As companies grow, they sometimes struggle with managing the client intake and recruiting and training process to ensure clients are onboarded quickly with staff prepared to provide services. It is a bit of a chicken and egg issue as you don’t want to hire staff and have no work for them – that is a quick way to negatively impact the word on the street about your company – “Don’t go to XYZ, I did and after waiting 3 weeks they still had no hours for me.” Likewise, you don’t want to complete assessments and have families waiting months for direct services. My recommendation to my clients is the following:
- Client intake docs should include a Client Availability Form (ideally with block scheduling). Gathering client availability right from the start, allows your scheduling team to assess if you have techs with available hours that align with those of the family, or if recruiting will be needed.
- The BCBA conducting the assessment will know after their first meeting approximately how many hours of service will be recommended. Ensure this information is shared with everyone who needs to know – Clinical Director, Intake and Authorization Manager, Scheduling and Recruiting.
- Inform parents on the initial call that it will be 4-5 weeks between the time the assessment is conducted, and direct services are provided. This buys you time to recruit and train and ensure you have a tech(s) ready and, sets appropriate expectations for the family.
- Over hire and train your staff WELL. Use your training as an opportunity to weed out those whose skills don’t reach the level of your expectations. Let new hires know that ongoing employment is based on not only successfully completing the background check but also successfully completing the training. Anticipate that at least 1 or 2 trainees will either self-select out or you will determine that it is best to terminate them at the end of the training. It is much less expensive to term a tech during the training than once they are placed with a client. Not only is there a hard cost to losing a tech once assigned to a client but it is one of the biggest dissatisfiers for families to have a revolving door of techs.
Stay tuned for next month’s newsletter which will focus on what an RBT training SHOULD look like to ensure the best clinical quality for your clients and the best retention for your techs.
If you would like assistance with how to better structure your client intake, recruiting, and training process, please contact us today.
