Seven Ways to Drive Better Outcomes in Residential Group Home Settings

Residential services are broad, encompassing all aspects of life. Providers of residential services are expected to assist individuals with:

• Activities of daily living
• Positive interactions and relationships
• Practices that promote health and wellness
• Management of medical care
• Mental health and emotional wellness
• Direction of services and supports
• Decision-making
• Financial stability
• Communication
• Transportation options
• Personal interests
• Rights as a citizen
• Activities of community life

Provider agencies find themselves competing for employees with an expanding human service industry, internet related companies, and others. With record low unemployment numbers and baby boomers retiring, agencies find themselves looking for new solutions for the workforce demands. National studies have shown upwards of 30% staff turnover for direct service professionals. Many agencies are looking to create innovative business models to meet these challenges including, incorporating technology, new human resource solutions, and incentives to stabilize and energize the work environment.

Agency Workforce Management has been deployed by many providers managing residential or group home programs. Here are seven ways Agency Workforce Management can help drive better outcomes in residential group home settings.

1. myApplicants

Get hiring, onboarding, training, and licensing in one solution.

Let’s start at the beginning. National studies have shown upwards of 30% staff turnover for direct service professionals. This means more than ever, providers are going to need the most effective tools for managing high staff turnover.

Hit all these job boards with one click and streamline on-boarding

One click posts all your jobs on all these job boards, delivering more applicants, at lower cost than alternatives: Indeed, Glassdoor, Linkedin Organic, CareerCentric Organic, CareerJet, Job inventory, JobBoost, Jobbydoo, JobCase, JobisJob, Joobie, Juju.com, LinkUp, Monster, My Job Helper, Neuvoo, Oodle.net, Recruit.net, SimplyHired, Trovit, US Jobs, ZipRecruiter Organic, and more.

myApplicants can help you win the hiring battle. Check out these results:

• California: Generated 4,000 applicants of which 800 were good fits
• Maryland: Switched from another system and doubled rate of new hires
• West Virginia: Reduced Indeed costs by 75% and got more qualified applicants!

myApplicants also provides a fully featured onboarding system.

Download the Quick Tour for your own self-paced overview or email info@mitcsoftware.com for pricing and information on the 30-day free trial. 

2. myTraining

Track license and training certifications, renewals and more, manage training classes, and integrate with learning management systems.

• Track training and license requirements by title and employee
• Automatically alert employees, manager and HR if certifications are about to expire or have expired
• Retain unlimited training history
• Eliminate manual training class registration processes
• Save time and expand employee self-service
• Ensure compliance
• Generate automatic confirmations and reminders
• Automate publicizing training classes
• Automatically notify employees if class is cancelled
• Use with license and training expiration system to ensure compliance
• Includes training class sign-in forms
• Speed up set up and eliminate duplicate data entry with employee import from payroll or HR
• Integrate with Relias and other online learning systems

3. myCommunications

With higher turnover, comes a greater need for more effective communication.

Designed to help providers dramatically increase communication effectiveness and productivity,

myCommunications delivers an easy, affordable, two-way messaging, HIPAA secure solution that is accessible from any web enabled device. With benefits like integrated audit reporting, file attachment capabilities, and color-coding, myCommunications includes every tool your agency needs to streamline incident reporting, group messaging, urgent communications and so much more!

Once your agency has the right people on board, they need to know where they are meant to be, when they are meant to be there and what to do when they get there! That’s where mySchedules helps.

4. mySchedules

Designed for providers managing residential and HCBS programs.

mySchedules provides agencies with a cost-effective, standalone scheduling solution for staff and clients in any program. mySchedules can be managed by full-time schedulers, run by managers, or a combination of both. With mySchedules, you get effective scheduling that helps contain payroll costs, maximize revenue, deploy your workforce effectively, increase retention, and improve morale. Effective in group home, HCBS, and day programs.

• HIPAA compliant
• Includes specialized procedures for group home and HCBS programs
• Optimized for use on mobile phones, tablets, or workstations
• Automatically text or remind employees about their next visits/shifts
• Organize schedules by employee, client, location, and shift
• Set up tasks for employees to complete during their shift
• Publish schedules instantly for employees and managers
• Track schedule vs. budget and authorization
• Manage employee restrictions and preferences
• Provide employees with ability to request extra hours for open positions
• Automatically update schedule when employee approved for PTO
• Integrate with other time and attendance systems to track absences, late arrivals, early departures, and overlapping attendance on shifts
• Download employees from any payroll or HR

Now our staff know where they are meant to be, when they are meant to be there and what to do when they get there! But did they show up on time? How do they get paid? Did they leave early?

5. myAttendance

Medicaid EVV and HIPAA-compliant time and attendance.

• Web Clock with GPS geo-fencing and out-of-area alerts for HCBS
• Medicaid EVV-compliant Telephone Timekeeping with caller-ID and voice messaging
• Service Documentation for Telephone Timekeeping or Web Clock
• Biometric fingerprint reader for group home locations
• No-show alerts
• Employee Self-Service: Online timesheet, review and request changes to timesheet, view PTO
• balances, request PTO
• Approve change requests, PTO requests and timecards prior to payroll and/or billing
• Employee import from Payroll or HR to speed set up and implementation
• Time and Attendance reports
• Payroll Preparation reports
• Payroll Rules & Reporting Engine: Automate rounding, job, shift and service pay differentials,
• holiday pay uplifts, break times, travel time, reallocations, and more
• Payroll Integration: Customized timecard export to payroll of your choice, customized employee
• import from payroll or HR of your choice, customized payroll check stub and W-2 import
• Billing and Billing Integration with state or MCO system

But did your staff stay awake and remain onsite for all of their shift?

6. myCheckIn

Ensure that employees are awake and present at overnight locations.

Agency staff working overnight awake shifts are often required to check in every hour or two to ensure they are awake and have not left the client. Agency Workforce Management’s myCheckIn system aids with compliance, helps promote safety and accountability, and fits into best practice models.

Used primarily by providers managing group homes and HCBS programs, Agency Workforce Management’s myCheckIn helps ensure employees are awake or have not left the location during an overnight shift.

• Verify check-in using telephone, web clock, or biometric fingerprint reader
• Ensure staff are onsite with caller-ID, GPS geo-fencing, or IP address
• Ensure staff are awake and still onsite
• Receive alerts if staff miss a check-in
• Comprehensive reporting system with unlimited history
• Ensure compliance and ratios
• Provide independent third-party verification

Lastly but not least staff and clients need a safe and secure setting in which to work and live. myMaintenance provides managers and maintenance staff with the tools they need to maintain group homes and vehicles.

7. myMaintenance

Designed for providers looking for an affordable and easy way to track inspections, service requests, equipment scheduled maintenance, repairs, and more.

• Set up recurring work orders for health & safety inspections, vehicle and equipment maintenance and more
• Allow managers to enter special service requests
• Attach pictures to work orders
• Track open and completion status
• Generate auto-reminders if service requests stays open
• Use calendars and employee availability to make it even easier to dispatch repair person
• Maintain and update inventory of appliances and equipment by location
• Track repair costs and equipment moved between locations