Staffing issues infect every industry, but how are healthcare leaders preventing the spread?
The labor markets are currently tighter in 37 U.S. states than before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a recent report from LinkedIn's economic graph team. Adding and keeping workers is incredibly important, especially during a time when budgets are thinner.
These 36 industry leaders share how to attract and retain talent during workforce shifts and strict budgets. The executives featured in this article are all speaking at the Becker's Health IT, Digital Health + RCM Annual Meeting: The Future of Business and Clinical Technologies which will take place Oct. 3-6, 2023, at the Navy Pier in Chicago.
To learn more about this event, click here.
If you would like to join as a speaker, contact Randi Haseman at rhaseman@beckershealthcare.com.
As part of an ongoing series, Becker's is talking to healthcare leaders who will speak at our conference. The following are answers from our speakers at the event.
Question: With the shifts in workforce and strict budgets, how is your organization attracting and retaining talent?
Kathleen Mazza, PhD, RN, MBA. Senior advisor for population health informatics and clinical digital services at Northwell Health (New Hyde Park, N.Y.): At Northwell, we have adopted a culture of consistently recruiting our existing team members. Managers are expected to meet regularly with their team members to discuss short and long term goals – and then implement a plan for networking or training to reach those goals. Sometimes that may even mean optimizing their career growth by facilitating their transfer away from our team, but still keeping them within the Northwell organization. We want talented, ambitious people to know they don’t need to leave Northwell to have growth opportunities.
Patrice Callagy, RN. Executive director of emergency service at Stanford Health Care (Palo Alto, Calif.): We are proud to have achieved our fourth Magnet designation and the Emergency Nursing Association Lantern award for the third time. These esteemed accolades are a result of a culture of engagement within our emergency departments. As a result, we are privileged to maintain an impressively low turnover rate of less than two percent for our registered nurses.
Emergency services has a flexible budget. FTEs are based on the flex budget, census and patient acuity.
We employ several strategies to ensure a consistent staffing level within our EDs. These include:
- Recruiting ED techs through a registry who are either currently enrolled in nursing school or aspire to pursue a career in healthcare. Once they complete their nursing education, they are eligible to apply for our new graduate program. The advantage of hiring through the registry is that it offers flexibility in scheduling for those who are still attending school.
- Implementing an annual ED training program that specifically targets experienced inpatient nurses and produces four new ED RNs per year. Additionally, we have a new graduate training program which accepts four new graduate nurses each year.
- Utilizing travel nurses during the winter surge and for LOAs. These temporary staff members are initially hired for a specific period but can renew their contracts for up to nine months. Remarkably, over 50 percent of these travel nurses eventually transition into permanent staff positions.
Previously, we allowed our staff members to work consecutive shifts, which enabled individuals who did not reside in the local area or state to join our team. However, we have discontinued this practice, for new requests, to prioritize staff wellness.
A recent addition to our staffing approach is the hiring of summer high school interns, particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds who may be the first in their families to pursue higher education. These interns are selected for an eight to 12-week summer program where they are exposed to various aspects of healthcare, primarily serving as customer service liaisons. After completing high school, they have the opportunity to join our ED tech team through the registry. The goal of this initiative is to inspire these students to pursue nursing as a career by providing them with exposure to the field along with mentoring from our ED nurses. This mentoring relationship extends throughout their nursing programs as well.
Tiffany Sullivan. Senior vice president and COO of physician services at NewYork-Presbyterian (New York City): NewYork-Presbyterian is focused on providing our team members with flexibility, competitive pay and a dynamic, engaging environment. We view total rewards not as a cost or budget constraint but as an investment in our people who will allow us to remain a top healthcare provider in New York and the country. We continue to offer a host of benefits above and beyond health, dental and vision, including enhanced family and parental leave, behavioral health support for families including young children and teens, back-up child and adult/elder care services, college coaches and assistance for surrogacy, IVF and adoption. At NewYork-Presbyterian, we strive to address the needs and concerns of our workforce with programs and services tailored to what our team members value most.
Salim Saiyed, MD, FAMIA. Vice president and chief medical information officer for diplomate clinical informatics at UPMC (Pittsburgh): Attracting and retaining talent in the healthcare IT and healthcare industry is a top priority for us, especially with the shifts in the workforce post pandemic and the competition from technology companies. At UPMC, we have implemented several strategies to attract and retain top talent. Some of our strategies include offering competitive compensation and benefits, hybrid and flexible work options and professional development opportunities. We have formed partnerships with our local colleges to develop a future pipeline of talent including tuition reimbursement for certain programs. We perform an annual MyVoice survey to gather feedback from our employees, measure engagement and create action plans to enact positive change. Leader rounding and employee recognition is another key tactic we use to retain our employees.
Michelle Stansbury. Vice president of innovation and IT applications at Houston Methodist: It’s not lost on us that the healthcare workforce is continuing to evolve, especially given the effects of the pandemic and the increasing shift of virtual care options. At Houston Methodist, we’re focused on redesigning care delivery to benefit our patients, and that can best be done through technology that will support staff in their day-to-day work. From ambient intelligence to remote patient monitoring – these tools are helping us work smarter to give our patients the best care possible and easing the time-consuming administrative tasks that have historically caused burnout for staff. We’ve had overwhelmingly positive feedback from our nurses about the new technology being used at our hospitals, especially when paired with our virtual nursing program. These innovations have helped with eliminating the nursing shortage for our hospital system. We’ve had a 100 percent retention rate in our virtual nursing program since its launch one year ago. Virtual nursing has been deployed to 852 beds across 31 units, helping over 40,000 patients all while giving flexibility to nurses to sometimes work remotely and allowing bedside nurses the time to focus on providing high-touch patient care.
Ann Cappellari, MD. System vice president and chief medical information officer at SSM Health (St. Louis): We're focusing on usual and unusual strategies. The usual: standard work-from-home, sign on bonuses and expanding geographic area for pull of candidates. The unusual: expanding niche benefits like pet insurance, cross-training work experiences in nontraditional areas of the business for diversity and bringing invigorating collaborations to maintain energy in work.
Eric Smith. Chief digital officer at Memorial Hermann (Houston): Despite continued cost pressures in healthcare, the need for transformation persists. At Memorial Hermann, our vision is to create healthier communities, now and for generations to come. We have successfully recruited talent from within and outside of health care who are enthusiastic about helping drive our digital transformation efforts and share our vision. To attract and retain the best talent in the industry, we have established new roles and implemented various innovative initiatives across our system. Our goal is to engage individuals who want to make a difference and join us on this journey. Recognizing that we are all consumers of healthcare, together with our recruited talent and existing teammates, we embrace the opportunity to revolutionize care delivery by prioritizing the patient experience and introducing new capabilities that further empower patients on their health journey.
Joe Moscola. Executive vice president for enterprise services at Northwell Health (New Hyde Park, N.Y.): Now more than ever, it’s important to show employees how much they’re valued for their contributions on the job and within their homes and communities. Retaining the staff we have, particularly people we’ve already invested in training and who have longevity and experience, is more cost-effective than recruiting and onboarding new people, especially in our local job market.
By partnering with and creating pipelines locally and statewide, from high schools to universities, Northwell has doubled the efforts to create sustainable employment pipelines for the future workforce. We have been highly invested in the Future Ready program, created by the City of New York and are a vital partner of the New York Jobs CEO Council.
Caring for our employees from a variety of benefits, which matter to themselves, their loved ones and their family, is the most effective way to retain our talent, including job flexibility, tuition reimbursement, childcare, grocery delivery, financial well-being workshops, etc. One of the most important benefits is healthcare. The topic of the cost of care will come back soon. As the employer, we are providing employee-based healthcare navigation programs to help Northwell team members, friends and families to be navigated by our clinical teams, including cancer, acute care and other services.
Another initiative is creating unique partnerships with big technology companies or other incredibly strong brand and reputation firms to have our employees work on specific projects with subject matter expertise from those companies or trained by them. We created pride and enthusiasm for our employees, and this also helped our recruiting process since people in the job market hear more about the things we are doing and the speed we are moving.
Joseph Zehler. Director of specialty physician revenue cycle at St. Joseph's/Candler Health System (Savannah, Ga.): Staff retention is multi-pronged. There are several areas that we focused on in order to keep staff within our organization. We offer competitive pay, flexible work hours, hybrid work-from-home, incentive pay, career paths and put the right staff in the right positions. Most importantly, we provide a great work culture where our staff feel appreciated.
Christopher Ault. Chief revenue officer at Cooper University Hospital (Camden, N.J.): Like just about every health system, we are seeing the effects of a tightening labor market and challenging economic climate. Diverging pressures on wages and reimbursement make managing our business extremely challenging. To attract and retain revenue cycle talent, we have been strategic in our approach and remained flexible to keep up. Cooper has been proactive to keep wages in line with, or ahead of, our market, maintained 403b matches and benefits and aggressive in marketing to talent. While pay is a main priority, we also know that we have to be mindful of our financial position to ensure we are able to reinvest in our people and our community well into the future. Thus, we have remained focused on the non-cash components of workforce development by deploying flexible work arrangements and focusing on diversity, wellness, recognition and engagement. Throughout all of our revenue cycle teams, we are always finding new ways to continuously check the pulse of our teams and react in real time to any opportunities.
Robert V. Boos. Vice president of revenue cycle at Centra Health (Lynchburg, Va.): In the span of over thirty years in my career, this is the first time that we are directly competing with fast food restaurants and big retail establishments for the same potential employee. Their ability to offer hourly rates comparable to some of our positions has created fierce competition. What we have to offer our potential new recruits goes beyond the initial hourly rate. The career in hospital finance and revenue cycle is significantly broader than fast food or retail, and the ability to grow in this career is much more attainable.
Once our employee, it is incumbent upon us to continue to highlight this career path in front of them, encourage them to look to grow within our organization and make a significant commitment that our new positions and leadership opportunities are grown from within.
Lindsey Harper Crain, FACHE. COO at Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center (Washington D.C.): We are offering recruitment and retention incentives, flexible work options and flexible schedules.
John P. Donohue. Vice president of information services for enterprise services at Penn Medicine (Philadelphia): We take a 'people first' approach to attracting and retaining talent in corporate IS at Penn Medicine. We start by focusing on hiring the right people. For us, this is all about 'fit' within the organization. We look for highly competent candidates that have a high energy level and are able to work well in a collaborative environment. We work with our managers and other leaders on recruiting strategies to identify and successfully onboard these individuals. From there, it is all about creating an environment that is challenging with meaningful work and rich with career growth opportunities. We regularly invest in both employee development and leadership development. This has been very effective for us and has kept our retention levels well above industry standards.
Stephen Hochschuler, MD. Chair emeritus at Texas Back Institute (Plano, Texas): Attracting talent on all levels is difficult in today’s post-virus environment. Bank failures haven't helped nor has the existence of societal dysfunction. Inflation has also played a significant role. Salary demands have caused migration of talent with a shortage of nurses, physician assistants and, in general, the workforce. Most neurosurgeons or orthopedic spine talent now work for hospitals, private equity or are coalescing into major national groups. Value health is the name of the game which is cost savings for society and all participants.
Isaiah Nathaniel. Vice president and CIO at Delaware Valley Community Health (Philadelphia): One of the things we are doing to attract and retain talent is to redefine our employer brand. We have met with many of our staff at all levels of leadership to learn how we are as an employer and see if it matches our intent. By completing this, we believe we will be more competitive in the marketplace and provide an employee experience that we will continue to feel proud about and staff want to join and stay because of it.
In addition to making sure our mission and values are not only on our website but integrated into all that we do, we are adapting as best as we can to all the new productive ways work can be accomplished in and out of the physical walls with mutual compromise.
John Gaede. Director of information services at Sky Lakes Medical Center (Klamath Falls, Ore.): Sky Lakes is not immune to the shifts in workforce and strict budgets. We are passionate about our community and the impact Sky Lakes provides. We have recently resourced and prioritized our recruiting team and strategy along with upgrading our HCM platform to streamline our workflows. We are beginning to see the fruit of that labor.
Phillip L. Coule, MD, MBA. Vice president and chief medical officer at Augusta (Ga.) University Health System: Augusta University Health is focusing on growing the workforce through pipeline programs. Our PEACH Initiative (Professional Exploration of Academics and Careers in Healthcare) at Augusta University uses simulation and hands-on training in healthcare skills as well as work-based learning experiences to encourage youth to enter healthcare professions.
Joel Klein, MD. Senior vice president and CIO at University of Maryland Medical System (Baltimore): I just heard from a senior IT leader recently some version of 'You know, IT people really do want to work here. There is a real sense of mission and purpose, and it feels good to be part of this place.' Culture, advancement potential, working conditions, inclusiveness and being connected to the core mission of the organization really does matter.
Richard Zane, MD. Chief innovation officer at UCHealth (Aurora, Colo.): Although we are doing many of the things other organizations are doing like looking at staffing creatively, righting compensation and offering benefits, we are focusing on career development and advancement.
What we know differentiates UCHealth is being innovative, which in and of itself is a workforce satisfier. There is little subtlety that we are working on the bleeding and cutting edge with technologies and processes to make the lives of our providers, nurses and other staff members better and easier. We have made investments in wearable technology, virtual surveillance capabilities, methods to take care of our patients inside and outside the hospital and introduced new roles at the bedside to help our clinicians manage all of the technology we have implemented. Ultimately, these people, processes and tools directly impact our patients and allow them to live the lives they want to lead but also allows every member of the staff from physicians, APP’s, nurses, techs, assistants and more to work at the top of their scope and abilities which, ultimately, is what is most correlative with job satisfaction.
At the end of the day, we can all be chasing our tails and each other to keep up with compensation changes in the market, but we differentiate ourselves through advanced capabilities that don’t exist elsewhere, and that, frankly and unapologetically, is the long game.
Ryan Cameron. Vice president of innovation at Children’s Hospital & Medical Center - Omaha: Focusing on people is what we do every day. No doubt we are all navigating challenging times with the low availability of skilled talent and redacting healthcare budgets.
However, our dedication to people is something that sets Children’s in Nebraska apart and something that is always paramount. Regardless of if we’re expanding or redacting as an organization to ensure healthcare is always affordable and accessible, our team is our most important asset. Perhaps that is our secret to success in that living and leading 'people first' isn’t about focusing on timely initiatives but more so about consistency and an unchanging commitment to our team. We always conduct an annual employee engagement survey and more importantly, we listen, respond and communicate with the follow-through. Our leaders are held accountable to deliver on the feedback we receive as a part of their performance goals. We ask all our team members to participate in providing feedback as well. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box and welcome the diverse feedback of those who do! Every voice matters and every organization is unique, so listening, learning and acting on feedback is critical. Living the 'people first' philosophy requires you to never stop that simple communication process.
Zafar Chaudry, MD, MS, MIS, MBA, CITP. Senior vice president, chief digital officer and CIO at Seattle Children’s: My organization is creating a strong organizational culture of equity, diversity and inclusion. We try to ensure that our employees feel valued, respected and supported. We are offering competitive compensation and benefits. Also, we are focused on providing opportunities for professional development with an added emphasis on employee experience. We listen to our employees and get consistent feedback from them. IT has also built a pipeline program in collaboration with Seattle colleges to train high school students from underprivileged backgrounds in health IT to associate degree level. We provide these students with a full scholarship. Each year, IT funds a physician fellow in informatics in collaboration with the University of Washington.
Jennifer Ruschman. Assistant vice president of digital health at Cincinnati Children's: For digital health talent, there are a number of approaches we are using to try and attract and retain talent. First, we are working on opportunities for co-op and summer students to bring in talented students who can then connect to our organization mission. Secondly, we are looking at our current career ladders to ensure we have opportunities for talent from non-traditional backgrounds to enter our pools as well as growth opportunities for most talented team members in engineering roles. Finally, the organization's commitment to DEI work and engagement makes this environment more welcoming and engaging for all.
Chad M. Teven, MD, MBA, FACS, HEC-C. Reconstructive microsurgeon and clinical assistant professor in the surgery department at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine (Chicago): One important way our organization attracts and retains talent is to make explicit efforts toward making the work environment desirable. To that end, autonomy to job craft is given whenever appropriate. Furthermore, the opinions of employees at all levels of the organization are sought to address current, emerging and potential concerns. Efforts are also being made to ensure that our staff is performing job functions consistent with their background, training and formal responsibilities. For example, the goal for advanced practice providers is to practice to the full extent of their license (i.e., education and training). These and other measures are important for improving the workplace environment and therefore retaining excellent employees.
James Watson. Senior director of marketing at St. Luke's Health System (Bethlehem, Pa.): For us, differentiation and quality of life is key. We’ve had to move beyond the borders of our state for clinical roles, and while every health system likes to talk about their organization, we also talk about the beautiful environment in Idaho. We’re more likely to have ads showing someone hiking or whitewater rafting than someone working in a hospital setting. Today, workers don’t just want a job, they want a life.
Jason P. Stopyra, MD, MS. Regional medical director of safety and security at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist (Winston-Salem, N.C.): Amid stringent budgets and the ever-shifting healthcare workforces, organizations are being forced to rapidly innovate in a highly competitive environment to meet the current and looming staffing challenges to meet patient care demands. Contract labor across healthcare professions, namely nursing, is taxing our systems. An innovative 'spin' of the ever-growing contract 'travel' nurse burden is to successfully 'convert' current contract staff to other viable, more financially sustainable options. One such conversion plan we employ is an 'internal traveler' option whereby current travel nurses can choose to convert to an internal travel contract affording them unique employment options, increased pay and freedoms that they are seeking in contract companies with perhaps a more 'permanent home feel.'
Additionally, revisiting how nursing care is delivered with innovative care delivery models to decompress the demands of the work environment is another tactic. One such care redesign strategy we have employed is reincorporating licensed practical nurse roles in acute care settings, where appropriate to retain and attract nursing talent.
The workforce challenges are not unique to nursing, thus intense effort is being focused across disciplines. For rehabilitation services (PTs, OTs, etc.), we offer sign-on bonuses, increased relocation bonuses and support to experienced and new graduates alike. For our physician colleagues significant sign-on and retention bonuses are being offered in efforts to ensure work-life balance, offering competitive compensation packages and continuing education and professional development opportunities. We recognize and appreciate our patients' care needs are always the one constant in this equation and must remain our central focus, even when budgets may be constrained, hence as the landscape changes so must our retention and recruitment strategies.
David L. Reich, MD. President at The Mount Sinai Hospital and Mount Sinai Queens (New York City) in collaboration with Valerie Orellana, RN. Vice president of talent acquisition, compensation and human resources operations: In an era of fierce competition to attract and retain talent, Mount Sinai Health System is leveraging unique market differentiators that offer a competitive edge, including our stellar reputation in cutting edge science, clinical care, research and education, combined with an entrepreneurial spirit. Taking a human-centered approach, we scan the environment for candidates with skill, experience, loyalty and drive by harnessing social media platforms, targeted advertising campaigns and same-day hiring events attended by senior managers. We offer flexible schedules and hybrid work opportunities for many roles. We have comprehensive initiatives focused on faculty and staff wellbeing and work-life balance. All of these efforts are grounded in a strong culture of diversity, inclusion and anti-racism that is deeply meaningful to our organization. We provide innovative training and educational programs designed to enhance our employees’ professional development. Finally, we listen to our workforce, using validated tools that measure engagement so as to drive further improvement in recruitment and retention.
Sheldon Pink. Vice president of revenue cycle at Luminis Health (Annapolis, Md.): The concomitant between expense reduction, wage increases and labor shortages has created a quagmire for healthcare organizations across the country. Retention and recruitment are major initiatives within our health system. As leaders, we must exercise profundity, transparency and partnership with HR and finance. Attracting talent starts with paying attention to the minutiae of what drives individuals to your organization and using those principles to establish a criterion. The willingness to provide your team members with the confidence, knowledge and opportunities for continuous development while exercising fiscal responsibility to the organization will always be the key to retention.
Kevin Starnes. CIO at The Center Orthopedic & Neurosurgical Care & Research and CIO at Cascade Surgicenter (Bend, Ore.): We are located in Central Oregon (headquarters in Bend, OR), which is a great place to live. Central Oregon is also a relatively expensive place to live, with a relatively small pool of potential employees to draw from. Attracting and retaining talent was a real challenge even before the pandemic, and the current budgetary pressures don’t help, to say the least. Our tools may be limited, but there are some things we can do. We try to leverage our great location, flexible work schedules and remote/work-from-home options when applicable. We also try to be as competitive with compensation as we can. But ultimately, our culture is our biggest asset, especially regarding retention. Culture takes work, especially in healthcare, especially in tough times, but it is something that we have the power to cultivate and grow.
Jahmela Pech, DNP, RN. Executive director of quality management at Providence St. Joseph Hospital of Orange (Calif.): Providence St. Joseph Hospital Orange is not insulated in dealing with current shifts in workforce and strict budgets. There is a concerted effort across the enterprise to attract and retain talent through equitable market adjustments, reviewing turnover data and identifying areas of opportunities, recognizing team members for their contributions and connection to team success, and connecting regularly to share information, listen and follow up on feedback. Organization leaders promote candor by having open and honest dialogue with their team members. Stay conversations is an intentional approach to strengthen the relationship between organization leaders and team members to help them feel valued and appreciated.
Brian Shea. Interim CIO at Lexington (Ky.) Clinic and CIO at MedOne Healthcare Partners (Columbus, Ohio): Staff recruitment and retention have long been important challenges for organizations, but they have become even more critical and complex in the post-COVID-19 era and amidst the current financial market conditions. Achieving a balance between competitive compensation and what organizations can afford or are willing to provide is crucial to retaining current staff and attracting new talent. However, it goes beyond compensation and extends to how organizations value different roles and individuals within their structure, enabling them to maintain operations while propelling the organization forward. Total compensation encompasses various elements such as base salary, bonuses, incentives, benefits and more.
The widespread adoption of remote work or hybrid models during the pandemic poses a challenge in transitioning employees back to on-site work fully. To address this, organizations should strive to offer flexible work arrangements whenever feasible. Flexible arrangements have numerous benefits, including being considered part of an employee's overall compensation calculation. They also allow organizations to have some control over office costs.
For staff to feel valued and connected to the organization beyond just having a job, it is crucial to empower them and provide recognition and rewards. Regular dialogue about personal and career development goals should be an ongoing practice. Moreover, an organization must have a clear vision, mission and values that enable staff to see how their work aligns with and contributes to these core aspects. This multifaceted topic does not have a one-size-fits-all solution, but when all these pieces are brought together effectively, they contribute to creating a strong company culture.
Staff recruitment and retention require a holistic approach that goes beyond compensation, emphasizing the value placed on individuals and their roles, providing flexible work arrangements, fostering employee empowerment and recognition and maintaining open dialogues about development goals. Ultimately, when these elements are integrated in the right way, they contribute to building a robust company culture.
Jeffrey Sattler, DO, PharmD. Epic system physician builder, system medical informatics physician and hospitalist at Saint Luke's Health System (Kansas City, Mo.): Organizational retention and attraction of talent is currently a challenge and a threat for many. However, in the current environment with all the recent challenges with healthcare staffing and employment, retention is more crucial than ever. To best minimize this risk, we are taking the dual approach of engaging and re-engaging current employed colleagues regarding input on how to improve their workdays – listening to their ideas with attention to optimization and operational efficiencies that are bottlenecks and pain points for them. Certainly, patient experience considerations are important; yet each employee’s experience is just as important. The loss of great colleagues leaves holes that last for long periods of time. In addition, attracting talent is always a key priority – especially in today’s environment where the workforce may not value tenure as much as in the past. Focusing on a culture of being the best place to give and receive healthcare, we strive to attract top talent who want to be part of the future of healthcare with focus on innovation and transformation of each aspect of healthcare.
James Forrester. Vice president of IT and chief technology officer at University of Rochester (N.Y.) Medical Center: Here at URMC, we have always believed that our team is our most important asset. With the post-pandemic shifts in workforce and healthcare system financial constraints the focus on technology talent strategy is more important than ever. We have adopted a theme of 'the four factors of recruitment, engagement and retention' which include 1) compensation, 2) quality of managers, 3) flexibility and 4) drive and motivation. We know that year over year employees rank compensation as the statistically most important factor for recruitment and retention. As such the second phase of our technology talent strategy is 'career pathways' which includes market compensation assessment and adjustment of our various technology roles. We also know that there will always be other businesses that can pay more and that we have full control on the remaining three factors. As such the first phase of our technology talent strategy was 'intentional leadership' which focuses on the quality of our managers. The resulting intentional leadership model trains our managers and includes annual performance goals in the areas of intentional conversations, intentional delegation, intentional diversity and inclusion and intentional culture. Creating a culture where our leaders and staff are 'visible, transparent and empathetic,' we are able to understand the needs of our staff and provide flexibility that is meaningful. We are also able to correlate their work to critical digital transformation and execution of our missions of patient care, education and research. Our strategy is constantly assessed through measures of vacancy rates, staff turnover rates, successful recruitment rates and staff engagement through simple net promoter score measures as well as Press Ganey employee engagement measures.
Tammie Rubel, MSN-ED, RN. Director of patient care services and clinical education at McLaren Flint Hospital (Grand Blanc, Mich.): One of the best strategies we have employed is hiring nurse interns from our local colleges. The interns work with a nurse helping with patient care while learning how to be a future nurse. We have been able to fill many open nursing positions and cut the orientation time by approximately two weeks. We continue to offer tuition reimbursement to our employees along with scholarship opportunities. We partner with colleges to bring in students for clinical experience with a focus on specialty jobs that are hard to fill like CT tech, perfusionist and radiology techs.
Tony Ambrozie. Senior vice president and chief digital information officer at Baptist Health South Florida (Coral Gables, Fla.): Especially in a highly competitive technology job market, the level of talent compensation is obviously important. Strict budgets constrain what we can afford to pay that the market demands, and that is obviously a problem.
But compensation is not everything for great talent.
First, for a lot of professionals, what they do and how meaningful it is from an intrinsic satisfaction perspective is extremely important. Most would accept lower pay in exchange for the opportunity to work for great causes such as patient well-being and experience. So, for us, it is important to develop a great technology and digital vision that talent will value being part of, executing on that vision in a faithful way so people don’t feel they were sold empty words and then measuring the positive impacts and outcomes. Interestingly, as the word on our philosophy spreads in the job market, more people will want to be part of it. This is where a powerful vision and execution becomes a recruiting tool.
In addition, great talent is always attracted to organizations that provide personal and professional growth opportunities — and I don’t mean just promotions — but the ability to constantly learn and do interesting things. Thus, it is incumbent upon us as leaders of organizations to create the structure and organizational culture that supports and sometimes stretches people to grow.
These two aspects, in my experience, can go a very long way towards recruiting and retaining great talent.
Angela Mauch. Director of hospital revenue cycle at The University of Kansas Health System (Topeka, Kan.): Our health system is agile and adaptive and like many organizations, due to the pandemic, we sent much of our remaining on-site workforce to work remotely. We quickly learned that roles previously thought to be needed in-house were sustainable and productive in a work-from-home environment. We are now recruiting nationally for work-from-home positions as our default, with no plans to bring teams back on-site. This obviously allows us to cast a wider net when recruiting for talent, but it also allows for flexibility in our employees’ days and supports work-life balance. As we look forward, we are focused on continuing to build relationships with schools and organizations across the community that we can use as talent pipelines and creating succession plans and career ladders which provide a roadmap for professional growth across the organization.
Michele Szkolnicki, M.Ed., BSN, RN, FACHE, CMPE. Senior vice president and chief nursing officer at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center: Although these current times are very challenging, they are also a great opportunity to reset the way we care for and manage our workforce. Begin by building and maintaining employee engagement. Appreciation and recognition need to be more than occasional remembrances; we are endeavoring to weave these opportunities to celebrate staff contributions into our organization's DNA.
Secondly, offer a competitive benefits package to include what is important and valuable to your staff such as tuition support and family leave options. In addition, it is important that the workplace offers choices for staff to grow and develop their careers. We offer development programs that span from those that provide entry-level learning options into healthcare while earning on the job to advanced degrees and fellowship programs that create experts and future leaders.
Finally, we strive to preserve work-life balance. For those of us who insist on catching up on email over the weekend, there is this nifty little feature in Outlook that lets you 'delay send' email to a future date and time. Use it. If your staff sees you sending weekend emails, they will feel like that is your expectation of them as well.
Tarun Kapoor, MD, MBA. Senior vice president and chief digital transformation officer at Virtua Health (Marlton, N.J.):: At Virtua Health, our challenges are similar to those being experienced across the country. Our approach is to keep a relentless focus on purpose and culture. From a recruitment perspective, we’ve been highlighting our culture of 'we' and featuring our colleagues in our ads where they share their 'why' for working here.
On the retention side, we are focused on resiliency, connecting our teams back to the purpose and fulfillment of their calling as well as leveraging digital tools and predictive analytics to optimize workflows. For example, we’re investing heavily in automation tools and streamlined processes to decrease non-clinical or repetitive tasks. Our belief that Virtua is 'here for good' remains our North Star for our workforce and a magnet for those who aspire to belong to a team where they can be their very best and make a difference.
Michael Pfeffer. CIO at Stanford Health Care (Palo Alto, Calif.): In the heart of Silicon Valley, Stanford Medicine considers attracting and retaining top IT talent our utmost priority. Some key initiatives are career development planning, a dynamic mentoring program and committees collaborating to execute on IT organizational strategic goals that have been chosen, and are being driven by, our IT professionals. This creates a culture of inclusion, where employees at every level can give input into our IT strategic priorities, bolstering ownership and engagement throughout the IT organization. We encourage our employees to showcase the amazing work they do both within and outside of Stanford Medicine in such forms as presentations, publications and webinars. In addition, we take every opportunity to recognize the successes of our teams through multi-channel communications.