Prioritizing Employee Engagement: How Healthcare is Meeting the Challenge
By: Melissa Olson and Randy Ellsworth October 17, 2023
Over 80% of healthcare industry executives believe that acquiring and retaining talent is the biggest risk their companies face. In fact, the hospital turnover rate stands at 22.7%. So, what’s driving this talent crisis? According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, clinicians are leaving their jobs “because they have burned out, stressed out or aged out of the profession.”
The Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM) notes that challenges related to acquiring talent include a lack of qualified candidates, companies not offering competitive compensation, and limited workplace flexibility. And with regard to retaining talent, employees in 2023 are “substantially less likely to recommend their organization as a good place to work, or to trust their employer to treat them fairly” compared to in 2021.
Savvy healthcare organizations are making an effort to reverse the trend, often with the help of a technology partner such as RPI Consultants. Let’s take a look at what organizations in the healthcare sector are doing to combat the challenge.
Five Steps to Improve Employee Acquisition and Retention
- Focusing on employee engagement
Why is employee engagement such an important indicator of job satisfaction in the healthcare industry? It’s simple: when employees feel valued, play a part in decision-making, and believe they have a stake in the company, they’re more likely to stick around. What’s more, healthcare workers are likely to have come into the field to help people, so hearing about the effect they’re having on patient outcomes is also a factor in their engagement.
Some ways that successful organizations are boosting employee engagement include investing in opportunities for coaching and mentoring. Such programs enable employees to connect with someone for the short-term to learn a skill (coaching) and the long-term for career advice and guidance (mentoring).
Other examples of actions that healthcare leaders are taking include:
- Modeling your company’s values and mission. Employees become more engaged when they can get behind a company’s goals.
- Offering volunteer opportunities. Employees want to work for companies that make a positive contribution to society.
- Recognizing top performers. Managers should make positive recognition part of their day-to-day, by sharing acknowledgments and positive feedback.
- Forming employee resource groups. These typically represent marginalized or underrepresented groups, are employee-led and are voluntary to join.
- Improving the onboarding process. Set employees up for success by explaining the nuances of the team as well as their position’s purpose.
An automated system such as Infor’s Global Human Resources (GHR) offers healthcare companies the ability to capture information regarding employee sentiment. It also can help facilitate interactions between workers to acknowledge camaraderie and excellent work; for example, the system enables employees to share “raves” and praise for one another.
And prioritizing team camaraderie has been shown to drive several benefits for organizations. In fact, businesses that facilitate collaborative work environments are “4.5x less likely to lose their employees.”
- Optimizing scheduling
Not only are scheduling and staffing crucial for improving employee retention in healthcare organizations, but they also affect the quality of the care patients receive. Companies can use flexible scheduling, with staggered start times and overlapping shifts, to help their workers achieve better work/life balance. The ability to self-schedule also provides healthcare professionals with greater control—and greater job satisfaction.
Healthcare companies can turn to workforce management scheduling solutions, such as Infor’s Multi-View Scheduler (MVS). MVS allows you to manage and streamline day-to-day scheduling operations, and take a data-driven, scientifically optimized approach to generating schedules.
It also ensures compliance with fair scheduling laws and empowers employees to take ownership of their schedules. When implemented by a skilled vendor like RPI Consultants, MVS helps your organization maximize workforce productivity and improve employee well-being.
- Preventing burnout
According to Mental Health America, 76% of healthcare workers are experiencing exhaustion and burnout. Burnout is a condition caused by overwork and stress that affects people physically, emotionally, and mentally. It can often result in poor care quality for patients as well as decreased job satisfaction for healthcare workers.
One proven way to prevent burnout is to focus on cutting down the number of administrative tasks that clinicians have to do, which empowers them to focus more on caring for patients. Other strategies include providing employees with tools and information to combat burnout up front when they come into the organization.
For example, the AMA recommends implementing a team-based model of care; enhancing communication based on team huddles and co-location; ensuring that metrics for success include clinician satisfaction and well-being; and as discussed in #2 above, developing scheduling and staffing with flexibility and clinician control.
- Investing in employee education and career mobility/advancement
Another way to improve your employees’ satisfaction, and arguably one of the more effective methods, is to encourage and promote learning. Helping professionals boost their technical acumen and people skills also enables them to provide a better patient experience and be more productive.
For example, healthcare organizations can offer certification programs. A certification reflects a healthcare worker’s professional experience, and often leads to higher pay, as well as greater respect and satisfaction from peers and patients. An added benefit is that patients who know their nurse is certified are more likely to report they’re satisfied with the care they receive.
Your organization can also demonstrate a commitment to employees’ career growth, by making the effort to understand their professional and personal goals. With this information, you can work to develop a clear career plan.
Being able to promote people from within not only helps employees feel empowered; it also boosts retention and, therefore, lowers the cost and effort required to acquire new employees. Tools like Infor’s Talent Science assessment help leadership identify and develop talent with the right aptitudes for unique management and senior-level positions, and assists workers in identifying internal opportunities to advance their careers. It’s a win-win for everyone involved.
- Soliciting feedback from employees
Identifying the factors driving employee satisfaction (or the lack thereof) within your organization is relatively simple: ask them! Employee surveys provide a means of obtaining insights and feedback directly from the people who work for you.
Frequent pulse surveys can allow employees to feel as if they’re being heard with regard to important issues; of course, it’s important for employers to follow up and act on the results of the surveys.
Informal check-ins with small groups of staff members also provide a way for employees to share their opinions and help your leadership better understand specific areas for improvement.
As part of Infor’s human capital management solution, Infor GHR allows employers to capture workforce information for employees; for example, GHR makes it easier to administer pulse surveys and check-ins.
Enlisting a Proven Technology Partner
RPI helps forward-looking hospitals and healthcare systems improve employee engagement through various applications, including Infor’s Global Human Resources and Multi-View Scheduler. Our HCM practice and WFM practice are dedicated to crafting personalized solutions that fit your organization’s unique needs.
We can help your organization implement these solutions so that you can retain talent and save money, as well as streamline workforce management and contribute to your organization’s overall success.
To learn more about how RPI Consultants can help you set up Infor GHR and MVS, as well as other HCM and WFM components, contact us below.
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