5 Strategies to Retain Hospital & Healthcare Employees

How Hospitals and Clinics Can Retain Employees

What Is Employee Retention?

One helpful way for a company to gauge its employee engagement is by measuring retention. Employee retention statistics indicate a company’s ability to keep its employees over a certain time period. Companies that are able to maintain high retention rates can reduce costs, improve employee engagement, increase productivity and see better overall business performance. 

Employee retention in the healthcare industry is critical due to the specialized skills and high demand.

What Is the Hospital Turnover Rate?

According to the 2023 NSI National Healthcare Retention & RN Staffing Report, the average hospital turnover rate in 2022 was 22.7%, revealing a 3.2% decrease from the prior year. In the last five years, the average hospital has turned over 105% of its staff, and 94.7% of all hospital separations in that time period were voluntary terminations.¹

Frontline workers, such as certified nursing assistants (CNAs), medical assistants, and licensed practical nurses (LPNs), often experience the highest turnover rates. These roles involve demanding work, relatively lower compensation, and can lead to burnout, contributing to the turnover challenges.

Why Is the Healthcare Industry Turnover Rate So High?

There are many factors that make it difficult for hospitals to retain employees and it becomes even more difficult amid a hyper-competitive job market and economic uncertainty.

Experience in the Workplace

Healthcare employees often work long and odd hours that can lead to exhaustion, burnout and ultimately turnover. It’s up to employers to recognize the hard work of their employees and support them accordingly.

Compensation

Today’s employees expect flexible compensation packages that support their personal needs. This doesn’t necessarily mean increasing salaries. Rather, one possible solution is offering flexible pay solutions that increase employee financial wellness without increasing business costs.

Career Growth

Once healthcare professionals believe they’ve exhausted all paths to career advancement within a particular setting, they’re more likely to leave and look for a new opportunity. Employers can combat this by helping employees grow in their personal lives as well as their professional lives. One way employers can do this is by offering a financial wellness benefit that helps employees meet their personal goals, like saving money.

Cultural Fit

A good employee retention strategy starts before the employee is even hired. Recruiting and onboarding efforts have to be focused on attracting the right people for the open position. Hiring the wrong fit for an open role makes retention even more difficult.

How Healthcare Companies and Hospitals Can Retain Employees 

Improve Scheduling

Today’s employees expect work flexibility more than ever, and healthcare employees are often not able to take advantage of the remote-work benefits that employees in other industries enjoy. Even so, healthcare employers can still make an effort to give employees as much work flexibility as possible. Healthcare employees may not be able to work from home, but they may be able to choose what shifts best fit their schedules, which locations are easiest to commute to and more. If employees are able to track their shifts and pick up more as wanted, it gives them work flexibility on par with today’s work norms.

Prevent Employee Burnout

A significant reason for high turnover in the healthcare industry is employee exhaustion and burnout. Employers can combat this issue by supporting employees the same way they expect employees to support patients. This means adequately staffing all shifts – which is made even easier and more valuable when employees have the power to do it themselves – and reducing administrative tasks so employees can focus on caring for their patients.

Invest in Employee Engagement

The first step to investing in employee engagement is asking your employees what they want and need. This information can inform the type of initiatives you set forth when elevating your employee experience. A simple way to get started improving employee engagement is by reimagining your employee recognition programs. In today’s digital age, instant and personalized gratification is the norm, and employees expect the same when being recognized at work. A recognition program that can digitally deliver cash rewards to an employee’s phone in real-time alongside a personalized message may be more effective than a reward that anonymously gets processed through payroll and paid out weeks later.

Improve Pay Experience 

Improving employee pay is often confused with increasing employee pay, but experts say that even raising wages isn’t enough to attract and retain workers. Today’s employees expect an elevated pay experience, not just higher wages. This means flexible pay strategies like on-demand pay that put the employee first. When employees can access their pay whenever they need, see how much money they’ve earned each day, or set aside savings in just a few taps, they can be better prepared for financial challenges and go about living the life they want.

Conclusion

Hospitals and healthcare employers are regularly struggling to fill open positions and retain employees for long periods of time. The leaders in the space use innovative pay strategies and modern employee benefits to become an employer of choice that healthcare professionals want to work for. One of those modern benefits is DailyPay, which provides employees with instant access to their hard-earned wages. 

According to a Harris Poll survey commissioned by IntelyCare and DailyPay:

• Nearly three-quarters (73%) of healthcare workers say it is important to them that their employer provides tools and resources to help them manage financial stress.²
• 71% of healthcare workers would be more likely to remain at a job if their employer offered an on-demand pay benefit than if they didn’t offer one.³

Check out how DailyPay can help you retain healthcare employees in any labor market