Minimizing Temp Agency Service Costs

Despite concerns about background checks, training, supervision, certifications and licenses, which can be troublesome to manage through a 2nd party, many providers use temporary staff from an agency when necessary.

This is not ideal. I remember working with a provider who seemed to have very low overtime costs considering the provider managed a group home program. I could not understand how they managed to keep overtime so low. Eventually I asked them what they did when they got a call off. Their answer? “We call our temping service”.

Instead of looking at payroll costs, I asked to see their Accounts Payable records. The annual expenditure on the temporary service was over $250,000 a year at a 33% higher rate than if the provider used their own staff! Meanwhile, employees were leaving because they couldn’t earn enough money!

Before using temping services, providers should look at their internal communication and scheduling systems. Often the problem is not that “no one wants the hours” but, “no one knows about the hours”.

Using existing staff can increase retention (higher gross pay) and reduce costs.

Scheduling

  • Make sure your scheduling software notifies all employees about open shifts. Let the employees request the shifts if they want them.
  • Keep open schedules up-to-date so staff can see accurate open shifts.
  • Use an availability search when a call off happens and notify available staff before contacting a temping service.
  • Consider centralized scheduling for day-to-day schedule planning and just have managers look after call offs.

Recruitment, Hiring, Training and Retention

  • Make sure you embrace high velocity hiring.
  • Create job descriptions that emphasize your competitive advantages.

Internal Communications

  • Ensure your agency has an integrated communications system that allows HR, administration and managers to easily and quickly communicate with staff.

Download our ebook, The Complete Guide to Scheduling for Providers, to learn more about your options!

Fair Scheduling Trend Could Spell Trouble for Providers

Fair Scheduling Trend Could Spell Trouble for Providers

In recent months and years, retention and rising payroll costs have been a major concern for providers. However, fair scheduling legislation is gaining steam in cities and states across the country, and could soon be an equal issue — potentially making matters more complex.

Fair scheduling legislation varies across the country, but generally, the rules mandate employees must receive:

  • Set work schedules a certain number of days in advance
  • A certain number of rest hours in between shifts

If employers don’t meet requirements, they must pay workers a premium rate. This stipulation could be very difficult for providers to manage in HCBS programs where clients set their own schedule, or in group homes where staff call off at the last minute and a replacement has to provided

In California, workers who earn the minimum wage per hour are entitled to additional pay known as a “split shift premium” when their schedule includes a split shift. The premium is equal to one hour of pay at the rate of the minimum wage. An employee who is paid more than minimum wage may also be due a split shift premium, however, the greater the wage the lower the premium will be.

In some states and cities with fair scheduling laws, the rules only apply to certain industries, such as retail, hospitality, and food services. Some examples include the state of Oregon, along with the cities of San Francisco and Seattle. Vermont includes providers in fair scheduling laws.

In Chicago, a fair scheduling ordinance is being considered that casts a wide net. If passed, it would require employers to give their staff a written notice of their schedules two weeks in advance, and require workers at least 11 hours of time off between shifts. Schedule changes, or inability to meet these requirements, would require employers to pay workers premiums.

mySchedules includes software to comply with FAST (Fatigue Avoidance Scheduling Tool) developed by the US Army and deployed by the federal government. To learn more about mySchedules, download the fact sheet

Time Theft: An Agency’s Secret Payroll Expense

When most people hear about company theft, they picture an employee smuggling monitors home or padding expense reports. Most people do not think about the often subtle act of time theft. Perpetrators may consider it a harmless way to maximize time off the clock, but it can severely hurt an organization in the long run.

What is Time Theft?

An employee commits time theft by accepting pay for time not worked. They can do this either by working the payroll rounding rules or by fudging timesheets. For example, if Elise is paid in 15-minute increments, she could clock in 7 minutes late and clock out 7 minutes early without receiving a penalty. Employees who fill out paper timesheets have even more opportunities to record false hours.

A little stolen time, which is not a big deal, turns into a big deal over time. If Elise continues her habit of stealing 7 minutes on both ends of the day for 5 days, she will have over an hour of stolen time. In the course of a year (assuming she works 5 days a week), that adds up to about 60 hours. With a $15/hour pay rate, the total value of her stolen time will hit approximately $900. If Elise is not the only employee to do this – if perhaps 30 employees do the same thing – the stolen time value skyrockets to $27,000.

Wondering if you need to worry about time theft in your organization? Well, time theft is more widespread than you may think. The American Society of Employers estimates 20% of every dollar earned by a US company is lost to employee time theft. Furthermore, the American Payroll Association says 75% of companies lose money from buddy punching, the most widespread form of time theft.

Factors that Encourage Time Theft

Agencies can inadvertently encourage time theft in several ways. These three factors are not the only causes of time theft, but they are the most prevalent.

Paper timesheets

Paper timesheets provide no security. It is incredibly easy for employees to write fraudulent times. Even if they do not intentionally steal time, they may not realize how much they round and how quickly it adds up.

Poor employee engagement

Unengaged employees are not interested in their work or the good of the company. If presented with the opportunity to work less without suffering wage loss, their disinterest in the company may fuel their temptation to take the opportunity.

Poor scheduling 

If an employee is overworked, has too little time between shifts to take a proper break, or is scheduled when unavailable, the employee is more likely to show up late for work or take extended breaks. This type of time theft is not always malicious – overtired employees may just have a hard time staying on schedule.

How to Prevent Time Theft

If you realize that your agency enables time theft, you can take several simple steps to reverse the error.

Biometrics

Biometric devices, such as fingerprint readers, eliminate all kinds of fraud. Buddy punching is impossible,  unless someone has detachable fingers, and so is lying since biometrics record the exact punch time. Fingerprint readers can also operate without an internet connection, so employees cannot make excuses about poor connectivity for missing an attendance record.

Management alerts

Automated alerts help managers detect time theft at the earliest signs. An effective time and attendance solution will notify managers when an employee clocks in late, clocks out early, or takes too long of a break. Since a few of these instances are permissible, an effective solution will also run reports on attendance records over time so managers can see whether certain employees have more offenses than others.

Engagement efforts

Re-engaging disinterested employees will do wonders for time and attendance compliance. If you suspect time theft in your agency, provide contexts to evaluate employee engagement. Maybe your employees don’t understand the larger purpose of their work, so they are looking for ways to get out early. Or maybe they don’t have enough paid time off, so they feel burnt out. The results of an employee engagement survey might reveal the underlying reasons for time theft at your agency.

Effective scheduling

schedules

A scheduling solution should have more functionality than pen and paper. It should filter available employees by availability, preferences, and hours so managers don’t overload one person while another begs for more work. Good scheduling software will also ensure employees have enough break time between shifts and sufficient travel time between locations.

Conclusion

Time theft is a nearly-invisible cost on your agency’s payroll that can hinder organizational growth and employee morale. But solutions do exist to help your agency spot time theft and stop it at the source. A productivity increase of 20% is worth the effort!