Eighty-five percent of assisted living operators participating in a new survey said that their employees are burned out or stressed, leading 96% of the providers to identify employee engagement and retention as a top priority for their organizations.
Technology company ShiftKey and its software suite, OnShift, surveyed 1,700 US leaders at assisted living and skilled nursing facilities on workforce-related challenges. The data shared in a new report reveals an industry grappling with rising demand, but the report also highlights the innovative approaches that some operators are taking to ease increasing pressures.
Difficulty keeping up with needs
Community and facility operators are finding it difficult to keep up with the needs of the workforce amid a growing aging population, according to the survey results.
Overall, 61% of respondents said they had difficulty in finding qualified full-time employee candidates; the number represents 58% of assisted living operators reported such difficulties, compared with 65% of nursing home operators.
Assisted living operators also reported challenges related to employee compensation and wage pressures (51%), as well as consistently staffing communities to meet resident care and service needs and/or compliance requirements (44%), and managing workforce costs (43%). They also reported challenges with retaining employees and filling shifts to increase occupancy (39% for both).
As a result of those challenges, 98% of assisted living operators reported incurring employee overtime, 91% provided flexible shifts, and 90% trained employees to work multiple job types. Assisted living operators also addressed workforce challenges by offering shift bonuses (79%), using a staffing agency (56%) or using independent contractors (56%).
Using tech to address challenges
As operators are pulled to address more and more administrative tasks due to workforce challenges, many are turning to technology and creative scheduling practices to prioritize employee engagement, flexibility and retention, the survey conductors said.
Assisted living operators said that the workforce management tools they use must have features and functionality that address communication with employees (67%), flexible shift accommodations (53%), and visibility into employee schedules, proactive cost visibility and management, and workforce reporting (36% for each).
Assisted living operators said that the top three key investment areas to increase occupancy were resident communication tools (42%), schedule optimization (39%) and flexible shift accommodations (37%).
Quickly filling shifts with an on-demand network / marketplace of qualified independent professionals was labeled as valuable to 91% of assisted living operators, with 66% of them indicating that they plan to maintain or increase their use of such independent professionals over the next year.
In addition, 68% of assisted living respondents said they saw the use of independent professionals as important to increasing occupancy, indicating that they used them to reduce the number of unfilled shifts (58%), lower employee burnout (40%), support occupancy growth and reduce employee turnover (27% each), or provide an additional source by which to recruit employees (21%).
