5 ways to prepare and meet seasonal staffing needs
Some practices that can be established in your facility to account for this increase in the patient volume include:
- Limit employee time off
- Provide greater incentives to work during peak holiday shifts
- Schedule employees well in advance and keep employees informed
- Prioritize senior staff for shift scheduling and time off
- Integrate online scheduling systems into your shift scheduling for greater transparency and flexibility in staffing
- Limit employee time off
Determining time-off policies in healthcare and communicating them to staff allows management and employees to establish realistic expectations for breaks during the busy holiday season. Additionally, explaining why time off may need to be limited during this season enables staff to possess a more positive view of the policies. If management does decide to limit time off, staff will feel better equipped to rely on other members of the care team during the holidays and their shifts.
2. Provide greater incentives for peak holiday shifts
Sufficient staffing is especially required during highly observed holidays when healthcare professionals are inclined to prioritize time with their families. However, it is vital to efficient facility operations that your healthcare team has the ability to adequately care for the high patient volume during this season.
One tool that can be used to ensure that your facility’s shifts are sufficiently staffed is to incentivize your employees to work during peak holiday shifts. It is in the facility’s best interest to increase pay for permanent staff to acknowledge their time instead of hiring agency staff at a higher rate. This practice provides a basis for improved employee morale and trust between staff, administration, and management by recognizing that permanent employees are essential to high-quality care.
3. Create a holiday staffing schedule in advance
Prioritizing employee schedules well before the holidays enables your administrators to reduce stress levels while ensuring that the right staff is scheduled for each shift. Allowing employees to take part in holiday staffing alongside management also leads to a more reliable workforce who feel validated and part of a communicative healthcare team. Therefore, keeping your team informed about scheduling sets a precedent of clear communication between all employees, leading to improved workplace culture and more dependable staff.
- Prioritizing senior staff
Similar to ensuring that permanent staff feels prioritized over agency staff, it is critical to provide senior staff with the earliest ability to request time off and shift preference. Ensuring senior staff with ample experience are taking on shifts to support the facility during the holidays is imperative to the workflow within the care team and to providing quality patient care. Accordingly, acknowledging their value helps maintain a concrete employee base and support system.
- Integrating online schedule systems
Human error is inevitable within healthcare. However, the holiday season adds numerous levels of complexity to an already convoluted task. Nevertheless, online scheduling systems enable administrators to clearly map out and revise scheduling with the help of a platform that can spot holes and problems for each shift and employee.
Why it is essential for your facility to be safely staffed over the holidays
Not only does safe staffing benefit patient care quality and satisfaction, but it also leads to better employee experience and facility efficiency. When your facility gets a head start on holiday scheduling, your care team is better equipped for the influx of patients and the potential need to turn to staff agencies to keep to the safe staffing ratios.
However, starting early, using online platforms, prioritizing senior staff, limiting time off, and utilizing incentives all limit the need to turn to an agency. Avoiding agency use also promotes a more cohesive and qualified care team while reducing unnecessary expenses. These savings can be allocated for other ventures, such as subsidizing specialty certifications for permanent nursing staff.
How Dropstat can predict holiday staffing needs and fill shifts optimally
Dropstat was created with the dynamic nature of healthcare staffing at the forefront of its design. Schedulers can post open shifts up to 60 days in advance, which allows the team to determine which shifts need extra support and fill the holiday shifts ahead of time.
Additionally, schedulers have the capacity to approve or deny employees from working overtime. This ensures that the staff working particularly strenuous holiday shifts only take the workload that they are capable of handling. In some cases, it may be ideal to allow other staff to pick up a difficult shift so that employees who would be working overtime can take the break that they need and help facilities to avoid extra overtime fees.
When schedulers take advantage of the wide range of scheduling tools and features that Dropstat offers, the gaps in shift schedules become increasingly evident, enabling administrators to be as prepared as possible for the changing landscape of holiday demands.
