The post-pandemic staffing shortages in the care sectors have been a major concern. According to a report, the staff vacancy rates in adult social care jobs have decreased and exceeded pre-pandemic levels. This report can be worrying if you are a care home manager. However, by taking some proactive measures, you can successfully motivate your team during a shortage and make your care home an attractive place to work. Here are some tips for you on how to cope with the shortage of staff at your care homes:
1. Prioritising assignments:
Examine the assignments and categorise activities as, high, medium and low priority. Start with high-priority activities and assign them to your most experienced staff. These activities include critical interventions and assessments. Next, focus on the medium-priority duties. These activities can be carried out by staff who are new to the organisation. If possible assign low priority activities to either part time staff, assistive personnel or volunteers.
2. Implement upskilling and reskilling initiatives:
Provide all the resources that enable staff members to upskill themselves. Investing in upskilling your staff will help them learn additional skills to be better equipped to do their job. Reskilling will help your staff to acquire new skills and eventually they can help different teams.
3. Invest in professional development training:
Professional development training helps caregivers to improve their skills and knowledge and it also helps to retain existing staff. This training can include:
- Effective communication: Effective communication skills include verbal, written and non-verbal. A caregiver has to communicate tactfully and clearly with residents, in such a way that both have a good rapport between them.
- Time management: It is the most important skill for caregivers to schedule their tasks properly on time and prioritising tasks as per the need.
- Team-building: Caregivers have to work together toward a common goal of providing the best care possible for residents in the care home.
4. Promote work-life balance:
Promoting work-life balance can help caregivers feel less stressed and more productive. It may also help to attract and retain caregiving staff. Some ways to promote work-life balance include flexible work arrangements and rewarding them for their work. Encouraging caregivers to use their vacation days and taking steps to reduce stress at work can also help promote work-life balance.
5. Recruit additional talent:
By actively recruiting new talent you can help ensure that the residents receive the high-quality care they deserve. This can be done through traditional means such as advertising and job fairs or by reaching out to local colleges and universities. In addition, many care homes are now turning to social media to spread the word about open positions.
6. Create a positive environment:
By creating a positive environment, you can attract new staff members and retain existing employees. This means ensuring that employees feel valued and supported in their roles. It may also involve providing additional training or opportunities for career development. In addition, it is important to create a positive culture within the care home. This can be done by encouraging caregivers to work together as a team and supporting them in their efforts to provide high-quality care.
7. Look for ways to streamline their daily work:
There are many ways to streamline the work of caregivers. One of the effective ways is to adopt the digitisation of health records. You can implement an EMR system in your care home
In addition to digitization, streamline the medication administration in your care home. eMAR can help your care home automate medication management and administration processes. With eMAR, caregivers can access resident records with just a few clicks. This can make the medication round more efficient and accurate. There will be less confusion due to illegible writing and missing notes. Making weekly and monthly reports will become much easier with eMAR. Caregivers can also manage medication inventory by linking the pharmacy to the software. The pharmacy will get orders on a real-time basis.
