From changing labor practices and how operators staff communities, senior living providers are finding new ways to optimize profitability and reduce costs around staffing.
It’s no secret that operators have had persistent staffing issues since the pandemic struck three years ago, including rising wage expenses helping to compress margins, a competitive labor market for new workers and issues with retention.
By 2031, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects almost 2 million job openings in health care-related positions, from nurses to health aides. The mass exodus of health care staff since 2020 will ultimately strain both senior living and skilled nursing operators, said Julia Eiland, who serves as vice president of consulting people and culture for Health Dimensions Group.
“We still have a few more years to go before we can start seeing significant improvement in our staffing levels,” Eiland said, citing BLS data that shows health care-related fields won’t return to pre-pandemic levels until around 2027.
While demographics from a consumer perspective remain strong for senior living with the influx of the baby boomer population, Eiland noted another BLS statistic that showed how the overall, working-age U.S. population will grow 0.7% by 2027. That contrasted with those turning 65 and older increasing 15.3%; 10.8% turning 75 and up and 8.2% over 85 and up by 2027.
“Our senior population is growing faster than the employment population, which brings us more challenges,” Eiland said.
Staffing model shifts to meet changing needs
In the past, operators have staffed facilities using ratios of around one staff member per six to eight residents. That’s shifting as the acuity of patients rises as they enter senior living communities, according to RM Management COO Chris Kresbach.
Kresbach said he believes there’s been a rethinking of just how operators approach staffing levels in the last three years.
“I think there’s a march towards staffing based on acuity,” Kresbach said during a Health Dimensions Group webinar on March 30. “You have to be very in-tune to what your business is, what your strengths are and what your model is and it’s ever-changing because your population is always aging.”
RM Management has four communities in the Midwest.
That trend is more common as the number of chronic conditions AL residents manage while in communities is over a dozen.
Typically, labor is the largest expense in any operation and managing those costs can be a challenge. To be prepared for those challenges, Kresbach said operators should consider having a staffing coordinator in place and other human resource leaders to help manage costs.
“You have to think carefully on how you support that person and prevent them from burning out,” Kresbach said. “They carry so much institutional knowledge about the building and about the way it lives and breathes.”
A staffing coordinator position helps operators manage staffing shortages, unexpected absences and crafting an adaptable schedule.
Eiland emphasized the importance of a community’s human resources team and scheduler needing to be “joined at the hip” with hiring managers to ensure that new hires are brought through proper orientation.
“The scheduler needs to make sure that the line of communication is open with that HR manager making sure they were able to post open positions and know who’s leaving an organization,” Eiland said.
By coordinating the flow of new and existing employees, HR can focus on retention; and labor costs can stabilize if a strong leadership base is in place overseeing daily operations, Eiland added.
According to Health Dimensions Group Executive Vice President of Operations Sharon Thole said leadership on staffing can be directly correlated to bringing down staffing costs. One way to improve staffing issues was to set an end-date goal for eliminating staffing agency labor.
“It comes down to managing your people,” Thole said. “It has to be led by the administrators and executive directors of our communities to set that vision every single day that we need to get out of agency or control labor costs.”
Frontline staff can also assist in improving overall labor challenges if leadership communicates properly with them, from identifying routines, work patterns and generally offering insight into the daily operations that some leadership might not be aware of, Thole added.
Adapting to change
Senior living operators are keen to attract new workers, and many organizations are being more aggressive in hiring and recruitment, including by offering greater incentives than perhaps ever before. At HDG, the company conducts quarterly market analysis reports on labor and wages to stay current, Thole said.
Operators must have technology platforms in place to manage staffing and to allow for flexible scheduling. By streamlining labor and staffing issues, operators can better focus on other areas of operations, Eiland said.
“The key challenge herein it all is just the ability to retain staff,” Eiland said. “In some cases it’s not necessarily a recruiting challenge, it’s a retention challenge.”
By using technology to support staffing, operators can identify overtime expenses more quickly and prevent additional costs. While implementing new technology can be costly, Eiland saidstaffing software is a necessity in today’s world because it can streamline staffing issues and bring better cohesion to a community.
“Technology is pretty much a must in today’s standards when it comes to staffing,” Eiland said. “If you’re using paper, get rid of it. Technology will help us manage our labor costs more effectively.”
Kresbach said tech platforms can also better position an operator’s staffing resources while also tracking employee metrics.
“It allows us to be able to be a lot more proactive,” Kresbach added. “You want these systems to integrate as much as they possibly can.”
Eiland said managing labor can also take the form of simply listing out priorities by leadership to work towards, something that takes daily engagement and practice among leaders and frontline staff.
In the end, working on employee and labor issues led HDG to find financial stability, allowing the company to stay competitive, Thole said.
“The overall benefit of managing our biggest expense is that it allows more cash to be put back into our organization and our people,” Thole said.
The post How Technology, New Staffing Models Can Trim Senior Living Labor Costs appeared first on Senior Housing News.
Source: For the full article please visit Senior Housing News
Be First to Comment