5 Ways HR Can Transform Nursing Home Management

Everyone knows that HR is a crucial part of any company, especially in the healthcare field. HR plays a multi-faceted role that is vital to company success. In fact, HR has the power to completely transform a nursing home business.

Let’s explore how!

This article will address five ways that HR can transform a nursing home business.

5 Ways HR Can Transform a Nursing Home Business

In many ways HR is the driving force of an organization’s success. By focusing on 5 key areas of responsibility, the impact on a nursing home agency will be transformational. 

1. Focus on Skillful Recruitment

Healthcare recruitment is crucial considering the problems facing the industry today. Talent acquisition is the top challenge in the healthcare industry, with caregiver shortages predicted to rise to over 150,000 by 2030.

HR plays a crucial role in the skillful recruitment of nursing home staff. Talented HR personnel focus on recruiting staff to fill the schedule — and they recognize the correlation between employee recruitment and company success. 

Therefore, they seek optimal candidates for company needs and take the necessary measures to attract them. This goes beyond job posting and includes working with staffing agencies, recruiters and utilizing applicant tracking software (ATS) to speed up the recruitment process (more on that later). To excel at skillful recruitment in the healthcare field it is important to understand best practices. 

Match Caregivers to Positions

While hard skills such as CPR certification or medication administration are important, HR goes a step beyond and also evaluates soft skills such as:

• Time management
• Good communication
• Empathy
• Patience

Since patients will be matched with caregivers based on factors like physical needs, gender, language, and even lifestyle and personality similarities, recruiters must ensure they identify the best candidate for the position, which greatly increases patient satisfaction and employee retention.

Communicate the Employee Value Proposition

In today’s volatile industry climate, health care companies can no longer assume they’ll have their pick of eligible candidates. Healthcare agencies must adapt to demonstrate their value to candidates from the very first encounter, which is often through online job postings.

HR leaders optimize job postings to include company awards, blurbs about company values and culture, and positive testimonials from current nursing home staff. They also give specific details about the positions, including shifts, pay, start dates, patient details, and more. 

They thus set a precedent for good communication and simultaneously demonstrate why candidates should want to work for the company. These actions draw top talent, increasing a healthcare agency’s recruitment rates.

2. Improve Company Culture

Company culture is an important aspect that is often overlooked, especially in the healthcare sector. Negative company culture is the top reason nursing staff quit their positions.

When aligned with leadership and strategy, a strong nursing home company culture drives astonishingly positive outcomes. According to Forbes, “A strong company culture is the best retention strategy amid high turnover.” 

So how does HR improve assisted care company culture? This can be accomplished in a variety of ways, including:

• Foster open communication: Establish regular team and individual meetings and conduct surveys. Act on reasonable feedback.
• Demonstrate care for employee wellbeing:  Work to establish employee assistance programs or company mental health awareness days. 
• Suggest investment in employee development: Endeavor to develop employee recognition programs, mentorships, and defined career growth metrics.
• Reward employees: Consider providing performance-based bonuses, predetermined wage raise opportunities, or a point-based reward programs.

3. Emphasize Performance Management

Good performance management involves reviewing employee performance and requires clear goal-setting, open feedback, and good leadership.

HR establishes performance management tools such as regular performance reviews or 360-degree feedback. These tools allow companies to measure their employees’ engagement and productivity levels and suggest improvements as needed. 

Such reviews and feedback should be completed regularly to ensure that the company is always in touch with employees and can help them progress toward their personal goals. Companies will also be able to reward their top employees for their performance and identify those who have leadership potential.

This causes a tangible increase in company revenue. For example, a study conducted by Gallup showed that managers who received regular feedback experienced an 8.9% increase in profitability compared to those who didn’t.

4. Increase Nursing Home Staffing Retention

Skilled care facility retention is equally important as recruitment because the caretaker turnover rate remains at a high of 65.2%. With CMS set to include staffing and turnover data in the nursing home rating system, how can HR increase nursing home staffing retention?

According to a survey conducted by Healthcare IT News regarding improvements in the work environment:

• 53% of nurses desire streamlined processes.
• 45% of nurses want improved communication.
• 40% of nurses want representation with leadership.

Structure the Onboarding Process

Excellent HR teams actively work to streamline the onboarding process by creating thorough, educational, and valuable onboarding programs. They may even suggest implementing mentors to help employees during their initial adjustment period and into the future.

Over 50% of employees want to know what to expect for the first few weeks, and providing that information as part of the onboarding process adds value for new hires.

Introduce Technology

Technology is instrumental in any company’s transformation process.

For example, scheduling is a key reason for high turnover rates.  HR can implement scheduling technology such as electronic scheduling software or scheduling apps.

Onboarding can be streamlined through the use of applicant tracking system (ATS) software. Introducing technology makes backend processes and employee management swifter and more efficient. Through HR software solutions, companies can even automate the onboarding process through technology.

Addressing these key issues ensures that a larger percentage of nursing home staff will remain with the company for the long term.

5. Grow the Company Network

An increase in caregiver happiness leads to referrals. HR can take it a step further and implement referral reward programs to incentivize nursing staff to introduce other talented candidates. 

Top recruiters report that referrals from employees are their second-highest recruitment source. So when talented, high-performing staff refer other caregivers, the company’s EVP strengthens and recruitment rates grow. 

This will also lead to higher patient satisfaction ratings, which increases patient referrals and boosts revenue.

Tap Into the Transformative Power of HR

It’s clear to see that HR is vital to the long-term success and growth of nursing home facilities. Companies fully utilize the power of HR by working alongside them to implement new strategies and processes. 

HR increases employee recruitment, productivity, and retention. It provides a first-class experience for patients and contributes to the financial growth of nursing home companies. Indeed, HR is the driving force that ensures companies will weather any storm ahead and flourish into the future.