Scheduling can be chaos – but does it have to be? Managing the fluctuating staffing needs of the organization, dealing with employees’ preferred working hours, and trying to do this all under budget is a daunting yet critical task. It can feel like you’re playing a complicated version of Concentration, trying to memorize what and where all the cards are and then having to match the correct cards together. And administrators are at the forefront of making sure each and every day goes off without a hitch!

With the increasing pressure from PBJ staffing requirements for compliance and the need to provide employees with a great work-life balance to compete in an ever-shrinking hiring pool, automating scheduling is no longer just a convenience but a necessity. Great scheduling software not only provides value to your management team but also ensures that both your staff and residents receive the best possible care.

Going back to our Concentration example, imagine that instead of having to remember where each card is once flipped upside down, you have a program that tells you exactly what each card is... and then matches them for you. If turning scheduling from a memory game into an automated process sounds interesting to you, we have compiled three automation features that your facility must have to provide the highest quality of service to everyone within your facility.

Matching Staff to Their Preferred Work Schedule

Each staff member at your facility has their own preferences for when they can or want to work. Accommodating these preferences is important for increasing employee satisfaction and reducing turnover at your organization. While it may be simple to manage work hour preferences for a small team or a standard business with normal operating hours, your facility is anything but standard. Manually tracking and managing shifts across all times of day (and night!) for hundreds of employees is a complex and time-consuming task.

With automated scheduling software, this logistical nightmare can be unwound at the press of a button. Employers and caregivers agree to a preferred work schedule, and the software will take that into account when creating future schedules. For example, say a nurse prefers working morning shifts on weekdays so that they’re able to finish in time to pick up their kid from school. Instead of someone being tasked with validating every single employee’s work preferences each week, the scheduling software can automatically take this preference into account. This not only makes each nurse happier now that their work-life feels more balanced but also reduces the administrative burden on managers. Everyone wins!

Matching Staff to Quotas

On the other side of the same coin, your facility also has needs that must be accommodated though the scheduling process. Health care facilities often have specific staffing requirements for different units to ensure both optimal care and compliance with regulations. Manually tracking the credentials of the staff members that are assigned to each unit to make sure that everything is in compliance opens your facility up to unnecessary risk of human error. Not having the proper personnel on staff that day is a mistake that cannot be made in a health care setting.

There are a few different ways that scheduling software can handle this, but by far the best is for it to allow you to customize units to mirror your own facility and then automatically validate that your staffing quotas have been met. Rather than having to manually assign who is working where on what day and trusting that they won’t make an error, your scheduling software can simply make sure you aren’t understaffed (or, in some cases, overstaffed). Bonus points if it’s also displayed in an easy-to-understand way for quick validation by an admin.

Matching Labor to Budget

Of course, one of the key factors to keep in mind for any successful business is your budget. Overtime can quickly become a financial burden for any organization, and not having checks and balances in place can lead to unmanaged overtime and overspending on labor. While overtime isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it should be something that you’re utilizing with intentionality.

Automated overtime alerts make accidental overtime a thing of the past. They automatically notify managers when an employee is approaching their overtime threshold, allowing for proactive adjustments to the schedule as needed. This not only keeps your team within budget but also prevents staff from being over-assigned work, leading to burnout. When managing so many people, it can be easy to accidentally over work members of your team without even realizing it.

The Key to Organizing the Chaos and Matchmaking Like a Pro

Balancing a schedule as complex as those required by organizations in the health care industry is no small feat. The more needs that are able to be “matched” successfully, the more efficient your facility will be able to be ran, leading to a higher quality of service being provided. But there are many different needs competing for priority, with no easy answer as to which should be prioritized in an industry where low quality of service is not an option.

Automated scheduling is not just about convenience but also critical for achieving operational efficiency and increasing employee satisfaction (a.k.a. retention). By implementing automated employee work schedules, staffing quotas, and overtime alerts, you can take back control of your once chaotic scheduling process with a single press of a button.

At Viventium, we understand that finding the right scheduling software can be a daunting task. That’s why we have been working to create the best possible scheduling solution for organizations in the health services industry. Helping you organize your organization’s schedule is just one of the many ways that Viventium continues to be forever in it with you.

This information is for educational purposes only, and not to provide specific legal advice. This may not reflect the most recent developments in the law and may not be applicable to a particular situation or jurisdiction.