
6 Ways to Increase Staff Productivity in your Nursing Home
It will come as no surprise that there is a huge nursing crisis in the UK. Armed with this information, it is imperative for nursing homes to shift their focus from recruitment to retention; it will cost far less money to retain your best staff. Here are 6 strategies to help you retain your staff:
1. Provide Training & Development
This is one way to show that you are committed to their future and want to see your staff succeed in their career. By giving them this opportunity, you are not only investing in them but also investing in your nursing home because the skill levels of your staff will be increased. It’s a win-win situation.
In the short-term, this may cost you, but if you are playing the long game and wish to keep your staff long-term then this is how you should expect to run your care home. In the care home industry, permanent staff are incredibly difficult to come by so if you are one of the lucky care homes that has a few already, make sure you invest in them to show you’re committed to them. One way to do this is by providing training and support.

2. Don’t overwork them
In the nursing home and care home industry, staff are often required to work long hours. The fact is that they often want to do this either because of the high levels of work, as part of their permanent contract or because they are given the opportunity to increase their earnings.
However, the CQC has stringent requirements associated with staff-patient relationships and if staff are overworked, they will not have the same level of focus they are required to have to maintain the CQC standards. It is essential that instead of overworking staff, you hire an extra staff member instead. In the current climate of recruitment and retention in the UK, this is not always possible. But there are plenty of recruitment agencies available to temporarily increase your staffing levels. If you don’t have the funds to pay agency fees, Florence App is a useful temporary platform for RGNs that allows you to hire temp RGNs without paying the expensive agency fees.

3. Hold 1-on-1 and group meetings
Meetings are useful for a variety of reasons, first and foremost they enable your staff to vocalise any issues and for you to keep them updated on situations within the nursing home. This is your chance to jump the gun and reassure them about situations which they may be worried about. I can assure you that no matter the size of your care/nursing home, staff always talk. They will always have problems that they will discuss amongst themselves and not all staff members will vocalise these problems to management. Since your staff members are the ones on the front line, they are also essential for providing information when things are going wrong.
They will understand that you can’t always solve everything but it is imperative to keep them in the loop so that they know how important they are to you.
This is particularly crucial in the current climate. Losing permanent staff because they feel you don’t care about them is not something you can solve immediately. Many care homes have had to close down because they lose their permanent staff members and are forced to resort to expensive agencies instead.
If you can hold 1-on-1 meetings as well as group meetings, you can sleep comfortably knowing that you’re trying your best to be a fantastic manager and that will reflect in productivity.

4. Give your staff a treat
Treating employees shows your staff that you appreciate them and shows you care enough to think about them. This seems so simple but is a simple way to get your employees on your side and also to increase their job satisfaction and productivity.
You don’t necessarily need to spend lots of money on treating your employees. There are several well-known ways to treat your employees at little or no cost.
Examples of these include birthday/Christmas cards, small birthday gifts or even a nice box of chocolates every now and then for staff to nibble on which shows your gratitude.
This is an area that has recently made Google even more famous. It is well-known in the Technology industry that good staff are hard to come by. So Google give their staff plenty of perks and benefits (e.g. free lunch and breakfast) in order to ensure they don’t lose them. The cost of finding a new member of permanent staff coupled with the inconvenience of losing one is vastly greater than the cost of these staff treats to you.

5. Incentivise your staff
Your staff interests need to be aligned with your own. If your aim for the year is to increase your CQC rating to a better level, make sure that your staff have incentives related to that goal.
Money is an obvious choice as a motivator but often it isn’t only money that motivates individuals. You need to figure out exactly what motivates your staff members, whether that’s time off, career progression or even fun team days out. And the list certainly does not end there.
Staff members also need to be clear on the consequences for your care home if you don’t achieve these goals. It is in the best interests of everyone to work as hard as possible and over-perform. If they don’t, then the care home could close and they could lose their jobs.
Incentivising your staff is all about aligning your interests so that everyone’s aiming for the same goals.

6. Show Consistency and continuity
It is important for staff members to know that leadership are in control of the care home. Think long and hard before setting goals because once they are set, it can be extremely damaging to staff morale to then move them continuously.
This applies to any activity. In an ideal situation, a staff member would know of a change coming about 6 months away. However, no-one expects plain sailing, but you should expect that if you tell someone their role is changing or you change the goals for your care home just after you’ve set them, make sure you arrange a staff meeting so that all staff members are aware.
One of the best ways to ensure consistency is to ensure that you have properly planned and prepared. You could even involve staff members in these planning conversations to ensure they are fully aware of the care home agenda over the next 6 or 12 months. By involving staff members, you are also showing transparency, which is a great way to show your employees you trust them enough to share key information with them. This will go ten-fold in terms of appreciation shown in return.

If you own/manage a care home and are currently using expensive agencies for temporary staff or to fill emergency shifts, feel free to get in contact: LinkedIn, managers@florenceapp.co.uk or visit our nursing home website.
We have hundreds of RGNs ready for shift work at a moment’s notice and because you save money on your recruitment costs, you can use some of that saving to increase staff retention.
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