Reducing Contract Labor Costs by 90% with a Regional Float Pool

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, staffing in skilled nursing facilities changed dramatically. Agencies became widespread, driving up labor costs and creating inconsistency in staffing quality. For Nancy Butner, Northwest Division Vice President at Life Care Centers of America, this meant an unsustainable spend of roughly $3 million per month in contract labor across 20 facilities.

“Agencies were popping up everywhere and taking advantage of that situation, which bothered all of us greatly.”
— Nancy Butner, Life Care Centers of America

Solution

In 2022, Nancy and her team decided to take control of their staffing strategy by creating a regional float pool, a separate entity within Life Care that employs staff directly and deploys them across multiple facilities as needed.

To manage scheduling and visibility, Life Care partnered with Covr, enabling float pool staff to self-schedule directly in the platform.

Each float pool employee can select shifts at participating facilities, while the float pool manager maintains oversight to ensure coverage balance and compliance with staffing guidelines.

Structure and Implementation

Life Care’s float pool now employs 65–75 caregivers serving facilities across Seattle, the Federal Way area, and North Idaho. To ensure balanced coverage and maintain flexibility, Nancy established three key participation requirements:

1. Work at least two different shifts (e.g., day and night).
   
2. Cover three different facilities within the network.
   
3. Rotate locations every four weeks to prevent staff from working at a single site for an extended period.
   
   

This structure helps avoid internal competition for talent while ensuring facilities remain fully supported.

Each float pool member is onboarded and oriented through their nearest facility, ensuring familiarity with Life Care standards and procedures. The float pool manager oversees scheduling activity in Covr to confirm staff are meeting rotation requirements and working across buildings as expected.

“Initially, we were worried. Are they going to take our staff and leave the facility to go to the float pool? That was a concern. But with structure in place, it’s worked very well.”

Nancy also emphasized the importance of consistent communication throughout the rollout.

“If you want to start a float pool, over-communicate initially. Have weekly calls with schedulers and executive directors, give feedback on the process, and get feedback on how things are going.”

Cultural Integration

An early challenge involved changing perceptions about the facility by helping teams understand that float pool employees are integral to Life Care, not just agency staff.

“The staff are out there alone, just working their shifts, and oftentimes the facility would say, ‘They’re not my staff; they’re agency.’ It was a real mind switch to reinforce that a float pool staff is your staff, a Life Care employee, not agency.”

Float pool employees are now fully integrated into the company culture, participating in education, recognition programs, and facility events.

Life Care also added a Staff Development Coordinator to the float pool to provide education and training for both general and facility-specific needs, further strengthening engagement and consistency.

Results

The results have been transformative.

“When I started the float pool for about 20 facilities, I was spending about $3 million a month on contract labor in about 20 locations. I am down to about $300,000 a month now for those facilities.”

This represents a 90% reduction in contract labor costs. In addition, Life Care has experienced very low turnover among float pool employees, reinforcing the long-term sustainability of the model.

“We foresee continuing to use it in the long run for the facilities that we have it in.”