Health and Human Services organizations and other nonprofits with social missions are not like most other businesses. Because these organizations rely on grants and various funding sources, they often face unique requirements when it comes to reporting back to funders and operating various programs on limited budgets with stringent requirements. In addition to these compliance challenges, nonprofits also face a variety of HR challenges that require innovative solutions.
Limited Funding & Financial Sustainability
Some of the top challenges that nonprofits face involve operating with limited funding and concerns about running programs in a financially sustainable manner. With various criteria attached to specific funding sources and employees split between different programs and cost centers, keeping track of where and how each dollar is being spent – let alone making sure each program is sustainable – can be incredibly challenging.
Budget Allocations
In this day and age, there’s no reason to be relying on manual processes for budget allocations. The right HR and Payroll software can provide your nonprofit with the solution you’re looking for – but only if it’s designed to suit your operations and address your needs. Because most software caters to standard for-profit companies that don’t deal with the same challenges as nonprofits, it’s important to find HR and Payroll software that is specifically designed to address your budget allocation needs.
Position Control to Prevent Over-Hiring
Position Control is an incredibly valuable tool for nonprofits in need of a targeted HR solution. Position Control organizes your workforce by position rather than by employee, which enables for better visibility and budgeting. This tool enables you to compare budgeted versus actual costs and can help prevent common budgeting problems like over-hiring. This position-first system can help your organization stay on top of its workforce and its costs by providing a stable and reliable view of the entire workforce.
Robust Reporting
Another solution that can help nonprofits ensure financial sustainability is through comprehensive reporting capabilities. It’s not enough to have piecemeal reports about individual programs or departments. You need to be able to break through these information silos with robust reporting capabilities that draw data from multiple departments, cost centers, or funding sources to give you the big picture while also enabling you to drill down into whatever details you need. Much like Position Control, having robust reporting capabilities can help you identify and correct inefficiencies proactively. These types of cross-functional reporting capabilities require a unified HR and Payroll solution that centralizes your organizational data.
Compliance with State and Federal Laws
Compliance with state, federal, and local regulations is an ongoing challenge that any business faces. Further, Health and Human Services organizations are usually subject to more stringent requirements, particularly when it comes to taxes and credentialing.
Payroll & Tax Compliance
Automation is the key to maintaining payroll and tax compliance. Ideally, your Payroll provider will also be the solution here, providing you with all of the tax services you need and staying on top of changing regulations on your behalf.
Credential Compliance
Managing credentials is another area where automation can make a difference. Instead of manually tracking employee credentials, why not let your HR system do it for you? Some systems allow for credentials to be tracked on their own, with automatic reminders sent out when credentials are approaching expiration or in need of renewal.
Recruiting & Retention
In the past three years that DATIS, Part of the ContinuumCloud has run its annual State of Workforce Management Survey, recruiting and retention consistently top the list of workforce management priorities among Health and Human Services executives. Dealing with restrictive budgets and a challenging work environment that leaves front-line staff prone to compassion fatigue can make it difficult for organizations to make headway with their recruiting and retention initiatives.
Recruiting
When it comes to recruiting, the problem is two-fold: organizations struggle to offer competitive pay and benefits while recruiters also cite a lack of qualified applicants. While these may not be challenges that nonprofits can fix directly, there are still opportunities to find solutions.
Candidate Experience
Candidates consistently report that they use their experience as a gauge to determine how they would be treated as an employee. Therefore, ensuring a good candidate experience is essential for attracting talent to your organization.
Onboarding
The onboarding stage is when employees naturally exhibit a high level of engagement, and organizations can help maintain that by implementing a structured onboarding process. This means minimizing the paperwork and focusing on acclimating the new hire to the people, culture, and job responsibilities instead.
Retention
Going hand-in-hand with recruiting, retention is important for keeping the talent already at your organization. Top strategies that Health and Human Services organizations use include increasing communication and transparency and creating open door policies that enable and encourage employees to have a voice and provide their feedback. No one is in a better position to tell you what your employees need to best do their job than employees themselves.
Diversity & Inclusion
In addition to communication, diversity and inclusion are essential for building a great company culture – a culture that makes your workforce proud to be part of your organization and also helps attract top talent to come work for your organization. Ideally, diversity and inclusion is incorporated into the organization’s mission, vision, and values.
Employee Engagement & Satisfaction
High retention rates and an inclusive culture are also related to employee engagement and satisfaction. That is, high turnover can be a sign of low engagement among your employees, while high retention can be a sign of a happy and engaged workforce. There are several main strategies that nonprofits can use to help improve employee engagement and satisfaction.
Recognition Systems
Employee recognition can go a long way in improving morale among frontline staff. And the good news is, it doesn’t cost a thing. However, that also means it can be easy to overlook or ignore if recognition is not intentionally thought about and shared. Having a system in place that makes it easy to shout out employees or provide appropriate recognition can go a long way in improving satisfaction.
Talent Management
On a more individual level, talent management has to do with setting goals and helping ensure employees are able to meet them by providing the tools, resources, and time for them to do their jobs to the best of their abilities.
Training & Development
Along with tasks for their existing role, many employees want training and ongoing development opportunities for their personal and professional growth. In fact, lack of growth opportunities is a top reason employees cite for leaving a company. Therefore, providing professional development can help with both engagement and retention at the same time.
Centrality of the Organization’s Mission
Tying all of these nonprofit HR solutions together should be an organizational mission that serves to unify your workforce and provide a clear sense of purpose.
Developing a Clear Mission Statement
Identifying and succinctly stating your organization’s mission into a mission statement can help make it clear and easy to remember for your entire workforce. Everything about the organization begins and ends with its mission, and a mission statement can tie that all together.
A Unified HR & Payroll Solution for Health & Human Services Organizations
At ContinuumCloud, our unified HR and Payroll software offers a unique solution for nonprofits. In fact, we exclusively serve the Health and Human Services industry and provide a tailored solution designed just for organizations like yours. Request a demo today to see our solution in action.
