Keep Your Best Staff

Today, the senior living industry faces a staffing crisis that shows no signs of easing. 

Communities across North America struggle to fill positions, retain experienced caregivers, and maintain the level of care residents deserve. One 2022 study pegged turnover happening at an astounding 53.3 percent rate. While competitive wages and benefits matter, they're not the whole story. Staff leave when they feel overwhelmed, unsafe, or unable to provide the quality of care they entered this profession to deliver.

Real-Time Location Service (RTLS) technology, which monitors resident and staff location in real time and offers a host of data-based benefits, offers a practical solution to turnover. By changing how staff work, location technology helps communities keep the caregivers they've worked hard to recruit and train.

The Real Reasons Caregivers Leave

Ask departing staff members why they're leaving, and you'll hear familiar themes. The physical demands wear people down, but that's not what breaks them. It's the constant worry about whether everyone is safe. It's the frustration of spreading themselves too thin across a large community. It's the nights spent wondering if they missed something important because they were dealing with another urgent situation.

Caregivers enter this field because they want to help people. They leave when the systems and tools they work with make that goal feel impossible to achieve. Traditional approaches to resident monitoring create a cycle of routine checks that consume time without necessarily improving safety. Staff rush from room to room, knowing they can only spend a few minutes with each resident before moving on to the next scheduled check.

This approach leaves everyone dissatisfied. 

Residents feel interrupted during routine checks when they're resting peacefully. Staff feel they're going through motions rather than responding to actual needs. And despite all this activity, wandering and falls still happen between scheduled rounds.

How Location Technology Changes Daily Work

RTLS transforms senior living operations by showing staff where residents are and alerting them when someone needs attention. A caregiver monitoring a dashboard can track dozens of residents at once, watching for movement patterns that indicate potential problems. Instead of walking predetermined routes on fixed schedules, staff respond in real-time to situations that require intervention.

This monitoring approach lets one staff member maintain awareness across a much larger area. That doesn't mean communities need fewer caregivers. It means the staff can focus on providing care rather than conducting status checks. When alerts indicate a genuine need, caregivers respond knowing their attention is required rather than wondering if they're interrupting someone's rest for a routine verification.

Location data also reveals patterns that help managers with resource allocation. Communities can see which areas need coverage at different times of day, where residents gather, and how traffic flows through buildings. This information helps managers schedule staff more effectively and identify where additional support makes the most difference.

Protection That Lets Staff Focus on Care

Safety concerns weigh heavily on senior living staff. Caregivers face challenging behaviors, medical emergencies, and the risk of injury from residents who become confused or aggressive. When a caregiver is injured or threatened, the entire team feels the impact. Staff who witness or hear about violent incidents begin to worry about their own safety. Some request schedule changes to avoid working alone. Others simply leave for positions that feel less risky.

RTLS technology provides protection that addresses these concerns directly. When a staff member faces an aggressive resident or encounters a medical emergency, they can trigger an alert that brings immediate help. Location tracking shows exactly where the incident is occurring, so responders don't waste time searching through hallways or calling out to find their colleague.

This protection matters especially during night shifts and in isolated areas of large communities. A caregiver working alone knows that help will arrive quickly if needed. That assurance doesn't eliminate the challenges of the job, but it removes one significant source of stress and anxiety.

The Business Case for Keeping Staff

Turnover costs senior living communities far more than most operators realize. The expense of recruiting and training a single replacement caregiver can reach $5,000 when you account for advertising, screening, onboarding, and the productivity loss during training periods. For communities facing annual turnover rates of 50 percent or higher, these costs compound rapidly.

RTLS infrastructure requires investment, but offers a very attractive ROI based on ongoing turnover expenses. A community that reduces annual turnover by even 10 percent through better working conditions and improved safety often recovers its technology investment within the first year. The returns continue to grow as retained staff become more experienced and effective in their roles.

Beyond direct cost savings, lower turnover improves care quality and resident satisfaction. Experienced staff know residents personally, understand their preferences and routines, and can spot subtle changes that indicate health issues. This continuity of care is difficult to measure financially, but it represents real value to residents and families.

Making Technology Work for People

Tenera Care’s RTLS solution gives caregivers better tools for the work they're already committed to doing, helping staff feel more effective and safer in their roles and making them more likely to stay.

Senior living communities that successfully reduce turnover create working environments where staff can provide the care they entered this profession to deliver. Location technology supports that goal by handling monitoring tasks that don't require human judgment, freeing caregivers to focus on the personal interactions and skilled care that only people can provide.

The staffing crisis in senior living won't disappear overnight, but communities can take practical steps to improve retention. Real-time location technology represents one of those steps. It’s an investment in proven, pragmatic tools that help staff succeed rather than simply asking them to work harder with the same limitations they've always faced.