Group homes are a godsend to people living with disabilities and special needs. So if you are in this industry, you are playing a part in a noble cause. But like any other business, you will want to make a profit when running a group home.
Group home administrators must deal with the challenges of competing demands such as staffing and resident care while ensuring they remain profitable. While it is impossible to make running a group home 100 percent challenge-free, employing the right strategies to help make your group home management much easier and improve its efficiency and productivity.
This guide explores some strategies, so keep reading to learn more.
Set the Foundation for Success
Every business should have a road map. Without one, you’ll be working towards a non-existent goal and have no way to measure progress or lack thereof.
Start by setting clear goals and objectives. You can split your goals into two; long-term in short-term.
Long-term goals are a roadmap of where you hope to be in the long run, for example, in five or ten years. Short-term goals should be small in measurable goals over short periods, for example, every three months.
When creating your goals, ensure you do not get ahead of yourself. Instead, go for goals that are attainable and use these goals as your yardstick for progress. After every stage of your short-term goals, you audit your progress and use your findings to make improvements, but at other times you may need to re-adjust your goals.
Optimize Staff Management
Staff management is now a major headache for a group home administrator. Since group homes offer specialized care to people with special needs, administrators must ensure sufficient staff at all times to meet facility demands and satisfy statutory requirements.
Traditionally administrators have worked manual staff management practices, which are prone to errors and inefficient. Today administrators can leverage technology to optimize their staff management efforts, reducing the chances of errors and ensuring they maximize the output of their employees while remaining compliant.
States have different requirements for staffing based on the resident population of a group home, so even as you automate your staff management, you need to consider state regulations to ensure you don’t get in trouble for violations.
Leverage Technology for Resident Tracking and Management
When dealing with special needs people, you want to keep track of everything about them. For example, you want to track when they wake up, how long they have been sleeping, their eating habits, what they are up to, etc. Anything that happens to your clients while in your care can have you being answerable.
Traditionally, you would need employees checking in on patients around the clock. While you still need employees to check on residents, surveillance cameras make resident tracking possible from a centralized location, reducing the need to hire extra labor.
Besides cameras, you can leverage IDD software for disability services and similar resources for all resident tracking and management aspects, reducing the need to hire additional personnel, which means a lower cost of doing business.
Foster a Positive Work Environment
Working with special needs people is a fulfilling experience, especially for people with a heart for helping others. But the demanding nature of the job physically and emotionally can have the best effect on the strongest person leading to burnout, fatigue, and stress.
While you want to optimize the output of your employees, you must balance optimizing your workforce’s output with promoting their well-being by providing a positive work environment. The best way to achieve this is to ensure your employees have a healthy work-life balance.
Fostering a positive work environment can translate into some costs. But the cost is worth every dollar compared to the losses you would suffer from a poor work environment, such as increased employee turnover and reduced productivity caused by low morale.
