Combatting turnover in facility-based care may seem impossible. Healthcare workers are highly susceptible to burnout and they have the upper hand when it comes to finding work that meets their needs.
Turnover costs employers anywhere from 100-300% of each lost employee’s salary. Additionally, the results of consistent turnover in the healthcare industry can have much more dire results than other professions, like inadequate patient care.
But there are ways to keep your staff around longer. If you look at turnover as the symptom rather than the condition, it’s much easier to analyze why your staff is leaving.
Some of the contributing factors to high turnover are burnout, lack of career development, a poor work-life balance, and low pay and benefits. By addressing what causes or contributes to turnover, you’ll be better equipped to keep your team around longer. Here’s where to start.
Step 1: Evaluate your turnover rate
The first step in addressing turnover is figuring out exactly how bad the problem is. Find out the rate of turnover for your organization by dividing the total number of separations that occurred during a given period of time by the average number of employees, then, multiply that number by 100. This will give you a clear picture of just how frequently your employees are exiting your organization.
You can figure this out for each varying role and compare it to the industry average. For example, if your CNA turnover rate in 2022 was 55%, you’ll know you were above the national average of 53.3%, and that it’s important to take immediate action to get your numbers at least in line with your competition (but hopefully, even further below!).
Step 2: Attract the right people
Attracting the right people to your open roles matters a great deal to retention for several reasons. For one, each employee has the potential to add or detract from your culture, which can make your organization a great place to work, or can make coming in everyday all the more difficult. And, remaining fully staffed with highly qualified talent helps reduce burnout for everyone else, thus contributing to retention.
So in order to build a pipeline of great talent, look at the following areas:
Employee referrals: A really easy way to attract the right people and generate a pipeline of great talent is by incentivizing your best employees to connect you with their networks. After all, good people know good people. But to maximize referrals you need to make it as easy as possible for your team to participate. Send consistent referral campaigns (via text or email) to remind them about open roles and leverage tools that make referral submission seamless for the employee and easy to manage for you.
Career site: Your career site is your company page to talk about all the reasons working for your organization is great. Some things you can include on your career site include your culture, benefits like your flexibility policy, company awards, and employee career paths. The point is to give someone who’s trying to decide between applying at your organization and your competition a clear but digestible way of seeing why you’re the better option.
Job descriptions: Because there is an imbalance between the number of open healthcare roles today and the number of active job seekers, it’s critical that your job description isn’t inadvertently turning people away. First, lead with the benefits and an outline of “whats in it for the applicant” — that means touch on your culture, benefits, growth opportunities, and more. Then you get into what the role requires and entails. But be careful not to include too many requirements as this may deter great talent from applying.
Job boards: It’s important to also maximize your reach on popular job boards like Indeed. Hireology’s integration with Indeed uses disposition data to help improve the relevancy of your applicants over time. On top of that, you can directly sponsor jobs on Indeed directly from the Hireology platform, maximizing the reach of your job and helping you increase the number of qualified applicants. Hireology also provides data to help you optimize your spend over time.
Step 3: Hire better, faster
In order to ensure you’re hiring the best team possible and keeping your current employees far away from burnout, your hiring process needs to be efficient. Taking weeks to respond to candidates won’t fly for those that are in high demand, so you need to make sure the entire process — from communicating with applicants, to extending the offer letter — is like a well-oiled machine.
Hireology was built to help make your hiring decisions easier and your process more streamlined. We offer in-app auotmoation, candidate communication, and centralization of all hiring steps. We also help you select the right candidate for each role with pre-screen surveys, automated background and reference checks, and compile all important documentation, like immunization records and certifications, all in one place.
Step 4: Consider the employee lifecycle
Once you’ve done everything you can to fill your roles and build a pipeline so you can curb burnout, it’s important to consider other needs your employees have throughout their lifecycle with you. According to a recent Hireology study, the top drivers of loyalty in the healthcare space outside of pay include schedule flexibility, fulfilling work, and good culture.
So take time to consider your policies and offerings as it relates to these three areas. Maybe you need to enhance your flexibility policy to meet the needs of your team and when you do, be sure to communicate it internally to drive awareness and engagement.
Also, consider extending your training initiatives past initial onboarding and into the employee lifecycle. Without continuous training, your employees end up feeling stuck with no fulfillment or professional growth, which ultimately leads to turnover. Additionally, when your employees are knowledgeable and up to speed on every facet of their job, your patients receive better, more comprehensive care.
Nip turnover in the bud
While it’s impossible to completely rid your organization of turnover, there are actionable steps you can take to keep your employees around longer — and a lot of that starts with your hiring process! If you want to learn more about how Hireology can help you hire employees that will last, take a virtual tour of our platform on your own terms today. Emp
