Posted by: John Gilliland
June 01, 2007
Topic: Employment Policies

Unfortunately, there may be times when an agency does not have enough patients to justify full employment for all of its current employees.

Last week, I talked briefly about the value of a written layoff policy being developed far in advance of ever thinking a layoff may be necessary.

Sometimes, rather than having a layoff, an agency will consider using a "low census" policy.  the term "low census" is taken from the hospital environment.  It generally refers to a policy of encouraging employees to take paid or unpaid time off in lieu of the employer implementing layoffs.

Is a low census policy a good idea?  I don't think so.

Management usually pursues a low census policy believing it is more fair for all employees to suffer a little rather than having a few employees lose all of their regular income under a more traditional layoff.

Whether or not this is true is questionable.  A low census policy can result in more employee dissatisfaction rather than less.  If 20 full-time employees each suffers a reduction in his or her hours of work by two hours per week rather than one employee being totally laid off, after a time, the agency will probably have 20 unhappy employees rather than just one.  Plus, the 20 unhappy employees are all at the workplace affecting the entire atmosphere; one laid off employee may be very unhappy, but he or she is not at the workplace. 

The increasing use of PRN employees in home care, rather than regular full-time or part-time employees, in many ways accomplishes the same thing as a low census policy without the hard feelings.  By "PRN employees," I mean employees who may accept or reject an assignment when offered but, if they accept the assignment, must work its schedule.

The beauty of PRN employees is that their use naturally adapts to the patient census.  When there are few patients, they simply are not offered assignments.  While they may look for work elsewhere, it is different emotionally than having a regular full-time or part-time schedule reduced.

Irrespective of whether your agency opts for a traditional layoff, a low census policy, or large use of PRN employees, my point is simply that you need to think about how you will deal with needing to reduce your workforce long before you actually need to do so.

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