For the past decade, OnShift has celebrated and honored a critical role in the post-acute and senior living workforce, the staff scheduler, with our Scheduler of the Year award. This year, we knew we wanted to expand our celebration to include not only schedulers, but caregivers, community leaders and human resource professionals as well.
The OnShift Applause Awards were created to say thank you to those who are in every facet of serving our nation’s senior population. And after reading the hundreds of nominations across our four award categories, thank you is hardly enough. Stories of perseverance, dedication, grit and selflessness filled the nominations, making it a near impossible task to select our finalists and, in the end, our winners.
Improving employee retention, lowering overtime costs, reducing agency usage and reliance during the pandemic, and, most importantly, improving resident care and service were common themes among our winners. And something all our recipients shared was their positive energy and selfless contributions to ensuring a better place for their colleagues, residents and families.
Here are just some of the things nominators had to say about our OnShift Applause Award winners:
- “They ensure that we continue to have consistent staffing in each area to provide superior care for residents. This continuity of care allows for engagement that is meaningful and individualized for each resident.”
- “They have a special talent using OnShift to build a strong and responsive team, maintaining constant communication with staff and fostering relationships through compromise and accommodation.”
- “One example of how they lifted the burdens and stress of COVID-19 was the introduction of a food pantry in their break room for all team members to enjoy hot soup, a sandwich, cereal and other items throughout the day.”
- “I am happy to say that the community under their leadership and with the support of an exceptional team, is now agency free!”
- “They have also added First Stop Health to our benefits package, so that employees have a free telehealth option available to them. Mental Health and other counseling services are also available through this telehealth option.”
- “They have worked every shift, every position and nearly every job duty here. They adjust work schedules to meet the needs of the employees to ensure that they have what they need to do a good job, as well as the personal time they need to manage their own needs away from work.”
- “During COVID, she renegotiated the employee health insurance program and instituted a MERP plan that has taken the out-of-pocket cost for staff to virtually nothing, while keeping plan costs neutral for the employee and our organization. Employees rave about this; we have a super competitive insurance program now.”
And now the moment you’ve been waiting for, please allow me to introduce the 2022 Winners of the OnShift Applause Awards.
- Innovator Award Winners:
- Tasheena Duncan, Administrator at Chosen Healthcare at Summerfield Health Care Center
- Liz Howard, Administrator at Touchstone Communities at Frank M. Tejeda Texas State Veterans Home
- Cosmas Saina, Administrator at Neuvant House of Lawerence
- Impact Award Winners:
- Heather Backlund, National Director of Human Resources at The Goodman Group
- Alex Dato, Business Office Manager & Human Resources at Five Star Senior Living at Tuscany Villa of Naples
- Rita Winston, Director of Human Resources at Forest Hills of DC
- Scheduler of the Year Winners:
- Sanford Gray, Staffing Coordinator at Vicar's Landing
- Paula Lane, Administrative Coordinator at Carol Woods
- Monica Ransome-Forde, Scheduler & Payroll Coordinator at Aurum Post-Acute Network at The Boston Home
- Best in Care Winner:
- John Clark, CNA & Transport Driver at Signature HealthCARE at Surrey Place Care Center
To say these past two years have been a grind is a huge understatement, but it’s clear that there are truly special people who dedicate their lives to serving our nation’s aging population, no matter what the circumstances. Congratulations to all of our winners! We appreciate all that you do for our communities more than you could ever know.
