What's Your Orientation Process Like Today? When It's Over, Do People Want To Stay Or Have They Already Left?
August 9, 2021
Redefining Your Onboarding Process To Make It Successful:
When considering turnover rates in your agency, do you look at onboarding as a potential cause? If agencies have someone stay 3 months to a year after completion of orientation, the onboarding process is often missed as a reason why employees leave. Your first step is to take a deep dive into the process of orientation and decide what potential errors are there. Consider these items and your grade card as to how you complete them:
- Do You Have A Process For All Positions In Place? Many agencies will answer yes, although the process is not well defined. Determine how each position in your agency is oriented and if the process is defined. If you have multiple branches, do outlying branches just have to "wing it" based upon number of staff and dedicated time they can place on the process?
- What Is The Average Length of Time Allotted For Orientation? Now, we realize there is no cookie cutter for length of time and that all employees learn at different rates, but this if often widely different throughout agencies. Let's consider nursing positions to emphasize this point. We have seen orientation last anywhere from a week to four months with nursing staff. First of all, throwing an employee into call and independence too soon is a disaster for your patients and the employees. Four months is also too long. These employees become very accustomed to light schedules and never being on call. Then, when you finally give them the workload of typical days, it becomes overwhelming and they quit.
- Is Someone Designated To Track Progression Of New Hires? Someone at your agency should be the gatekeeper here. Often times we have staff that are already behind or working overtime involved in orientation. We see new employees not being taught well in the process. You may have the most efficient employee in charge of orienting new employees. The problem is that you may have never provided guidance or an orientation process for the employees to work through with new staff. The best employees aren't always the best teachers. Make sure you have new hires matched with the right person for orientation. Another consideration here is how the employee is moving through orientation checklists. Sometimes, having someone tracking the progression closely means all items are addressed in a timely manner. We have seen employees on orientation for longer periods of time because a few items were not addressed methodically along the way. Whether this is HR, a department head, or a position designed to assist with the orientation process, someone needs to keep the process moving.
- How Are You Checking With The Employee? Employees need to be spoken to along the way to receive feedback as to how the process is moving. We need to know if employees do not feel competent with certain skills so we can focus on working through that with them. Does the employee feel like the staff is providing proper mentorship? Sometimes we miss the employee in the process here.
At Kenyon Homecare Consulting
, we focus on helping agencies meet goals of high quality, patient focused care. We can help look at your operational processes if you are having issues with turnover or your orientation process. Let us help you change your processes to make a meaningful difference for your employees and your bottom line! Call us today at 206-721-5091 or contact us online
to see how we can help.
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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.