Increasing productivity in a highly regulated, fast-paced business can be very challenging, and the world of LTC is certainly no exception. Faced with extreme worker shortages and rising demand due to an increasingly aging population makes it very difficult to find and maintain good employees.
Combine these challenges with the need to schedule your staff around compliancy, timeouts and mandatory breaks in a business that operates 24/7 and 365 days a year, and it becomes even more difficult. And these difficulties can take a toll on productivity.
Scheduling Manually
If you’re still using pen and paper, or even digital spreadsheets to plan and keep your LTC staff schedule, you’re missing the opportunity to increase efficiencies. It’s an incredibly time-consuming process that doesn’t offer a reliable holistic overview of your organization’s needs. The result? Your employees will not be active participants in scheduling, which can lead to worker burnout that turns into even higher turnover rates. That affects productivity and your bottom line.
How Technology Can Help
Technology has come a long way in recent years, and having better options with scheduling is no exception. In the complex world of LTC, it’s imperative to use a solution that can automatically put the right workers where they’re needed most, when they’re needed most. One that is based on operational demand, required skills, compliance rules and your workers’ availability and preferences.
Scheduling Decisions for Better Outcomes
Today, solutions exist that can offer real-time visibility and accurate people data, budget constraints and staffing demands that allow you to make more intelligent staffing decisions. Managers, with feedback from their employees, must be able to build schedules that meet the needs of their people, business and clients. Doing so will create a happier, more driven workforce that will be far more effective in the long run.
Stay Compliant
In LTC, regulations must be met, or organizations can be hit with heavy fines. This industry needs a scheduling solution that will automatically identify the workers that meet predefined criteria, so the right workers are assigned to the right shifts, and one that will automatically notify managers if scheduling actions violate established rules. This way, changes can be made accordingly so the business remains compliant, and can do what it’s meant to do – serve its clients without the administration hassles of poor scheduling.
Empower Your People
Using a scheduling solution with self-service features is a smart and easy way to empower your staff and keep the process more transparent. Doing so allows for staff to choose open shifts based on their qualifications and get notified whenever a new schedule is posted, so there are no surprises. Using an easy-to-access solution that is accessible from either a desktop or mobile device is a big plus as well. These simple steps will increase productivity across the board, making for a well-run, efficient business.
If you’re still using a time-consuming manual scheduling processes in your LTC facility, it’s time to look into a better solution. Increase the productivity of your staff and empower them with the UKG Ready solution for scheduling to better meet the needs of your business. Contact us today to learn more and receive a free demo.
