A recent study* highlighted that data-driven staffing decisions, supported by technology, can lead to better workforce planning and cost savings in care settings. Here’s some key ways you can embrace tech and data to save your organisation money on staffing:
1. Use data to highlight problems
A report by McKinsey found that health organisations using data-driven staffing reduced their annual staffing costs by 7 – 9%. So it’s crucial that care organisations and groups have access to data that can uncover staffing issues.
Tip! A tool like Florence, can easily surface aggregated temporary staffing across multiple locations. This data can then be used by central finance and operations teams to use to highlight problem areas (see example below). One way organisations can use this data to reduce spend by central teams, is to identify if which are locations with the highest agency spend, then investigate what the challenges are at a local level, and support the team to reduce this spend through measures such as perm hiring or culture changes.
2. Leverage efficient ways to utilise your bank and internal staff
Having efficient ways to contact and book your own internal staff should always be your first port of call in controlling costs.
We surveyed care homes across the UK, 34% said they spent on average 50% of their day on administrative tasks related to staffing. Simply put, teams using WhatsApp, phone calls and emails to fill shifts are incredibly inefficient.
Tip! Using a cost-effective online tool, like Florence, to batch send out messages to staff about rota gaps, in a single click, will save your organisation hundreds of man hours.
“We used to just send out the message to agencies without bothering to contact our bank. It took less time to send out one message to them than to ring round. Now we can send out the message to our perm and bank staff in one-click – saving us huge amounts of time and money.”
Home Manager
3. Ensure you are in full control of the rates you want to pay
Setting rates in tiers means you decide what rates you want to pay, then ensure you use the cheapest rate (and best care) is booked first.
Tip! Using a tool like Agency Manager allows you to tier your agencies and set consistent rates with ease. You can then send out shifts first to your own perm and bank staff first, if they don’t take the shift it would go to your Tier 1 Agency (next cheapest option), then 2 & 3…ensuring no shift is unfilled, but it’s done at the cheapest rate.
4. Make rate comparison easy
Often care location managers don’t have full visibility of all rates available per shift, which means they take the first offered by an agency and oftentimes take the highest rate just to ensure the shift gets filled.
Tip! With Florence, you can see all agency rates in one place, making it simple to choose the best rate —saving your organisation money.
5. Protect yourself from financial losses from fraud
Some staffing agencies can engage in unscrupulous practices, hiding fake shifts in the confusion of the stacks of hundreds of invoices. To avoid paying for fake invoices, it’s crucial to have tools that consolidate invoices and verify timesheets. This ensures you’re only paying for shifts that actually happened.
Tip! At Florence, we have a deep understanding of agency billing and timesheet rules – which means you get invoices how you want them. You can choose from a single invoice for your entire organisation, or get them broken down by each division. Our features are designed to remove human error and fraud attempts. Only shifts booked and approved by you can turn into timesheets and invoices, with proof. With Florence you set the rules, we enforce them.
Case study: Four Seasons Healthcare Group
With over 250 different agencies on their books, managing staffing was becoming increasingly complex and costly for the Four Seasons group. The team took back control and now homes can make greater use of their own internal and bank staff, the organisation has reduced down to 50 agencies, and central teams have complete visibility and control of rates. Read more here.
Find out how we can support your organisation…
At Florence, we’re on a mission to support care organisations create and manage a cost-effective flexible workforce that they are in control of.
We’d love to chat—no pressure—about how tools like our Agency Manager and Autofill can help your team tackle temporary staffing challenges and reduce costs.
Book a chat.