4 Ways to Increase Productivity of Your Healthcare Team

Employee productivity is the cornerstone of a healthy healthcare facility. That’s why it’s important that your employees have adequate time to get through their daily tasks and that they make the most of every minute on the clock especially in times like now when our country is depending on our healthcare workers to care for those infected with the novel coronavirus. If your healthcare team needs a little help getting back into gear, take a look at these four ways to increase productivity.

Train Your Team on New Technology

Carving some time out to teach your healthcare team about new technology can work wonders for your facility’s productivity. For example, instead of having to print reports, spreadsheets, and schedules, your team can use a communications app that quickly streamlines the process. And if you want to learn what your employees think about the productivity of your facility, you can use such apps to distribute surveys and ask for feedback. Alongside a communications app, consider using project management software for administrative tasks or similar operations that you would like to improve. It is also important to cross-train employees as much as possible. Department efficiency is just as important as individual employee efficiency and during uncertain times like now, it is important to plan ahead with Plan B and Plan C should certain team members be unable to perform their typical roles.

Recognize Productivity with Rewards

When you want to see improvements in specific parts of your healthcare facility, incentives are a smart and effective tool to use. Of course, bonuses and other monetary rewards are a great way to encourage your healthcare team to step it up. But they aren’t the only way. If you don’t have quite enough room in your budget to offer up monthly, quarterly, or yearly bonuses to the most productive employees, consider recognizing them with other rewards, including:

  • Small gift cards for popular retailers like Amazon or Walmart
  • Employee of the Month awards & photo recognition
  • Shout outs on your facility’s social media pages and intranet
  • Gift baskets or goodie bags

Improve Your Employee Evaluations

If data is telling you that productivity is low, it might be because your employees aren’t aware of what they need to improve. By setting expectations through performance reviews and scheduled evaluations, you can encourage your staff to work harder, meet their goals, and have an impressive performance history. Furthermore, you can use employee evaluations to let your staff know when they aren’t meeting goals and redirect their attention with tips and tricks to do so.

Get Help from a Healthcare Recruiter

Having a productive healthcare facility requires effort from an employer just as much as the employees. That’s why it’s essential to not only do your part and equip your staff with the tools for success, but also ensure that your workforce is filled with the best. If you want to improve productivity on your healthcare team, put together the best group of workers with the recruiters at HealthCare Support. Our healthcare recruiter team will search for the right candidates, screen them until we find the best fits for your facility, and track their progress with our scorecard rating practice. To learn more, call us today at 407-478-0332.

Soft Skills to Look for When Hiring at Your Healthcare Facility

Out of the many qualities that make a great healthcare candidate — quality education, relevant experience, and strong letters of recommendation — soft skills are perhaps the most overlooked. While these can’t be measured, graded, or certified like other skills, soft skills are essential indicators of how well a candidate will fit in your facility and excel in their position.

Whether you have some current open positions to fill or are looking for ways to improve the operations of your facility in the future, these are the soft skills to look for in potential employees.

What Are Soft Skills?

Hard skills are the trained techniques and knowledge that candidates accumulate over the course of their schooling, internships, and entry-level jobs. Soft skills, however, are the personal characteristics that candidates can also apply to their job, including professionalism, critical thinking, and creativity. While hard skills are specific to the individual duties of each professional, soft skills are useful to employees in any position, and they help to determine the way that an applicant will interact with members, patients, and associates of your facility.

Which Soft Skills to Look for in Applicants

You need to know that the next person you hire can perform, but you also need to know that they can successfully collaborate with your other employees, adapt to the ever-changing needs of your patients, and manage their time accordingly. Therefore, the top soft skills to look for when screening candidates include:

  • Communication — Whether it’s with a patient, third-party provider, or member of the same department, your employees must always clearly and professionally communicate.
  • Adaptability — Every patient, treatment plan, and medical claim are different from the last, which is why healthcare professionals must be able to adapt as needed.
  • Patience — Hiccups and holdups happen all the time in healthcare, which is why your future employees must be patient enough to provide excellent service at all times.
  • Time management — In the healthcare industry, workloads change on a daily basis. Therefore, it’s imperative that your staff can prioritize their daily and weekly tasks accordingly.
  • Teamwork — Being able to effectively collaborate within and outside of their own department is critical to the success of any healthcare employee.

Where to Find the Right Candidates for the Job

If you want to find candidates with not only the right soft skills, but also the right experience, education, and technical expertise for the job, partner with HealthCare Support. Our team of healthcare recruiters will find top talent for your open positions based on a range of factors. We’ll also use personalized skills assessment testing, screen each candidate with a multi-level system, and measure their performance with quality assurance calls. When you’re ready track down the best talent, call us today at 407-478-0332.