Employee turnover in the healthcare industry is one of the highest of all industries, and so, retaining top talent doesn’t happen by accident. Effective employee retention strategies begin with proactively combating the factors that lead to turnover.
Here are four strategies to help with employee retention.
Prevent Burnout
Healthcare workers across the professional spectrum are susceptible to burnout. Once burnout sets in, employees are more likely to consider career changes. It’s key to identify your organization’s weak points, which could lead to burnout. Challenges with work-life balance, demanding schedules, and the emotional toll that comes with caring for sick patients and their families, are all common culprits. Once you determine what the issue is, then you can address it in a way that is meaningful to your employees. It’s important to find a solution that fits your situation rather than a blanket one that doesn’t fix underlying issues.
Implement Positive Performance Improvement Strategies
When employees demonstrate poor performance, you could try implementing performance improvement plans (that actually help) the employee grow in their area(s) of deficiency. It’s important to think about how your improvement plan is benefitting your employee directly, short term or long term. This can help develop trust and loyalty––both with which usually contribute to staff retention. When employees feel supported and receive encouragement despite deficiencies, they’re more likely to reciprocate with steady improvement and hard work. After all, it may not be their skills that are lacking, but rather your business’s onboarding and training process.
Foster A Culture of Communication
For employees, understanding job roles and performance expectations begin with effective engagement from management. Alternatively, poor communication can lead to confusion, poor performance, and ultimately reduced morale. It’s critical that managers are trained and equipped to share company policies, goals, and detailed job descriptions, as well as creating space for employees to share and ask questions in a way that allows them to feel heard. When an employee feels that there is clear and effective communication, it can go a big way in bolstering retention because they feel valued and also clued into what’s going on around them.
Provide Professional Development Opportunities
Competency is a large part of employees feeling equipped to do their job. Therefore, providing opportunities and time for staff to learn new skills and complete additional certifications can contribute to employees feeling confident in successfully performing their job-related tasks. This touches on the other three sections because it can help prevent monotony and burnout but offering a new perspective or tool provides performance improvement by giving employees new skills and will help foster positive communication if you ask what training would interest your team. You could also go a step further by asking them how the training went and even asking if they’d be willing to share some of the best points with other employees.
An excellent solution to health care staffing shortages is partnering with Arbor Associates. The staffing professionals at Arbor Associates can provide per diem, contract, or direct hire staff for your organization and help end the cycle of high-cost turnover rates. Let us help you – contact us today!