How One Healthcare System is Addressing a Talent Shortage

With a projected shortage of 2.1 million nurses in the U.S. over the next three years — and 9 million nurses and midwives globally by 2030 — healthcare systems are scrambling to find talent.

Hospitals need nurses and nursing support so badly that nurses continue to be the No. 1 most in-demand job, according to LinkedIn data. And hospitals are also in dire need of respiratory therapists, imaging specialists, lab techs, and medical assistants. But one large healthcare system based in Cincinnati, Bon Secours Mercy Health, has found an innovative way to address this talent shortage: a tuition assistance and career pathways program named Called to Grow.

The program offers BSMH’s roughly 55,000 U.S.-based employees the training they need to move into more highly skilled roles, while also creating a talent pipeline for the healthcare system.

“A lot of this was just trying to be thoughtful about what we need to do in the long term to build what we’re calling ‘proprietary pipelines of talent,’” says Allan Calonge, core operations chief people officer at BSMH, “so that we won’t be faced with another talent crunch like we were in the last two or three years.”  

Let’s look more closely at what BSMH is doing and the four important steps they’ve taken with their upskilling program:

1. They used data and analytics to build support for the program

Healthcare systems were already dealing with nursing shortages before the pandemic. But after COVID-19 hit, nurses (and other healthcare providers) quit in droves, many suffering from burnout and exhaustion. According to one study, the number of registered nurses in the United States dropped by more than 100,000 from 2020 to 2021.

BSMH, which has 48 hospitals and more than 1,200 “sites of care” in the U.S. and Ireland, experienced this among its own staff. Toward the end of 2020 and beginning of 2021, their turnover increased dramatically. So, Allan says, “we started with our strategic workforce plan and tried to size up the challenge and opportunity for us.” They leaned into their HR insights team, made up of consumer insights professionals, and created an “experience survey” (which is what they call their engagement survey) to analyze employee perceptions. 

The survey results told Allan’s team that employees wanted growth, flexibility, and mission-focused work. With this information and other analytics in hand, they built the support needed to invest in a number of programs, including their talent and mobility program, Called to Grow. 

BSMH then partnered with Guild Education, which helps companies upskill employees, to implement the program. It launched in February 2022. 

2. They’re offering 100% tuition assistance — and covering educational expenses up front

Called to Grow offers employees the opportunity to upskill in two ways: through tuition assistance and through a career pathways program. These benefits are available to most employees, including PRN employees (who are on-call rather than full-time), from their first day of employment. 

For the tuition assistance, employees can choose from more than 120 clinical certifications, undergraduate degrees, graduate degrees, and nursing degrees at 15 universities and educational institutions — and BSMH covers 100% of the tuition. Just as importantly, they pay the tuition up front. That was an important part of the program from the get-go because BSMH knew that some employees didn’t have the means to pay tuition and wait for reimbursement. “It’s a justice issue, from our point of view,” Allan says. In addition to tuition assistance, BSMH offers on-the-job vocational training for many positions to help employees get started.

Employees also receive guidance through the career pathways program. BSMH has three internal mobility specialists on its HR team who help employees navigate each step. “Their sole focus,” Allan says, “is on engaging with associates, identifying what their interests are, their career journeys, the career path they want to pursue, and working with them to achieve it.”

The program includes clearly defined pathways. Someone in laundry and linen services, for example, could train to become a care companion on the nursing support team. A care companion could then train to become a patient care technician. The most popular career goal, however, is that of registered nurse, a highly skilled position with the salary to match. 

3. They’re (slowly) creating an internal talent pipeline while also attracting new talent  — and reducing turnover

So far, 2,500 BSMH employees have applied for the tuition assistance program. Kristin Horkey, a registered nurse in Youngstown, Ohio, is one of them. She already had an associate’s degree in nursing but wanted to earn her bachelor’s degree in nursing — which she’s now doing, tuition-free. “When I learned about what BSMH was offering, I just had to take advantage of it,” Kristin says. “This is my community. I really enjoy working here. I just want to keep continuing my education and career.” 

BSMH has seen a huge uptick in its nursing support employees, including patient care technicians, because of the program. “We actually blew that one out of the water,” Allan says. Vacancies for those positions dropped from 17.5% to 7.5% in roughly a year. 

The Called to Grow program has helped attract new talent too. BSMH hired more than 16,000 employees in 2022, including 24% more nurses than the year before. And 56% of the employees who joined BSMH in 2022 cited its Called to Grow efforts as one of the main reasons they took the job. 

BSMH also saw a 20% reduction in turnover last year. “A lot of that,” Allan says, “can be attributed to the investments we made in this program.”

4. They’re supporting internal mobility and weighing high school recruitment 

BSMH is trying to increase engagement in Called to Grow, even in the midst of a challenging financial situation. Like many healthcare providers, the organization receives most of its funding from Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance contracts that were negotiated two or three years ago — “when inflation was 1%,” Allan says — while their own salary and operating expenses have increased. 

Despite this, BSMH is working on rolling out a skills-based talent marketplace that, Allan says, “will make it as easy to find a job within our ministry [what they call the organization] as going to Indeed or LinkedIn.” 

The organization is also contemplating recruiting at high schools, the way the U.S. military does, to hire recent graduates as patient care technicians or LPNs and offer them scholarships to earn associate’s or bachelor’s degrees. But that means the nursing schools BSMH runs will need more faculty. So, one of the career pathways they’re offering will help registered nurses earn a master’s degree or a PhD and move into a faculty role. 

Final thoughts: Building a pipeline through upskilling takes time

Despite all the successes, Allan says it’s probably too early to measure the true impact of Called to Grow. It takes time to become a nurse or other skilled healthcare provider. “The barriers to entry in these highly technical clinical jobs,” he says, “are measured not in months but years, but we are excited by the initial results.”

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