Investing in well-being initiatives and competitive pay are no doubt important in recruiting healthcare workers. But strengthening organizational focus on excellence and quality is what actually makes employees stay, Press Ganey leaders wrote in a March 2 Harvard Business Review article.
"Our data on hundreds of thousands of physicians, nurses, and other caregivers in the United States shows that pride in their work and loyalty to their colleagues are the strongest correlates of their readiness to stay with their organization and continue showing up for work," Patrick Ryan, CEO of Press Ganey, and Thomas Lee, MD, Press Ganey's chief medical officer, wrote.
The main driver of pride, loyalty and engagement? An organization's commitment to making patient safety and quality the main focus, the authors wrote, citing data to demonstrate the correlation. During the pandemic, Press Ganey studied what drives loyalty among 410,000 healthcare employees. Across all types of healthcare personnel, they identified an organization's commitment to quality and patient-centered care as a top driver of their likelihood to stay.
"When employees gave their organization low ratings on these issues, they were more than six times as likely to say they were preparing to leave. These issues were important to security guards, maintenance and clerical personnel as well as clinicians," Mr. Ryan and Dr. Lee wrote.
Healthcare leaders should put these findings into action not just by increasing communication on patient safety and quality. Mr. Ryan and Dr. Lee wrote that leaders also "must prove their authenticity by committing to measuring how things are going on these issues, being transparent with the findings and using them to improve."
Read the full article here.