What should I do if I have a caregiver who is consistently late to shifts or not following care plans?

As a business owner, you completely understand the importance of caregivers showing up to every shift and on time. Unfortunately, it is all too common for some agency owners to have caregivers arriving to shifts late, not completing all of the tasks outlined in a client’s care plan, or worse calling out of a shift.

What can you do to ensure caregivers show up to every shift, on time, and adhere to care plans?

There are 3 things you can do to improve this.

Paint a clear picture of the impact.
I’ve always been vocal about the importance of sharing with caregivers the positive impact they make on the community. Unfortunately, sometimes it is not as well understood regarding calling out or being late. To some, this can be seen as harmless.
The truth is these clients are dependent upon this support and it can cause a great deal of stress to both the client as well as their family when schedules change. Having a clear dialogue with your employees about the positive impact they can make can be inspiring and don’t shy away from the conversation about how clients and family members can be negatively impacted by tardiness, call outs, and inconsistent care.
Incentivize the desired standard.

You have tremendous power in motivating your employees to meet the standards that you set. It’s important to have consistent policies that are adhered to. For example, with regards to attendance, there should be a policy for call-outs. Specifically, it should include (at the very least) a certain time frame and that they communicate with someone in the office. Tardiness should not be allowed and followed up with a series of progressive discipline, starting with a verbal warning to ultimately termination.

A no-call no show without proof of some kind of emergency most definitely be responded to with termination. If it is discovered during a Quality Assurance Visit that certain aspects of the care plan are not being adhered to, this should necessitate a private conversation with the caregiver.

All of these things should be tied to a caregiver’s Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) which should be tied to reviews, bonuses, awards, and other types of incentives. Be sure to also celebrate those that are meeting these standards on a regular basis.
Remove obstacles

Sometimes there can be circumstances that are unknown to you and contributing to these issues. Being able to have open dialogues with your caregivers is important. There can be situations that they may be embarrassed to discuss, or you may not be setting up your caregiver for success due to poor scheduling. Typically, caregivers may refrain from sharing things and prefer to keep it to themselves because of a fear of being confrontational, nervous about coming across as complaining, or even because of a sense of pride.

By having strong relationships with your caregivers, specifically having someone who is the point person that they can go to, is key.By having this person have regular check-ins, inquire if their schedule is working out, and discuss any performance issues, they’ll feel that the office truly cares about them, will be willing to be upfront about any issues, and perform better.

Be understanding of the causes for tardiness or not adhering to care plans. It’s possible that a caregiver is struggling with coordinating childcare, has some transportation issues on certain days, or maybe wasn’t properly trained on certain tasks and is not comfortable performing them. If you approach these with compassion, you’ll get a much better response.

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