Staffing shortages due to high employee turnover is an all too real challenge in senior living communities today. Some industry reports even classify this as a crisis that needs immediate action to limit the risk of a dying senior living workforce. Low wages, lack of training, high stress and heavy workloads are all contributing factors to staff dissatisfaction. And without proper staffing numbers, not only can the quality of care for residents be compromised, but the cycle of turnover continues as morale of existing staff is affected – leading to further shortages.
It is imperative that organizations prioritize the training, management and wellbeing of employees in order to successfully recruit and retain. When communities invest in the integration of data-driven operation systems and tools, the quality of life at work can improve and therefore staff burnout can be reduced.
PalCare’s robust reporting and analytics dashboard is helping communities uncover opportunities to proactively address staffing concerns in order to decrease staff dissatisfaction before it leads to employee burnout and turnover. Community managers and directors can now use concrete, employee-level data to understand how a caregiver spends their day in terms of productivity levels, response times, treatment types, and more.
This level of data from PalPortal also helps to hold caregivers accountable for their outputs and uses data to easily classify performance – uncovering areas where caregivers have either exceeded expectations or failed to meet the standard of care. Responding promptly to residents and then spending the necessary time with them is the primary job of caregivers. PalPortal data tracks and visualizes this exchange for leadership in an easily-digestible format, allowing administrators to better understand which caregivers are excelling, which ones need support to grow and which caregivers may be better suited for another position or company.
For example, during a recent analysis of employee-level data within a PalCare community, administrators identified a caregiver who had handled 300% more call volume than other staff members working at the same community during the same shift. This finding illuminated a potential liability for the community — as one caregiver handling a majority of the community’s calls is more likely to end up overworked and exhausted in a short amount of time. This informative data from PalPortal helped the administrators respond quickly to avoid similar occurrences in the future.
Communities equipped with the data-driven facts about their workforce can use the data not only as a monitoring tool but as a rewards and incentives tool. Detailed reports on caregiver outputs have enabled community leaders to recognize the achievements of high-performers to help motivate and retain staff through positive reinforcement. Moreover; this rewards-based culture encourages underperforming caregivers to take the necessary steps towards improving their own outputs. Examples of staff rewards include gift cards, free lunch, branded swag, etc.
Another point of friction in relation to staff turnover is the dynamic between caregivers and residents. When given the choice, caregivers seek employment at data-driven senior living communities due to the emphasis on efficiency and accountability through data analytics. PalPortal allows communities to understand how a resident needs to be cared for – enabling caregivers to take the guesswork out of treatment. As a result, caregiver workloads can be reduced while care outcomes are improved. This confidence in knowing how to effectively and efficiently care for individual residents creates a positive and trusting relationship between the staff, residents and families – ultimately creating a more rewarding and fulfilling work environment for caregivers.
Moreover; data-driven recording helps manage conflict-resolution between caregivers and residents. Conflicting reports and/or experiences between residents and staff is all too common within senior living communities. Because of the fast-paced and dynamic atmosphere within care communities, it can be difficult to pinpoint the truth. PalPortal provides unbiased, data-backed insights, allowing communities to confidently course correct conflicts based on the facts. In some instances, data may demonstrate that residents are receiving more care than they may say or realize. In other cases, the data may uncover areas of improvement for caregivers due lack of care. Whatever the case, the insights from PalPortal can help to inform the necessary steps to conflict resolution including improved training or changes to care.
Integrating data-driven tracking into communities is a solution for improving retention and decreasing turnover in senior living communities. When communities rely on the facts rather than assumption, caregivers can feel confident that their performance indicators are unbiased and accurate. At the end of the day, the caregivers within these communities are imperative to the care of residents. It’s the responsibility of the community leaders to reduce burnout and improve the day-to-day lives of caregivers through reimagined, data-driven strategies that create a more equitable and transparent work environment for all.
