What does a typical workday look like in your care home? Do you think your employees are working too hard? Just like any other business enterprise, productivity and operational efficiency are vital factors for success in care homes and nursing homes. Professional carers are usually stressed by the magnitude of their responsibilities, while residents often believe that they require undivided, personalised care and attention. Things aren't all doom and gloom though. Care home personnel can be more effective and productive by practising a few things differently.

Keep reading to discover some helpful and practical tips for care home managers to increase their team productivity. Making these small changes can drastically improve the levels of productivity and efficiency in your organization.

1. Streamline communication channels

When it comes to ensuring the best possible care for your patients and residents, the key element in establishing open and transparent communication channels. Are your employees often occupied with menial yet time-consuming admin tasks when they could be offering superior patient care? Are there any calls to your patients that have gone unanswered? Is there a lack of communication among your staff members? If you find answering ‘Yes’ to these questions, then you need to implement better strategies in your care home for improved communication.

• Introducing a centralized workforce management solution or digitized platform would help in providing real-time alerts and notifications to your staff. In fact, majority of the software solutions like JMS One offer mobile applications that would always keep your staff in the loop even on the go.

• Implement an effective time and attendance tracking system with payroll integration to ensure timesheets and payroll processing are up-to-date and accurate. Using an automated employee scheduling tool would let you focus on delivering a better patient experience freeing you from the burden of many mundane administrative tasks.

• Centralize your recruiting and job booking process. Choosing the right digital solutions for job bookings and recruitments allows your care home to communicate more clearly throughout the entire hiring process.

2. Schedule your employees smartly

Employee scheduling is one of the most challenging tasks in a care home or any other healthcare organization. Thanks to the technology, you can easily manage your employees on track.

Implement employee scheduling software to create fair rotas according to the staff availability, costs and time slots. This would help in filling the shifts quickly and efficiently while notifying the schedules to your staff in real-time through email notifications or push notifications.

When it comes to managing a care home or nursing home, it is essential to make sure you are using the right technology, people and procedures to optimize your employee efficiency and growth.  Here are some easy yet effective ways to schedule your team.

• To guarantee that any personnel allocated to a shift satisfy the shift's demands, use the established skills and competencies criteria. Scheduling personnel with expired credentials is a violation of CQC guidelines and may result in hefty fines.

• Adapt to changes in demand. Demand for your care home or healthcare organization is likely to fluctuate, especially during unpredicted emergencies. Your staff scheduling software should be able to predict when (and where) you'll require employees, ensuring that you're always covered for the greatest possible patient care.

• Make the switch to mobile. You can't be shackled to your workstation in healthcare. Look for a solution that includes a mobile app so you can make modifications on the go.

3. Track your metrics

Are you tracking the right performance metrics? Do you have a feature-rich data analytics and reporting system in place? When it comes to monitoring care and service delivery, there are a plethora of measures to consider. The best possible care and services for care homes and social care organizations begin and end with their employees. However, how can you assess employee performance without micromanaging employees?

If you use the wrong key performance indicators (KPIs), you risk chasing after improvements that will only have a minor impact on your organizational growth and efficiency. However, monitoring too many at once can be exhausting.  You may improve your agency's service quality and outcomes for your clients by concentrating on the right KPIs.

• Collect feedback from your residents and their family members while evaluating employee performance. Feedback from residents, in particular, can provide a vivid picture of those who go above and beyond to assist residents. Negative feedback is a strong indicator as well. If caregivers are not prioritising excellent care, managers must respond quickly and collaborate with employees to develop a performance improvement plan that highlights the necessity of doing so.

• The most important indicator of an employee's performance is their attendance. Picking up extra shifts, no-call, no-shows, and clocking in or out early or late are all key attendance performance metrics. Each organisation is responsible for establishing attendance criteria and a time limit for these assessments. Employees who are committed and enthusiastic will arrive on time and schedule, but those who are late or repeatedly cancel at the last minute without providing any valid reasons should raise red lights with management.

• Interactions with coworkers are another statistic to examine when evaluating an employee's performance in the workplace because they might show an employee's participation, comfort level, and engagement. When carefully monitored and handled accordingly, employee engagement can help to avoid turnover.

Final Thoughts

Investing in the right technology solutions can help your care home staff spend more time with residents and less time at a desk by replacing the excessive quantities of paperwork they typically have to deal with. Moreover, giving your team more schedule stability, establishing better communication channels and a transparent approach would result in increased productivity and a high return on investment.

If you are wondering how to make your workforce more efficient and productive, then let us guide you with the right technical assistance. Book a virtual demo with us right away.