Do You Need Help Now? When Is It Time To Say Yes To Interim Management?
October 9, 2021
Top 5 Reasons To Consider Interim Management:
- Replacing An Administrator: Whether you are the one leaving or retiring, you may need someone to fill the role or someone to help train your replacement once you are gone. Not all situations are ideal and maybe within your hospital system you do not want the current administrator to train a replacement. This is where interim management can help to fill the position as well as help train the replacement. Unfortunately, interim management is sometimes a necessity during times of unplanned absences or losses of an administrator. Regardless the reason, these interim positions can be in place anywhere from 1 month to 6 dependent upon the circumstances within your agency.
- Operations Management: Let's say you have built your agency from the ground up. No one knows it better than you. Now, you are struggling with turnover more than you ever have and can't figure out why? Maybe it's a need to break down the clinical process to cut some direct costs from your budget, but you don't know where to make that change. Regardless what is going on with your agency, an interim manager can also work side-by-side with you to deep dive into process management and staffing to make sure you meet financial goals. This is just a couple of potential operations issues although there are so many more that can be managed with a short term interim. These types of situations may mean someone on site several times a week for a month as opposed to a longer term engagement like loss and training of an administrator.
- Financial Management: We see a lot of agencies with clinical administrators who have good financial heads on their shoulders. However, they also have good finance managers in their agencies. Now, should you find yourself without a finance director, you would want someone to work on site to help keep the flow of finance in place as well as identify any potential shortcomings in the finance department. This is often a 1-3 month process depending on the size of the agency and the scope of work for the interim manager.
- Clinical Management: This is the exact opposite of the last bullet on finance management. Superior financial or operational administrators that run superior agencies have superior clinical management at their side. If you need someone to fill the role of clinical management/ administration, you need an interim manager who is a nurse administrator to fill the role.
- Hiring The Right Replacement: You may be the person in charge of the healthcare system that needs to replace your home health or hospice administrator. You may need some help to choose the right person as you don't typically function in this realm of your healthcare system. This is an expensive position and you don't want to pick the wrong person. Enter interim management. They can help you through the initial screening and them complete a deep dive into the hiring process to advise you while running the agency while the role is vacant.
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HOPE Question and Answer Repository
Today, this article will look at little different than out typical articles. We all know the costs of losing employees and trying to hire and train new ones. It is exhausting and expensive. So, we think about our wages and benefit packages all the time. What can we do differently that makes people stay? We can’t change the job and we don’t want to keep people that don’t like the work itself. So, how do we acknowledge employees in a way that is valuable to them and that our businesses can afford to do? 5 Things To Consider About Employee Recognition At Your Christmas Party: 1. Years of Service: These can be based on milestone work anniversaries (5, 10, 15 yrs, etc.). If a person has been at your agency 11 years, you pull them up and acknowledge them in the group of employees who have been there at least 10 years up until the time they hit the 15 years landmark. This way longevity is recognized yearly. 2. Special Employee awards: Now, this may be difficult if your staff is very small, but acknowledge the employee who has gone the extra mile in the job they do. Tell the story. The employee needs to know when the employer is proud of the work that has been done. Consider a plaque or certificate. Don’t minimize the value of the employee having them to display. 3. Acknowledge all employees in the mix: Because we are a clinical industry, the administrative staff is often overlooked on day-to-day operations. Ultimately, don’t miss the chance to acknowledge the employee who was able to catch billing errors or collect on a large account. Staff doesn’t like to hear about money, but those types of collections keep Christmas bonuses in place! So, make sure the other staff knows the accomplishments of the finance department or the office manager that every caller loves to speak to. Don't ever forget the IT staff that is on call more than any clinical person in your agency! 4. Letters from the administration: Add a personal note to your staff either collectively or individually depending on the size of your agency. If you are larger, there are employees you don’t often see or get to talk to on a regular basis, so take the time so send a note with that Christmas bonus. 5. Consider the Christmas bonus: Listen, some of you can afford to do substantial monetary bonuses and that is fantastic. However, if you are not in that position, consider something in its place. Maybe small gas cards go with the letter from administration. With the cost of groceries, consider something that helps with the costs of daily living for employees. Big box gift cards in your area will always be used. You may do a lot of these things on a yearly basis to employees. All this being said, it doesn’t mean there aren’t reasons for acknowledgement throughout the year. However, your annual Christmas party is a good way to do it collectively. Between your annual party, write the individual cards to employees when you hear a patient interaction worthy of praise. Or, maybe you buy a gas card for the employee who has picked up extra shifts and always shows up on time. Ultimately, employees will feel valued. You will not regret the time, effort, and energy put into these efforts. Merry Christmas! If you want help with recruitment and retention strategies for your agency, please call Kenyon Homecare Consulting at 206-721-5091 or contact us online today.