Healthcare Staffing: Happier = Healthier
A Happier Healthcare Workforce Leads to Better Patient Care and a Healthier Bottom Line
A more engaged staff is performs better and reduces turnover.
At BtR Impact, our mission is to equip leaders with the necessary tools and strategies to foster a thriving and dynamic workplace, enhancing resilience, productivity, and profitability. We do more than put Band-Aids on problems—we work with your healthcare organization to remedy the issues that lead to employee disengagement, absenteeism, and voluntary turnover.
Healthcare Staffing Is in Need of Urgent Care
Multiple problems have created a healthcare staffing emergency.
Healthcare workers and leaders are plagued by multiple, interrelated, and progressive problems where one issue often leads to another.
A Progression of Problems Ailing the Healthcare Workforce
Most healthcare professionals are dealing with some—and possibly all—of the following challenges at work. The statistics are discouraging:
- Most healthcare centers are chronically short-staffed—87% according to a 2021 survey. To cover staffing shortages, healthcare workers commonly work long hours, adhere to inflexible schedules, and miss days off from being on-call.
- Burnout is a widespread and ongoing problem. A 2022 Surgeon General Advisory warned that 54% of nurses and physicians reported burnout symptoms even before the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, that figure climbed to 93%. The major causes of burnout are heavy workloads and job stress.
- The majority of healthcare workers feel disengaged—they are apathetic, unstimulated, and disconnected. Nearly three-quarters (72%) of healthcare workers report hospital morale has gotten worse since the previous year. Healthcare employees feel increasingly unappreciated, with both their accomplishments and sacrifices dismissed or ignored by their managers.
- Absenteeism is on the rise among healthcare workers. Missing work due to illness, vacations, childcare, and personal matters is normal. However, in the healthcare industry, working conditions are increasingly the cause of missed work, with stress and burnout accounting for 40% of absenteeism. Productivity losses from absenteeism alone cost U.S. employers $1,685 per employee, annually.
- The past five years have seen a staggering 94.7% voluntary turnover rate among nurses, according to the 2023 NSI National Healthcare Retention & RN Staffing Report. The trend is projected to continue. In February 2023, the American Hospital Association issued a statement to the U.S. Senate: the hospital staffing shortage had reached emergency levels.
- Replacing healthcare workers is a slow and expensive process. It takes 97 days on average to fill vacated RN positions. It can cost 300% or more of a departed employee’s annual salary to onboard their replacement.
Employee disengagement, absenteeism, and voluntary turnover are critical pain points for healthcare staffing. Despite these obstacles, healthcare leaders must find ways to ensure adequate staffing, uphold the morale and well-being of their teams, maintain high standards of patient care, and manage their bottom lines.
You don’t have to juggle these issues alone. At BtR Impact, we work with industry leaders and their organizations to turn around low morale and high turnover and get workforces reengaged, energized, and more committed.
A Progression of Problems Ailing the Healthcare Workforce
Despite high levels of voluntary turnover, 52% of departing employees say that their managers or organizations could have done something to prevent them from quitting their jobs: they wanted to find a way to stay. Unfortunately, only a third of former employees had an opportunity to discuss their grievances with their managers before they quit. Fortunately, the evidence of communication breakdown here provides a clue as to how to mitigate employee churn.
A June 2023 survey found that employees who are engaged and energized about their work are 31% more likely to stay at their jobs and to go above and beyond work to exceed expectations. The statistics are compelling. Organizations should prioritize their efforts to increase morale and (re)engage their employees.
Not every employee can be retained, but an organization can do many things to increase employee engagement and retention. They all begin with managers and communication.
At BtR Impact, we enable business leaders to open up two-way communication with their employees, find common ground and common goals, and get everyone more invested in the work. Happy employees work harder and stick around!
In the competitive healthcare industry, success hinges on motivated and inspiring leadership coupled with engaged and focused employees. Implementing BtR Impact’s TENT framework guides organizations to become positive, vibrant workplaces attracting and retaining top talent. We enhance your leadership effectiveness, team engagement, and overall organizational success and profitability.
Let’s create a happier workforce together.
to take the first step!
Re-engage & Retain Your Healthcare Workforce
The talented and experienced team at BtR Impact can work with your healthcare organization to identify, address, and resolve the issues contributing to employee disengagement and turnover.
BtR Impact is expert at helping companies overcome tough staffing challenges like:
Burnout
Low morale
Low productivity
Disengagement
Absenteeism
Voluntary turnover
Let’s get started.
with us today!
Improve the health (and profitability) of your organization!
Healing Your Bottom Line
Let’s take a look at how some of these costs and savings actually work with a case study:
A hospital has 2,500 full-time employees, 800 of whom left voluntarily over the last year. That’s a 32% annual voluntary turnover—common in the healthcare industry.
If the average annual salary of one of those employees is $59,000, it could cost as much as $177,000 (300% of their annual salary) to replace that individual. Multiplied by the total turnover of 800 employees, that’s a huge cost of $141.6 million!
The estimated cost of absenteeism across all industries is $1,685 per year per employee. Multiplied by a staff of 2,500, that’s $4.2 million annually. However, if we’re working with team engagement in the top quartile, we can cut down absenteeism by as much as 41%, down to $2.5 million. We recoup the savings simply through greater productivity.
Measured by employee engagement, top quartile organizations usually earn 147% more revenue than their competition. If our hospital has an annual revenue of $8 billion, a competitor of similar size with top quartile employee engagement would earn $19.8 billion instead. That’s more than double the revenue!
Our hospital’s usual profit margin is 3%. On its annual revenue of $8 billion, that’s a profit of $240 million. Highly engaged companies perform better, are more efficient, and are at least 21% more profitable by conservative estimates. A 21% increase would increase our hospital’s profit by $50.4 million to $290.4 million. That’s impressive!
The more highly performing top quartile version of our hospital increases revenue from $8 billion to $19.8 billion. The 21% profit increase transforms $240 million into $592.8 million. That’s more than double the profit!
Every business is different and has unique challenges, but staffing problems are pervasive throughout the healthcare industry. All the costs associated with employee disengagement, absenteeism, and high turnover impact the bottom line.
BtR Impact can help you with all these difficulties and more. Not only can we improve your profitability, we can help shape your workplace into a positive environment that energizes and inspires your workforce.
Boost Employee Engagement Within 90 Days!
Let’s work together to get your organization re-engaging and retaining employees through enlightened leadership that works both for your workers and for your bottom line!
Schedule a FREE 15-minute discovery call today!
We will determine whether you need consultation for:
Team building
Management training programs
Leadership coaching
We will cater to your organization’s specific needs and build the right program for you!