Creating a motivated healthcare workforce can be challenging. After all, being a healthcare hero is hard, and operating in demanding, high-stakes environments with everyone counting on you can take a toll. Even heroes get exhausted and overwhelmed. That’s why many health systems still struggle with nurse burnout, turnover, and staff shortages.
Research indicates that is sufficient staffing levels and lack of leadership support are some of the top stressors for nurses. Other significant challenges nurses cite include:
- Stress and burnout (65%)
- Staff shortages and high patient ratios (59%)
- Feeling undervalued by management (51%)
Such dynamics might mean resignations aren’t far behind. Issues like scheduling, working conditions, and workload/staffing ratios are some of the top reasons nurses leave.
The good news is you can empower your healthcare heroes with that they really want: more control, especially over their schedules. Here are five strategies to help engage and support nurses and other clinical staff with innovative scheduling software.
1. Build a motivated healthcare workforce with collaborative scheduling
Collaboration is a powerful thing, especially when it comes to scheduling. With Inovalon’s Schedule Management™, staff and managers work together to fill shifts.
Our mobile-friendly solution provides the ability to tackle scheduling needs from any device, and even on the go. Managers can share near real-time scheduling updates and communicate needs via text or email. Staff can view schedules online, request time off, and swap shifts.
Flexible scheduling and easier communication helps lower stress and burnout across your team because staff feel empowered, appreciated, and respected.
2. Provide near real-time visibility to schedules and staffing analytics
To help build a healthy relationship between staff and managers, arm the latter with timely data so they can make effective staffing decisions and proactively manage overtime.
By combining fast access to the information managers need with tech-enabled communication tools, the constant calls to staff to fill shifts can end. Instead, staffing needs are sent out with a single blast to qualified staff members via text or email, and staff can instantly respond from any device.
Plus, Schedule Management allows you to track not just general availability, but staff’s willingness to work certain shifts, helping you make the right scheduling decisions without delay. Allow staff to trade shifts as life happens, with manager approval or pre-configured auto approve for shift requests if scheduling requirements are met. That supports a better work-life balance for your team, giving them a say in the decision-making process so they can thrive both on and off the clock.
3. Offer equitable, balanced workloads and reduce overtime
Everyone wants to be treated fairly. That’s particularly true when it comes to the dicey dynamics of staff scheduling. Just ask any manager who’s ever tried to cover holiday shifts.
Schedule Management removes the guesswork. With it, you can proactively manage and reduce overtime every day of the year with a tool that auto-calculates correct staffing based on defined ratios and custom-set rules on overtime and hours worked for different job types and areas.
4. Save time, reclaim joy in your day
Healthcare is a busy place, and time is a gift. For team leaders, access to clear data on staffing trends and team needs helps simplify workflows so they can focus fully on what matters most — patients and staff.
Schedule Management helps you reclaim time to connect, engage, and make a real impact. That unleashes the potential for increased efficiency, better work environments, and a more motivated healthcare workforce.
5. Show your appreciation
Recognition is powerful. Letting staff know they are valued and respected goes a long way toward boosting healthcare staff engagement and improving nurse morale.
Schedule Management makes it easy to give someone a high-five and the props they deserve. Called “Shout Outs,” the recognition area on manager dashboards lists things like birthdays, work anniversaries, and staff members who picked up an extra shift to help out. That’s an easy button to help managers weave recognitions into daily workflow.
Give them the sidekick they deserve
Being a healthcare hero is hard. Scheduling shouldn’t be.
Empower your heroes with Inovalon’s Schedule Management — a mobile-friendly scheduling solution that simplifies the chaos of healthcare scheduling and supports the work-life balance they need.
- Make it easy to trade shifts or fill open shifts
- Allow self-scheduling
- Offer more scheduling options
- Use near real-time data to prevent overtime
By offering nurses more control, flexibility, and balance, you can reduce turnover, boost morale, improve patient care, and create a motivated healthcare workforce empowered to reach its full potential.
This article was originally published on the Inovalon blog website and is republished here with permission.