Before you can successfully operate an NEMT business, you must have… operators. As in, drivers. And if what you read these days is true, it’s getting more difficult to find good employees and keep them. So read on, because Brisa Berumen-Dixon, CEO of Seabreeze Non-Emergency Medical Transport in Rockford, Illinois, has some thoughts.
Training is a cost; people are an investment
“Every driver that I hire winds up costing at least $3,000 for the onboarding and the training,” Brisa says, “so I want to make sure I get an individual who’s going to be a good fit, who’s going to be good with what we do.”
And how does she begin the process? “I initially do an interview and we do backgrounds and fingerprinting and all that other stuff after they have accepted this position” she says. “I have them shadow a driver for a couple of hours first to see if this is really a fit for them before we invest and do any more.”
After they come onboard, it then takes about a month before they are driving their own routes. Brisa does this she says, “because I don’t just throw them out there and say ‘start picking people up.’ I don’t want somebody who is inexperienced and doesn’t feel comfortable. What we do can be very critical,” she says.
But back to the background for a minute: “I do need to get a background because I don’t want to invest and start purchasing CPR classes and all these other classes if their background is not going to pass. Some individuals might not be honest with you—might say, ‘Everything’s perfect with my record and my driving record.’ And then you get it and it’s 64 pages long, right?”
“I have to be mindful of that because it costs me money and I’m not a huge company, so I need to be very careful about spending money on things that aren’t going to be cost effective or that aren’t going to be a return back to me.”
Has that ever been a problem? “It’s a lesson learned because one time I had an individual I hired, paid all this money, and then on a weekend, he decided ‘this really isn’t for me, so I’m going to have to move on to the next chapter.’ So that's why I do it that way.”
Success is in the prep
“It’s all about getting them comfortable,” Brisa says. “It takes an entire month for them to do all of their trainings and their certifications. They have different drivers they shadow for a certain amount of time until they feel comfortable getting behind the wheel themselves.
And then: role reversal. “I have them shadow the experienced driver that is fully certified invested,” she says. “Then I have them reverse roles and become the passenger. And then the experienced driver just observes, and the new hire does all the driving and all of the computer stuff and the phone with the many routes, and so on.”
“There’s a lot at risk,” she says, “and we want to make sure that they’re comfortable driving individuals.” And not just for passenger comfort. “Our vehicle insurance is sky high,” she laments. “God knows I don’t need it to be higher!”
The value of cross-training
“I like to cross-train all of my drivers, meaning they’re trained to do everything,” she says. “For example, I even have drivers who are cross-trained to dispatch. And the reason why I do that is because, say, my trip volume is low on one day. Out of my 28 employees, a large percentage are single parents. So they need that money,” she says. “So if the trip volume drops for some reason, or one of my employees says ‘I don’t feel great, I don’t want to do wheelchairs today, but I do need to work,’ then we flip them. We’ll say ‘Why don’t you work in the office today and help dispatch, and we’ll put the dispatcher in your van?’ And that is amazing because we’re always filling in the gaps. We always have a backup plan.”
Sounds like a good one.
Her drivers are also trained in first aid, and a couple of them are EMTs.
The hiring pool is bigger than you think
When Brisa is out recruiting drivers, she looks deeper into their backgrounds than their resumes and residences. In fact, she’s adamant about one thing: “Utilize your community and don’t judge a book by its cover,” she says. “I’ll give you an example. I have some employees who at one point were homeless. But just because an individual comes in here and they’re living at, for example, the women’s shelter or the mission, that does not define who they are as a person, okay?”
She continues, “I don't make my hiring decisions based upon where they live.” Has this philosophy worked out for her? “Some of those employees I have hired who have been in those shoes have been some of the most amazing employees that I have today,” she says. “And some of my female employees who were in some not so good situations, are now independent, have their own homes, their own vehicles, and are thriving, and it just brings so much joy to my heart to see that.”
Wow!
Is this the key to success?
“I have quite a few single parents,” she says. “Being able to work around their schedules has definitely been a key as far as being solution-focused on their needs. So if I have a single mother who’s like, ‘I have parent-teacher conferences on Wednesday, and they scheduled me for one o’clock in the afternoon, but I need to make sure I get my hours in because I need my money,’ well, maybe that day we can do your split shift where you work so many hours in the morning and so many hours in the afternoon,” she says. “Being able to meet their needs—to do that for my employees—has definitely been key.”
And there you have it: One key to success, as Brisa might describe it, just might be… kindness.
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