Staff Retention in Healthcare Organizations, Essay Example

When staff turnover shifts from a healthy sum of churn to soaring levels of loss, the resulting impact gets to the center of organizational achievement. This does not only affect productivity and profits directly, with the costs of hiring and training fresh staff members, but there is additional consequential loss of business/corporate knowledge. In addition, this can have a negative impact on customer service and morale (McElroy, 2003). Nowadays employees are demanding more than just a big salary. The expectations of the workers have changed over the last few decades. Healthcare organizations are struggling to maintain high levels of care by seeking a number of ways to better their patient outcomes. In doing so, many of these organizations are focusing on various techniques to boost employee engagement. Research has shown that, hospitals which enjoy higher levels of workers engagement also have higher levels of staff retention, quality outcomes and patient satisfaction (Buchbinder & Shanks, 2007). It is worth noting that healthcare industry is people based, with nurses, doctors plus other healthcare experts.

Healthcare organizations recognize the need to attract and retain the workers/employees that they require, so that they can attain a competitive edge in the marketplace through responding to the contemporary work values (factors). Employers in healthcare organizations need to be aware of five key changes (factors relevant to staff retention in healthcare organizations) in the expectation of the workers, namely:

• The need to lead a balanced life
• The need to enjoy a partnership amongst themselves and their employers
• The need to receive chances for both professional and personal growth
• The need to be in a position to make a contribution that is consequential to humanity through their experience and effort.
• The need for chances to socialize at the workplace

Strategies to Improve Retention in Healthcare Organizations

Healthcare workers include professional caregivers who offer their services for lengthy hours, and sometimes are lowly paid compared to professionals who share similar educational background with them (Keagy & Thomas, 2004). It is imperative to draw a line between those strategies aimed at boosting morale and those that focus on improving retention. This is so because, initiatives such as on-site childcare, educational benefits, recognition programs and satisfaction committees tend to better morale but have insignificant effect on retention (Swayne., Duncan & Ginter, 2006).

The effective strategies of improving retention in healthcare organizations include:

• Tracking turnover by function or department
• Tracking turnover of scarce/key employees
• Improved screening of fresh applicants
• Improving the staffing ratios
• Promoting and allowing for flexible scheduling
• Implementing buddy programs
• Establishing career ladders
• A health care organization should first carry out an organization-wide research to reveal the prevailing drivers of workers engagement. The results that will be obtained out of this study will show the particular areas of focus, which calls for increased engagement.

References

Buchbinder, S.B. & Shanks, N.H. (2007). Introduction to healthcare management. Sudbury: Jones & Bartlett Publishers.

Keagy, B.A. & Thomas, M.S. (2004). Essentials of Physician practice management. New York: John Wiley  and Sons.

McElroy, M.W. (2003). The new knowledge management: complexity, learning, and sustainable innovation. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Swayne, L.E., Duncan, W.J. & Ginter, P.M. (2006). Strategic management of healthcare organizations. 5^th Ed. New York: Wiley-Blackwell.