400 employees were quickly retrained in the "House with a Lighthouse" in conditions of staff turnover

2022: Training of hospice staff in the context of personnel turnover

On June 3, 2022, Equio announced the difficult task facing the House with a Lighthouse Charitable Foundation: to find specialists rare in the market, teach people in conditions of constant budget savings and quickly replace employees during staff turnover. The introduction of the online platform "Equio" made it possible to quickly and without additional costs train 400 employees of the foundation - from doctors to gaming therapists.

"House with a Lighthouse" specializes in the provision of palliative care (support for patients with incurable and progressive diseases). The foundation has been providing palliative care for free since 2018. This includes medical and psychological activities, care assistance and legal support for families that have terminally ill children. The fund's task is to create conditions in which families can take seriously ill children home from hospitals.

As of June 2022, the structure of the "House with a Lighthouse" includes the Children's Hospice of Moscow, the Children's Hospice of the Moscow Region, the Hospice for Young Adults, the Social House and the Foundation, which works with donations. They employ over 400 specialists and 500 volunteers, under the care of which there are about 1000 children. The work of employees is 70-85% paid for from charitable donations. All of them are constantly undergoing training.

"There are few ready-made specialists in the labour market to work in hospices. When hiring employees, "House with a Lighthouse" faces a number of difficulties. One of the difficulties is the lack of professionals for medical and psychological care for families with children with palliative status. Therefore, specialists who come to work in the fund need to be trained. In addition, training is always an additional cost, and the request for palliative care is always higher than the fund's capabilities. Therefore, managers are forced to look for ways to save on the education of employees. Also among the helping professions is traditionally high staff turnover. Here affects both general fatigue and an irregular schedule. Employees of the fund can call at any time, the concept of working day practically does not exist. It is psychologically difficult for many to endure the care of wards from life. Therefore, 2-3 specialists can quit in one week. Employees who come to their place need to be trained in parallel with work, "- explained Olga Cheban, head of the education department of "House with a Lighthouse."

Therefore, in the "House with a Lighthouse" it was decided to rebuild to a distance learning format. It allows you to reduce costs, since it is enough to record the course once and not pay every month for the work of the teacher. In addition, online training takes less time, it is easier to integrate it into the employee schedule.

Initially, the leaders of the "House with a Lighthouse" used only offline training. Later, courses on YouTube were added to face-to-face classes. They had a significant drawback - it was impossible to understand whether the person assigned to him had passed the course or not. Employees were given free access, and further it was possible to rely only on their integrity, since it was impossible to control the training process.

"Over time, it was decided to choose an educational platform that will monitor the development of employees. The leaders of "House with a Lighthouse" found such functionality in the "Equio" platform. The service allows you to combine training and knowledge testing. At the same time, the interface and capabilities of the platform are easy to understand, you do not need to undergo special training and attract additional employees. Two people who are engaged in the platform in addition to their main tasks are coping with the current tasks, "- reported by Olga Cheban.

"A couple of years ago, the fund was already testing Equio, but then there was no readiness to switch to a training platform. In March 2022, the placement of courses and classes began using our system. Foundation staff digitized and uploaded courses to our platform for all employees: doctors, nurses, coordinators, nannies, social workers, crisis managers, game therapists and psychologists. All classes are held in video format. All departments have their own training programs, each employee has a personal profile. It shows what you need to listen to, in what volume, with what frequency. The specialist chooses training based on the load. When he takes the course, the manager will see it in his personal account, "- explained Alexey Vagin, founder and CEO of Equio.

So, in the basic program of the game therapist - 50 topics with different priorities. In the first three months, a person takes compulsory courses in intensive mode. After that, he can already choose.

It happens that some knowledge and skills do not suit for a long time, because there are no wards with such problems. For example, if there are no patients with stoma for a long time (a hole in the cavity of an organ), employees forget how to work with them. Then such patients appear, and the foundation updates the knowledge of specialists. Thanks to the Equio platform, it is enough to find the desired course and assign it to an employee.

"The main tasks were to organize a continuous training process for all employees and monitor the course process. Equio helped achieve the goals without attracting additional resources or wasting time. This is important, as the fund lacks the working hands and funds to pay for them. At the same time, it is impossible to refuse training. The ability to automate the process of transferring knowledge to employees helps preserve resources to help trust fund, "- supplemented by Aleksei Vagin.

At the beginning of June 2022, the House with a Lighthouse Foundation organized the training process in accordance with its needs. The plans for 2022 include volunteer programs. Volunteers help solve the problem with a shortage of personnel resources. But, before a person can help, he needs to be trained. Online training will help optimize volunteer training without involving other employees.