Consistently ranked as one of the best companies to work for, WellStar Health Systems is strengthening its reputation with its new online scheduling tool: Smart Square.
Named to Working Mother’s 10 family-friendly employers list, Fortune Magazine’s list of top 100 employers and a six-time recipient of the “When Work Works” honor from the Society for Human Resource Management, WellStar is well-recognized as a flexible and accommodating employer, according to National Journal.
The nonprofit is a health care network employing more 12,000 in Marietta, Ga. With 83 percent of it employees being female, WellStar offers services to ease the balance between work and home life. In addition to a traditional pension plan, WellStar provides an on-site day care center and a concierge that coordinates dry cleaning pickups, oil changes and grocery shopping.
Smart Square, though, is what’s really transforming the lives of WellStar workers. The company’s nurses work long shifts and advanced knowledge of work hours is one of the most useful pieces of information employers can provide as it gives the employee time to schedule home duties. This is exactly what Smart Square helps with.
Erica Kilpatrick is a WellStar nurse who also juggles home life and caring for her mother, who is currently in the hospital. Due to this hectic lifestyle, Smart Square gives Kilpatrick the chance to plan her three 12-hour shifts according to her needs.
“Smart Square equalizes everything,” Kilpatrick tells National Journal. “I get called to where the greatest need is.”
How does it work? Up to eight weeks in advance, employees can start signing up for working shifts through Smart Square. (While they have the flexibility to work hours of their choosing, all employees must work the required holiday and weekend shifts.) Managers have the final say on scheduling approval, but the process is collaborative between employer and employee — rather than a dictation of hours that must be worked.
One disadvantage of the system? It can’t account for the unpredictability of life in the medical profession. Since the appropriate nurse-to-patient ratio must be followed, during hectic times, employees may be called in to work with only one or two days’ notice.
Despite this, though, Smart Square is still very efficient, especially since the app allows the nurses to manage their shifts and sign up for additional ones.
“It definitely has opened up that ability for the nurse to have a lot more control over his or her schedule,” Kris Betts, WellStar’s assistant vice president for workforce engineering, says. “It’s not, ‘I’m hiring you specifically for Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and you’d better be there on those days.’ This way is a lot more fluid.”
Which companies will be next to implement employee-friendly apps like this?
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Tag: Medical Field
This Unique Program Tackles Poverty Two Generations at a Time
Poverty often results in a myriad of problems for families that a single intervention is unable to fix. That’s why in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Career Advance Program (CAP) is tackling the effects of poverty in two generations at the same time: Working to help low-income mothers attain training for nursing and other medical-industry careers while ensuring their kids receive high-quality childcare through the local Head Start program.
CAP includes a required monthly seminar class for the mothers on career skills — such as interviewing and resume building — and meetings with life coaches to help participants learn time management skills, how to deal with stress, and ways to overcome troubles (ranging from dead cars to kitchen fires, for example). CAP pays for the mothers’ tuition and childcare. Plus, the program offers $200 bonuses (in the form of gasoline cards or expense reimbursements) for good grades.
Steven Dow, the executive director of CAP Tulsa, told Eric Westervelt of NPR, “The paradox of our early childhood work is that we are so focused on young children. And yet, many of the outcomes we want for young children are dependent on being able to also make progress with their parents and the adults. So this interplay is a tough nut to crack.”
CAP is producing positive results: When the kids see their mothers studying, they’re more motivated to study, too. And when the families increase their income and move off public assistance, the kids’ academic futures become brighter.
It’s a tough road for a low-income parent to earn an RN degree, but CAP is finding that even those who drop out before reaching the end still earn other medical certifications and are able to move up to better jobs than they had before. The career coaches make the difference for many of the participants who are able to stick it out and succeed. “They’ve become almost like second mothers,” program participant Shartara Wallace told Westervelt. “Because they really stay on you, they push you. And then, at the same time, they are there to hold your hand. But just like a parent where it’s like, ‘OK, I need you to walk on your own and handle this, but I still got your back.'”
Consuela Houessou, who immigrated from Benin, is studying to be a registered nurse through CAP Tulsa. She said, “[My kids] want me to do well. We compare grades. ‘I get A today, what did you get?'” With two-generation assistance programs already in place across the country in places including Iowa, Boston, and San Antonio, these mothers and many others may finally be able to break the cycle of poverty.
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