When things don’t go as planned you have two options: Keep going or give up. Which one will you pick? One day last year, I wanted to pull my hair out, I just wanted to quit! It was snowing and connections to the website were down. The only way anyone could view the site and register was by Mozilla/Firefox. However, who would know that? That’s when I just had enough!!! I was through, finished, done! I thought I would lose it. It was the day people needed to register for my upcoming seminar.

As a business owner I know I couldn’t just quit, it wasn’t a real option. So, over the weekend I spent time using the Law of Attraction to calm myself down and focus on my business in a different light. By Monday I was in a different spirit.

As Administrators, agency owners, or other leadership positions, we all know that business plans or marketing plans don’t always go as planned. Not everything works out as we want especially when staff is involved. As a leader, we are expected to know how to handle a crisis, but most of us learned how to manage critical situations through trial and fire and then wonder are we doing the right thing.

Since most of us don’t have a manual or other resources to turn to when we urgently need direction we need to rely on past training or education, or experiences to hopefully assist us in making the right decision.

 So, what do you do when you’re confronted with a crisis? How do you figure out what to do or which way to go? Here are a few ideas to help you handle a crisis:

1. Know the facts of the situation in detail from reliable sources- if it’s the lack of staff over the weekend, what caused the shortage, who caused the shortage? Is this a repeat problem, if so, what plans can you put in place to solve the problem?
2. Review current plans, policy/procedures, and guidelines- see what needs to be changed, updated, or removed.
3. Do you have to cover a case because of a call-offs?
4. If you are the administrator or owner of your agency, staffing problems should not be your problem and your problem only. This issue affects the agency therefore the problem should be solved by all of the management team if necessary.
5. Develop a deadline for solving the crisis. You need to motivate and re-educate your staff on what is required of them to stay employed at your agency. This is made clear during orientation.
6. Usually when agencies provide adequate orientation and training to their staff, their staff feel valued and turnovers are very low as well as call-offs.

If you are interested in more leadership training. Check out our online leadership courses at Online Courses-No CEU Credit – Home Health & Home care Administrative Training (homehealthtrainer.com).