How Scheduling Can Impact Caregiver Turnover
Turnover is one of the most prominent existential challenges facing home care agencies today. The numbers speak for themselves: about 80% of caregivers will leave their role within the first 100 days of getting hired, leaving agencies understaffed and with very little return on their training investment.
Industry players have been trying to understand the “why” behind this turnover epidemic for some time. Is it the emotional toll of working with vulnerable populations? Is it the demanding hours? The low pay? The answer may be a mix of all the above, but one factor is routinely left out of the conversation: scheduling.
It may seem reductive to trace staffing issues back to shifts on a calendar, but scheduling holds the key to so many “quality of life” challenges for caregivers. Here’s why it should play a starring role in every agency’s retention strategy.
How Scheduling Affects Caregiver Turnover
Inconsistent hours, last-minute shift changes, and poor client-caregiver matchmaking can leave employees feeling undervalued and overworked. As caregivers continue to receive requests for overtime while facing chronic scheduling uncertainty, feelings of frustration and stress can spin out of control.
These challenges don’t just make day-to-day work difficult; they can also make it tough to manage personal or family responsibilities. Once caregivers feel like their time and well-being are not being respected, that’s when they’ll be heading for the door. Even the most dedicated team members may begin looking for other roles that offer greater stability and a better work-life balance.
Common Scheduling Challenges
The often last-minute nature of caregiver scheduling isn’t the agency’s fault – that’s just the reality of juggling dozens of people’s availability. Employees and clients alike can run into unforeseen issues at any time, from getting sick to hitting a bad patch of traffic. These snags require on-the-fly scheduling updates that may interfere with a caregiver’s time off, land outside their preferred hours, or leave them with little notice and therefore little time to prepare.
Superimpose this issue against a backdrop of persistent staff shortages, and agencies have a problem on their hands. Many find themselves leaning on a limited pool of caregivers to fill both routine and ad-hoc appointments, overfilling their plates and shortening their fuses in the process. In some cases, schedulers may also place too much emphasis on a few “go-to” caregivers with broad skill sets and plenty of experience, while others struggle to log enough hours.
Schedulers are chronically caught in the middle, juggling limited availability, client needs, and the pressure to avoid gaps in service. The result is a work environment that is marked by cratering morale on all sides.
The Role of the Caregiver Scheduler
Positive change often begins at, well, the beginning! When hiring for the scheduler role, knowing what to look for will help land an employee who can create real change from within.
Finding someone who’s organized is just the tip of the iceberg, though. They’ll also need exceptional communication skills to act as an effective liaison between clients, caregivers, and families, as well as prior experience navigating home care scheduling software and an understanding of route optimization.
A skilled caregiver scheduler should also be able to personalize care assignments, expertly finding alignment between client needs, staff availability, required skill sets, and client-caregiver continuity. Within this structured framework, they should have a healthy ability to pivot, accommodating last-minute changes without upsetting the delicate balance described above.
Hiring a scheduler who can oversee these tasks will pay dividends in terms of retention; caregivers who are scheduled in a way that uses their time effectively, aligns with their skills, and prevents unpleasant surprises are far more likely to report higher satisfaction rates.
How Scheduling Software Improves Retention
It may seem like a tall order to find a scheduling professional who can hit all of the above points. But don’t worry – they’ll have plenty of tools to help them along. Home care scheduling software is purpose-built to improve and simplify the shift assignment process, leading to better outcomes for both caregivers and clients.
These platforms use algorithms to automatically match open shifts to qualified staff, ensuring caregivers won’t be stuck with assignments they can’t handle and will actually use the skills they’ve worked hard to build. When shifts become available – whether on short notice or days in advance – caregivers can also self-schedule. This gives them more agency and control over their time, making it easier to remain within their preferred hours and take on overtime if they want, not the other way around.
With so many people, appointments, and clients converging, home care software enables two-way communication that keeps stakeholders connected through the chaos. The moment something changes, schedulers can be alerted instantly via chat, shifting them into proactive problem-solving mode.
Reducing Bias and Increasing Fairness
It’s tough for humans not to inject bias into their decisions, but software doesn’t have that problem. For home care algorithms, caregiver scheduling is a purely data-driven task, making shift assignments more balanced and fair, with no favoritism or lopsided workloads.
Empowering Caregivers With Choice
Unlike a typical nine-to-five job, shift work can be erratic and rife with unpleasant surprises. Allowing caregivers to indicate their preferred hours, service area, and client types goes a long way towards adding structure to a highly unpredictable framework.
Self-scheduling options are particularly effective as an engagement and retention tool. This approach places power and autonomy back in caregivers’ hands; in return, agencies are less likely to be left with unclaimed shifts.
Best Practices for Effective Caregiver Scheduling
It’s unavoidable that certain shift assignments will change on the fly, but building schedules weeks in advance will preserve as much predictability as possible. For example, if most employees are already scheduled weeks in advance, it will be easier to see who’s available if a shift suddenly opens up.
For on-the-ground insights, solicit feedback from caregivers about your scheduling strategy’s effectiveness. You’re trying to retain these people, so why not ask them directly? No other employee is as directly affected by this workflow, and frontline staff can observe certain practices from a uniquely valuable vantage point.
Leveraging Data and Feedback
Complement caregiver insights with performance reports to identify trends, address pain points, and continuously improve scheduling practices. Among many other KPIs, you can track billed hours and caregiver turnover data to paint a picture of how these factors influence each other.
Improve Caregiver Retention With AxisCare
Give your caregivers and schedulers the experience they deserve with AxisCare. From drag-and-drop assignments to automatic match-ups, everything about our platform is built for ease. Request a free demo to learn more about how we can reduce friction at every point of the scheduling process.
