My name is Fiona and I have been working as a Placement Coordinator with Cpl Healthcare for almost 3 years. Wonder what has kept me interested and engaged in my role this long? Well it’s simple. I love what I do. Here I hope to pull back the curtain and shine a light on this elusive healthcare role and show what makes my day to day.
What does a Placement Co-Ordinator do?
It is a role that is satisfying and rewarding but above all, high pressured.
Placement coordinators are the unassuming middle men (and women) between the agency workers and the clients or facilities we supply with staff on a daily basis.
We work very hard to meet the short-term staffing requirements of hospitals and healthcare facilities nationwide and we work to ensure our agency workers are allocated work which is both suitable to their needs and their availability. This isn’t always easy but I think we do a very good job at it, but perhaps I am a little biased.
What does the day to day involve?
Being a Healthcare Agency Placement Coordinator involves liaising with hundreds of clients and thousands of agency staff daily.
These interactions aren’t limited to phone calls. Thanks to technology, these interactions take place via email, on our own internal messaging system and social media, so it certainly keeps us very busy.
Coordinators take shift requests directly from clients and then must contact available staff to make the perfect match of staff to shift type. The shift details are then confirmed with the agency worker and the worker’s name is reconfirmed with the client. This might seem straightforward but often a lot of negotiation needs to take place which is facilitated through building great relationships with our temp workers. For example, our agency staff often help us out with covering shifts not typical to their normal shifts or availability and we often facilitate them with specific requests which they often have.
Juggling the different forms of communications as well as filling shifts and keeping in touch with clients, means each one of us in the Cpl Healthcare Placement team must be proficient in multi-tasking and organisation.
What is challenging about being a Placement Coordinator?
It’s not all fun and games in this role. The Placement Coordinator must also manage and maintain relationships through the tough times. We are there year-round tending to the needs of the clients and temps. We are the counsellors of the Agency, we listen to the needs of our clients and workers and try our best to resolve and reassure.
Agency queries are our top priority, and although we may take some time to address your query, we most certainly won’t forget it.
Every member of our team wants what’s best for our clients and our agency workers. We are there to deal with whatever situation arises, no matter how big or small.
To know that I have helped a hospital, home care case, nursing home, nurse or healthcare assistant is truly rewarding and makes getting up for work (even for the 7 am start) even more worthwhile. Yes, being a Coordinator is challenging, high pressured and fast paced, but it is a role that I am proud of and happy to do each day.