article aims to analyze if getting a job as a personal support worker is worth it.
Pros and Cons of PSW Job Profile
Pros
1. You Can Make a Difference
Being a personal support worker, you are blessed with a chance to help and support people who cannot independently perform the basic activities of routine life.
It takes a lot of trust to hand over the life of a loved one to someone else’s hand. Considering the fact that you would now be responsible for the betterment of such a person, makes you feel liable and fulfilled.
You will find a different level of happiness in bringing smiles to the gloomy faces that have lost the hope to live.
2. Short Term Training Program
Working at a healthcare facility or aiming for a career in the medical field generally requires rigorous and extensive training. However, the PSW courses and training programs are a considerable relief in this regard.
With a course duration of just a few months, you can become eligible for a Personal Support Worker profile in the shortest possible time. Moving ahead, the educational qualifications to avail such courses are also quite diverse.
Most of these courses come with complimentary, in-field placement programs that work to facilitate you with a job as soon as you complete the course.
This affordably means that you will never have to keep running into looking for a vacancy in the profile. Considering that the average nurse practitioner salary in Michigan is s $86,780, this makes the courses worth it!
3. High Rated Demand for PSWs
The PSW career path is always packed with job opportunities, owing to various factors. Topping the charts is the increased growth in the aging population and scarcity of medical staff at healthcare facilities.
With more people growing older, the demand for home care personnel has witnessed an exponential hike. Secondly, the already fewer staff engaged in PSW functions are aging to retire at a rapid rate.
In the light of these aspects, the profile has become an evergreen reserve of job prospects.
Cons
1. High Emotional Stability Is Demanded
Being a personal support worker, you are expected to be ready for new and random challenges. There may be a series of situations that will test your emotional stability regularly.
If you are meant to tend to a mental, cognitive, or chronically ill person, things can become even worse.
You may have to tackle unreasonable behavior, angry outbursts, and even the painful experience of a close patient leaving the world.
Are you an introvert who may not be able to handle that? If yes, check out this article where we highlight the best job opportunities for introverts.
2. Variable Pay and Shift Work
The PSW profile has hectic shifts and long working hours. You may have to manage extraneous assignments and last-minute calls, leaving you with no free time of your own.
Another aspect that keeps job seekers away from this profile is the variation in payment. Most of the time, you may feel like working on an underpaid job.
This is because every client has different attention requirements and payment policies.
