Scientifically, if you look at the studies, if you work more than 40 hours a week, after 40 hours our productivity drops off sharply. So just do the 40 hours. Put it in. Make sure they’re good, solid, hard-working 40 hours, but give it your 40 hours and then check out. 

Hi folks, Steve “The Hurricane” here, and for today’s episode of “A Drink with The Hurricane” we are going to talk about reducing overtime, which is a topic I know you can appreciate. So let’s raise your glass and toast to your success. Cheers. 

This is “A Drink with The Hurricane”, the talk show discussing all things growing your home care business. This video is sponsored by Home Care Evolution, where we help home care agencies adapt to changing circumstances, transform their business, so that they can thrive for years to come. 

So when I look at the Home Care Pulse report and I look at the Profit Law statement and I see how much revenue companies are generating and how little profits they’re keeping, and then when I look to see that almost 70% of the revenue generated is going to cover the salaries of caregivers, that tells me one thing loud and clear. We are charging too little for services. And more often than not, we are using and eating way too much overtime. And I get it. You gotta staff a case. You gotta cover a case. You need extra revenue. So the solution here is something that I discuss with the members of my Home Care Elite Academy, which is what the top agencies in our industry are a part of, they work with me regularly. We go on trips all around the country. We get together several times a year. We do two days workshop-style and then we do something fun in the town that we’re all gathering in. And I love these meetings. But this is something that we’ve discussed thoroughly. And we know that charging a startup fee for services is the best way to deal with overtime. When you think about it, why do you need overtime for a caregiver? It’s usually getting somebody to cover a case, so that it can start and begin on time. Many agencies around the country and around the world have a week to two week waiting list to get started for services. What I say is, instead of making people wait a week or two to get the services started, tell them we can start services tomorrow. But in order for us to do that, we have to charge you a startup fee, $250, $300, something reasonable. But by having that $250, $300, that allows me to have extra revenue for bonuses, incentives, and to cover overtime to get a case started with a temporary caregiver who then will be replaced by the permanent aid once it’s properly staffed. That is the easiest way to do it. 

Now, let’s talk a little further as there’s some other things that we have to have in place to make this happen. So one of the things we need to have happen is to have what I call guaranteed work caregivers, or team leads. These are people that you’re paying to do work, whether they work or not. You’re usually taking a caregiver that you know, like, and trust, they’ve worked for you for a while. You promote them to this position, so you know that they’re reliable. And then when a new client comes in, you charge a startup fee for it. And you assign this temporary guaranteed work caregiver to cover the case initially, while you are staffing it with the permanent case. Now, while a guaranteed work caregiver costs you a little bit more per hour, again, about $2 an hour over what you’re paying a full-time active caregiver to do the work. It still comes out to be a lot less money than time and a half for one of your caregivers to start this case. And when you’re doing it within a three day window of time, that can be a great way to use the money from the startup fee to pay for the guaranteed work caregiver. And then you get the permanent person coming in. That’s so much better than having to do overtime. 

The last thing you wanna do to reduce your overtime, and this is actually something that one of my clients, Christina, down in Florida actually brought up was happening in her organization. Amazing, amazing individual. And she was saying that my schedulers aren’t using the new caregivers, right? Because it’s the nature of the person. The path of least resistance. I don’t know these new people who just got hired, but I know these caregivers over here who work for me and they’ve been taking cases. And every time I ask them to take a case, they take it. Make sure that you are on top of your schedulers. Make sure that they are going through and they understand who those new caregivers are. As a matter of fact, you can go as far as to have the schedulers participate in the final part of your new caregiver orientation. So that this way, your schedulers are aware of who the people are, what their availability for work is, and they get comfortable with them before ever assigning them to cover a case. 

So these are the three things that we can do to improve our overtime. Charge a startup fee. Have guaranteed work caregivers. And make sure our schedulers are using all of our new hires. By keeping our finger on the pulse of these three areas, that’s gonna help us to dramatically reduce our overtime, which will help us to get our margins back to where they need to be to be successful. 

Now, if you like this video and the other videos that I put out, you owe it to yourself to come to the Home Care Evolution Conference. Think about it. This is a 5, 10 minute video. If it was good content, what will three full days with me and my team do for you and your organization? That’s right. We’re going to transform your business during this event. So do the right thing. Click the link below. And register for the next Home Care Evolution Conference, where I promise to give you everything you need to know so that you can blow away the competition.