500% Growth in Skilled Verified Shifts
Goals
• To facilitate skill verification for care workers
• To integrate seamless skill verification into the core app experience
• To enable clients to post skill-verified shifts with specific requirements
• To match the right shifts to appropriately skilled workers
Methods
User research, user journeys, design patterns
Project Outcomes
75% of all shifts are now filled by workers who have the relevant verified skills
We saw an exceptional 500% increase in these shifts being posted from January 2023 to 2024
Significant increase in client locations posting these shifts – recognise it as a widespread industry need
Introduction
“Getting qualified agency carers can be time-consuming, especially for our residents with Alzheimer’s. In the past, I’ve waited hours for a callback..”
This was the feedback from one of our largest clients in early 2022. Care home managers spend a staggering ~21% of their working time arranging temporary cover with agencies and this is even more difficult not knowing if carers also have the right skills. This often leads to compromises which negatively impact quality of care and resident safety.
At Florence, we recognised this critical issue and set out to revolutionise the carer-shift matching process within our core experience.
Existing Blockers
At that point, care homes relied on our basic skills system where required skills were simply listed within each posted shift. This information, however, was not used to match shifts to the right carers – it was purely text. This meant carers with any skillset could still apply and care home managers would then need to sift through a vast number of unsuitable applications within a short space of time. Ultimately this leads to wasted time and resources, higher risk of incidents and hindering the delivery of optimal care.
“Getting the right cover at the right time is my main focus. My biggest challenge is sourcing workers who specialise in dementia care.”
– Gaby, roster coordinator for care home using Florence
Integrating Skills Matching
Being such an integral part of the core client journey, skills selection needed to be as intuitive as possible. Launched in November 2022, Florence’s skill-matched shift system has fundamentally transformed the way care homes recruit suitable carers for shifts. The new system empowers clients to assign both essential and desirable skills to each shift, providing a clear and concise picture of requirements. Concurrently, carers have the opportunity to showcase their verified skills on their profiles, ensuring their expertise is readily apparent.
Leveraging this enhanced data pool, Florence’s matching algorithm now connects qualified carers with relevant shifts, guaranteeing a more efficient and targeted approach. This not only streamlines the process for care homes but also significantly improves overall quality of care by ensuring the right skills are matched to the right residents.
The visual hierarchy of this screen i.e. clearly indicated components and states on a muted foundation, allows care home managers to quickly scan and select skills from a predetermined list, with minimised risk of errors. On a technical note, this light design also honours an older tech stack used for this client admin end, making it easier for devs to build.
Pacing through Design Thinking
Fast iterations are an integral part of the culture at Florence. When faced with time or capacity restraints, we’d lean on design thinking to guide us towards a lean solution. A good example here would be use of mobile sheets for this flow.
Given that mobile sheets (or ‘bottom sheets’) are widely recognised and relatively non-disruptive for secondary flows, we adopted it as a key component for our skills verification journey. The widespread adoption of this UI pattern by major apps like Uber Eats, Skyscanner and YouTube serves as an endorsement of its effectiveness and usability. Sheets would allow skills to become an integrated part of the Florence experience – whether from carer profile, applying for a shift or elsewhere in future. It also provides a non-obstructive way to add skills and/or raise awareness of this now core feature. This drove my decision to use bottom sheets as a core component of this journey.
Enhancing Efficiency
Over the weeks, we collaborated heavily with other departments such as our Ops team to contextualise our understanding of this feature and what the end-to-end flow could look like. Guided also by our research, we were keen to understand the overall carer and client experience so we could integrate this feature seamlessly.
Eventually, we were pleased to roll out a solution which, for care homes, reduced time spent filling shifts, increased confidence in carer qualifications and improved staff reliability. For carers, they were now able to showcase their expertise and focus areas, find the right fit amongst shifts and maintain control over their skills journey and overall presence on our platform.
“It’s great that Florence now considers my training as a carer. It has helped me find the right shifts..”
– Kay, senior carer with Florence
Measurable Success
Since feature launch in January 2023, we’ve seen a significant year-on-year increase in skill-assigned shift posting – with April 2024 seeing more than 500% growth in said shifts compared to April 2023 – highlighting the scale of demand for this feature. The overall upward trend shows a consistent rise in feature adoption, with a remarkable increase in clients posting these types of shifts, of which an overwhelming majority are successfully filled.
From our research, we’ve had overwhelmingly positive feedback from clients for whom this feature has saved a significant amount of time, effort and expense.
“Last week, I posted 20 shifts with specific skills and they all got picked up within 10 minutes. Honestly, that’s amazing. The same Florence professionals come back time and again, which is key for us. I also like how Florence allows you to select skills for shifts, because it means I don’t have to double-check when approving shift applicants or when people arrive for their shifts.”
– Ella, care home manager at Prime Healthcare
Over the course of 2023 and early 2024, we witnessed a steady and significant increase in the number of locations posting shifts requiring verified skills, reflecting the widespread adoption of this feature across our client base. We also observed a substantial increase in shifts filled by carers possessing verified skills to the extent that by early 2024, over 75% of shifts were filled by verified skilled workers.
Conclusion
Florence’s easy-to-navigate skills system represents a game-changer in the social care landscape. This capability not only enhances operational efficiency and boosts trust in Florence for our clients, but also empowers our workforce – and all within a reduced learning curve. This feature has bolstered Florence’s standing as a market leader whose standard of care is reliable, trustworthy and for the people.