Fast forward to today, where our nation’s businesses are facing staffing challenges that could serve as a catalyst in the inclusive employment movement. We all know that there is a wonderful, untapped source for employment in people with intellectual and developmental disabilities that can fill these positions. But how do provider agencies adequately serve clients and optimize efforts in the inclusive employment movement while experiencing employee shortages of their own?

In times where providers are trying to do “more with less”, technology can help providers/job coaches:

• Streamline onboarding processes for new job coaches/staff.
• Minimize time spent in training employees by cutting out antiquated, manual processes.
• Monitor progress and setbacks of multiple employees on one dashboard. 
• Reduce time and money spent traveling from location-to-location to put out “fires”.
• Motivate employees to set and achieve goals.
• Automate fading techniques that help employees rely less on job coaches.
• Reduce the numbers of crises at the workplace.
• Create more satisfying and sustainable job opportunities for the clients they serve; reducing employee turnover.

It seems as if the pandemic has created a “perfect storm” of sorts in the industry we know and love – and technology is just the thing to keep us afloat!

If you need help keeping your head above the water – please reach out to us to learn more about assistive technology and its role in making strides in the inclusive employment movement – even when we are experiencing shortages, ourselves.

Until next time…

The post Working Smarter, Not Harder, in a Post-Pandemic Employment Landscape appeared first on CreateAbility Inc.

Technology can optimize time management for the organization utilizing it that ultimately adds more money to the bottom line of the agency. Agencies can then re-allot the savings towards retaining and/or hiring new staff, improving the lives of the people they serve, or increasing the reach of the technology to more of their clients resulting in more…you guessed it…savings.

Here’s a prime example of how one of CreateAbility’s clients uses assistive technology to save their organization money:

A state agency has selected 10 of the people they serve who they feel are ready (and desire) to have less supervision during the course of the day. By utilizing MeMinder for two hours per day to implement a daily chore routine, this agency is able to remotely supervise each client for two hours of the day. This frees up their DSPs to do other things they have otherwise not been able to during a normal business day like paperwork, meetings, and training.

Here is how the savings breaks down in this instance:

DSP pay savings:  $20/hr x 2 hours saved per day x 5 days a week = $200/savings per week

x 10 persons served = $2000/week in savings

x 26 weeks (length of pilot) = $52,000 total savings – $1,249.50 (cost of MeMinder x 10 people served = $749.50, plus $50 Amazon Fire for 10 people = $500)

Total, 6-month savings for agency:  $50,750.50.

The math is relatively simple in this case, especially since the majority of CreateAbility’s technology solutions are one-time expenses. (The return on subscription-based products complicates this equation a bit.) In the end, the big question is what would you do with an extra $50k?  

Oh, and the people served appreciated the increased independence. How do we put a value on that?

If you would like to speak to us about how to use assistive technology to save time/money, please email us at info@createabilityinc.com.

Read about other ways that MeMinder is helping organizations save time and money here. 

The post Assistive Technology: How Saving Time Equates to Saving Money appeared first on CreateAbility Inc.