The holiday season often means caregivers will likely request to change their availability, so we’ve compiled a list of scheduling tips and tricks to help make operations run more smoothly for home care schedulers.
From underutilized features within home care software to simple reminders of foundational scheduling practices, we want to help your agency save as much time as possible so your staff can focus on self-care and giving care this holiday season and beyond.
Unfortunately, the holidays, back-to-school, and flu season all tend to run together. Therefore, it’s important to take a look at your processes now to make sure everything is on track as the year comes to a close.
Scheduling Tip #1: Send Shift Offers to Fill in the Gaps
We discuss Shift Offers quite a bit with prospects and customers alike because this scheduling tip is one of the key features in any home care scheduling software. During the holiday season, flu season, or any other time of the year when caregivers seem to be out of the office more than usual, utilizing shift offers is a must.
If someone calls in sick and you need someone to pick up a shift at the last minute, the easiest way to fill that opening is by sending a Shift Offer to available caregivers to see who can take that shift.
Things to note about Shift Offers:
- The only caregivers who will receive that offer are those who have open shifts.
- Shift Offers will go out to your caregivers in a variety of ways depending on your software and your plan.
- Rosemark users can send offers very quickly and efficiently through the Rosemark Caregiver App (RCA). The app is free, and home care agencies can send out as many offers through the RCA as they wish. The RCA is the best way to send out offers and allows caregivers to respond directly from their mobile devices in a timely manner. Once the shift has been filled, the Shift Offer will no longer be available.
- For agencies not using a caregiver app, Shift Offers can be sent by text and email as well.
- One benefit is that offers can ben sent to all available caregivers or to specific people.
- Agencies should be aware that, while these are certainly useful methods, they may not be the most efficient or cost-effective ways to handle Shift Offers. Office staff will likely have to field a number of phone calls and reply to text messages, even after the shift has been filled.
- Keep in mind that there’s also a cost associated with sending texts messages if they’re not currently built into your software plan.
- Shift Offers need to be enabled. If you don’t have that feature set up in the system, reach out to a member of the Rosemark Customer Success Team, and they can turn it on for your agency.
Scheduling Tip #2: Utilize Broadcast Messaging for Important Announcements
Solid communication with caregivers is good business. It’s as simple as that.
If your agency comes across important information that would be helpful to a caregiver or other member of your staff, the easiest way to send it out is through Broadcast Messaging.
With this often underutilized feature, Rosemark can track who opens or listens to sent Broadcast Messages. These messages can include information and reminders such as:
- Free flu shots at a local pharmacy
- Updated COVID-related information
- Free COVID test availability
- Upcoming holiday office closure information
- Reminders to submit Paid Time Off (PTO) requests for any upcoming vacations or holidays by a specific date
- Reminders about the end of Daylight Savings Time and setting clocks back an hour
- Communications about extreme weather
Broadcast Messaging is a huge benefit and timesaver when trying to get a message out to all your caregivers. Whether your caregivers use the RCA or Telephony, they will receive the message as an “Announcement” when they log on to the app or when they enter the client number via Telephony.
In addition, Broadcast Messages can be featured as ongoing reminders. For example, they were frequently used during the height of the COVID pandemic when health surveys had to be filled out before each shift.
When the agency is ready to end the announcement, they can schedule a “through” date or simply delete the message.
Scheduling Tip #3: Possibly Available Feature for Out-of-the-Ordinary Scheduling
The “Possibly Available” feature is another powerful tool in a scheduler’s arsenal. If a scheduler is attempting to fill a shift that falls outside of their normal scheduling needs, they can use the Possibly Available feature to override routine availability. This can help them assign a caregiver for a shift they don’t typically work.
This feature comes in handy when the usual caregiver goes on vacation and another caregiver needs to fill in just for those specific shifts. While there are caregivers who might not typically work specific services for various reasons, when a scheduler is in a bind, the Possibly Available feature opens up their roster of available caregivers and helps them fill in those gaps more quickly.
It’s important to note that if a caregiver has been excluded from working with a particular client, the Possibly Available feature does not override the exclusion.
Scheduling Tip #4: Set Specific Release Dates for Holiday Schedules
Most scheduling software is configured so that home care agencies can release caregiver schedules in advance, allowing caregivers to view their shifts for a specific timeframe, such as the next two weeks.
During the holiday season, schedules tend to be more fluid due to time off requests. Because of this, schedulers can easily change the window of time a caregiver can view.
For example, instead of showing the next 14 days of shifts, they might opt to choose the next 7 or 10 days of the caregiver’s schedule. Doing this can help reduce caregiver confusion if a scheduler knows shifts for the later part of the schedule will most likely change before the schedule is sent out.
Doing this provides the scheduler with the ability to continue scheduling out the remaining days where they may have holes to fill before sending out the final schedule.
While this is a very useful tool for the holiday season, schedulers should take note of two very important things if they use this functionality:
- Alert your caregivers that they are only receiving a schedule for specific dates. If they are used to seeing a 14-day schedule and only see themselves scheduled for 10 days, they might assume they were not assigned any shifts after day 10.
- Remember to return your scheduling preferences to normal (i.e. sending out in two-week increments) after the hectic season has passed.
If you don’t know how to use the release date feature, the Customer Success Team would be happy to train you on it!
Leverage Rosemark for 4th Quarter Efficiency
As the fourth quarter begins, so does the busy season in terms of fall break, holidays, and flu season. By leveraging these scheduling tips and the full functionality of the Rosemark System, agencies can save time while ensuring client care is not missed and caregivers are given the time off they request.
It’s important to remember that Rosemark automatically handles some important seasonality items such as Daylight Savings Time. Home care agencies don’t need to worry about scheduling issues when it’s time to spring forward or fall back because Rosemark handles it for you. Home care agencies should be aware of the time change though, so they’re not alarmed when overnight shifts are an hour longer than normal.
This is also a great time of year for home care agencies to assess their overall processes. For example, make sure all credentialing needs like flu shots, TB tests, certifications, updated driver’s license information, etc. are set up as Actions in Rosemark. This will trigger automatic alerts to pop up in the system throughout the year so important details are not missed.
Actions come in handy during the holidays for marketing staff as well. Schedule alerts remind you of when to send out greeting cards, deliver gift baskets, or make in-person visits to referral partners.
Simple marketing outreach is often key in strengthening relationships with doctors’ offices, hospitals, and other vendors, so setting reminders is a great way to keep your company’s brand awareness campaign front and center during busy times.
For more scheduling tips and tricks, check out Rosemark’s User’s Guide, keep an eye on our social channels, or reach out to the Customer Success Team if you have specific questions.
If your agency has questions about home care software pricing, we can help with that, too.