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How to Select, Align, Develop, and Retain Highly-Engaged People in Healthcare
INTRODUCTION A PATIENT-CENTERED WORKFORCE
A Patient-Centered Workforce™ is made of highly-engaged people and
teams who endeavor to provide patient-centered care. It “honors the whole
person and family, respects individual values and choices, and ensures
continuity of care. When care is patient-centered, patients will say, ‘They
gave me exactly the help I want (and need) exactly when I want (and need)
it.’”1 This can exist only when you select, align, develop, and continuously
retain highly-engaged people.
1 Guiding Principles for Patient Engagement
03. INTRODUCTION WHY DO WE NEED A PATIENT-CENTERED WORKFORCE?
There are many challenges facing the healthcare industry today, specifically related to the
labor shortage. The aging population is putting increasing demand on the system as more
people are requiring healthcare services, yet fewer healthcare professionals are available
to provide care. This problem will only worsen, as 40% of the U.S. nurse workforce is age
50 or older and may be retiring or finding employment outside of healthcare.2 Healthcare
organizations must also hire and train for workforce skillsets that are needed for new
complex technology.
Furthermore, retail clinics and primary care locations are expected to double over the
next five years and can be attractive places to work, with flexible hours and a variety of
locations. Healthcare organizations are competing for the same talent in order to provide
consistent quality care to their patients. This is happening as hospitals and providers are
moving from a fee-for-service to a value-based model, in which payment is tied to quality
of care. The consumer is more empowered than ever before, with access to self-diagnosis
tools, prices for healthcare services, provider ratings, and more choice about where they
seek care. When revenues are tied to patient experience, the need for employees with a
service-excellence competency is crucial to your bottom line.
2 AONE Guiding Principles for the Aging Workforce
04. INTRODUCTION HOW TO BUILD A PATIENT-CENTERED WORKFORCE?
A Patient-Centered Workforce can help your organization deal with these challenges. A
highly-skilled, highly-engaged Patient-Centered Workforce can do more with less to meet
your organization’s needs.
Creating a Patient-Centered Workforce requires looking at your entire employment lifecycle.
First, build a highly-engaged workforce that’s centered around providing the best possible
care, and then focus on retaining that workforce.
SELECT EFFICIENTLY SELECT ENGAGED, ACCOUNTABLE CANDIDATES
Employees should be engaged and accountable before you hire them
and assessed for competencies that drive patient-centered care in order
to build a Patient-Centered Workforce. But with the intense competition
for healthcare talent, you have to ensure you build an efficient recruitment
process so you can close your top choice candidates before they accept
an offer elsewhere.
06. SELECT ATTRACT THE BEST CANDIDATES
To build a Patient-Centered Workforce you need to source and select candidates who
align with job requirements and criteria, fast. You should be constantly recruiting, so when
a job opens up you can quickly engage candidates from your talent pipeline who are a
great fit for your open role.
Organizations that want to attract the best healthcare talent must provide a positive, fast,
and easy application process. With high turnover, nursing and physician shortages, and
new talent being more selective about where they work, the healthcare talent market is
highly competitive. People are busy and generally have very little free time to apply for jobs.
The most in-demand candidates won’t take the time to navigate long, clunky applications
and will drop out of the application process entirely. However, applying for a healthcare job
is more difficult than other industries because of the need to collect additional information
like clinical verification forms and licensure. An applicant tracking solution makes it
easy for applicants to find and apply to the right jobs, thereby reducing applicant drop-off,
and improving time-to-fill and quality of hire.
07. SELECT ASSESS CANDIDATES FOR CRITICAL, CLINICAL & BEHAVIORAL COMPETENCIES
To build a Patient-Centered Workforce you need to select candidates who align with
your mission, vision, and values, and have the right skillsets for each job family to deliver
care. Many of these competencies are also aligned with quality patient care and patient
satisfaction, such as customer-focus, compassion, and adaptability.
Assessment software can compare candidates’ behavioral competencies to
healthcare-specific data, and provide you with behavioral interview questions to dig
deeper into each candidate’s responses. It also helps your organization hire candidates
who have the potential to develop into leaders, so you can develop and retain them.
Reference checking software can help you gather honest, insightful feedback about
candidates through a streamlined reference checking process. Being able to select
accountable employees who align with your organizational values is pivotal to driving
a workforce centered around the patient.
08. SELECT
Healthcare organizations need to give a positive impression of their organization at all
contact points and provide a fast and easy recruitment experience. The most qualified
candidates are highly coveted by healthcare organizations, and their competitors. In order
to hire these individuals, healthcare organizations need to impress them with a positive
candidate experience and keep them engaged through relevant communications.
Applicant tracking software helps organizations streamline and simplify the recruitment
process by making it easy for applicants to find and apply to the right jobs, receive
relevant and timely communication, and complete the onboarding process — all of which
significantly improve the candidate experience. When you’re able to close your top choice
candidates, you can build a stronger workforce that’s aligned with your goals.
You also need to offer competitive compensation when attracting talent, and incentivize
them to put patients first. Build benchmarks and align salary decisions with a competitive
compensation philosophy for union, non-union, clinical, and non-clinical roles. Take the
candidate’s detailed work history into account to ensure that your offer is commensurate
with their professional experience and credentials. A compensation analysis solution
can help you select clinical and non-clinical positions and pay markets to build market
composites, so you can align salary decisions with best-in-class data and develop better
compensation strategies.
CLOSE TOP TALENT BY PROVIDING A GREAT EXPERIENCE & COMPETITIVE COMPENSATION
SELECT
ALIGN CONSISTENTLY ALIGN EXPECTATIONS OF EXCELLENCE WITH EMPLOYEES
Develop new hires with your mission, vision, and values from day one. Your
healthcare organization should enforce those expectations of excellence
during the onboarding and orientation process, and throughout the rest of
the employment lifecycle.
10. ALIGN
The first 90 days are crucial for integrating your new hire into your Patient-Centered
Workforce, beginning with the onboarding process. This is a time to set expectations
with your new hire. New hires should have a realistic job preview through peer and
group interviews, but you should also review the job description thoroughly. Your new hire
should know exactly what they’re responsible for and what’s expected of them. Require
sign-off to ensure the candidate knows what success in their new role looks like. Keep in
mind that healthcare workers are busy, and have very little time to complete onboarding
forms. Providing new hires with a fast, easy onboarding process allows your organization
to onboard new hires faster and ensure they begin their tenure at your organization with a
positive impression. A strong onboarding process also helps foster employee engagement
from day one, which is a crucial component of a Patient-Centered Workforce.
ONBOARDING NEW HIRES
11. ALIGN DEVELOPING PATIENT-CENTERED GOALS
Next, set goals with your new hires. Employee goals should align with those of the
organization to reinforce how the employee’s work supports the organization’s mission,
vision, and values, and focus on patient-centered care. These should include cross care
coordination and handoffs, collaborating and communicating about patients, timeliness of
access to care, reduction in inpatient utilization and organizational goals related to wellness
of whole populations.
Select individual performance metrics based on these organizational goals, job
descriptions, 360 feedback, and licensure. Each employee should be held accountable
for their impact on the organization’s bottom line. HCAHPS scores, for instance, are
directly tied to nurse communication, cleanliness of room, noise level during stay, and
care management during handoffs and across the continuum. With clearly defined goals,
employees know how to prioritize their tasks and how their success will be measured. This
makes performance management a continuous process to improve patient-centered care.
When employees know what it takes to succeed from day one, they will be happier and
more engaged — and it will show in their work.
12. ALIGN PREPARING LEADERS FOR CHANGE
To build a Patient-Centered Workforce you need to be able to rely on your leaders to
engage employees and drive performance. It starts with the right leadership selection
and continues through ongoing assessment and development. Define the leadership
competencies necessary for managing change — such as problem solving, innovative
and strategic thinking, persuasive communication, and creating a shared vision — and find
people with those competencies.
Keep in mind that leaders may have different styles of management, communication,
learning and feedback, but should be given autonomy and encouraged to lead in a way
that works for their teams. Hold all leaders across the organization to the same set of
standards, promote strengths-based leadership, and respect their individual competencies.
Leadership skills are not only necessary for C-levels — anyone who manages individuals,
functional areas, and/or shared governance models, have to step up as well.
13. ALIGN ASSESSING LEADERSHIP ENGAGEMENT
A leadership assessment can measure behavioral competencies and critical reasoning
to help you select the right leadership candidates, whether they are new hires or internal
promotions. It also identifies key gaps in behavioral competencies that are necessary for
successful leadership, so you can set development and performance goals. Many critical
skills today are behavioral: teamwork, communication, coordination, critical thinking, which
directly impacts care coordination, but you also have to train on clinical skills that drive
patient safety.
Studies suggest that 20% of all hospital employees are either disengaged or ambivalent,
which is a problem because engagement is necessary for success. Leadership
development has been known to increase leadership engagement which, in turn, increases
staff engagement. Engagement also impacts patient satisfaction: data shows every 1%
increase in employee engagement increases an organization’s overall HCAHPS rating by
0.33%, and patients’ willingness to recommend increases by 0.25%. In short, development
drives engagement, and when employees are engaged, they’re more dedicated to their
jobs and provide better patient care, leading to increased patient satisfaction.
3 The Advisory Board Company’s Employee Engagement Survey
SELECT
DEVELOP THOROUGHLY DEVELOP EMPLOYEES WITH CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
To build a Patient-Centered Workforce you have to promote performance
improvement within your current workforce. Once selected, the team should
be developed and aligned together across the board. With constant learning
and career pathing, you can put people in the right position both today and
several years forward. Part of performance management is developing your
workforce to take on new roles by identifying high-potentials and helping them
improve their leadership competencies.
PROVIDE CONSISTENT FEEDBACK15. DEVELOP
While annual reviews are important for employee performance management, they
should not be the only time an employee receives feedback. Coaching, mentoring, and
training should happen regularly — not just during annual performance reviews — so that
employees are continuously improving their patient-centered care. Feedback should be given
regularly to show appreciation for things the employee is doing well, and to identify areas
for improvement. This may come in the form of employee rounding, in which managers
schedule time to meet with employees each month, or through teachable moments where
managers provide feedback in the moment they see the behavior.
Managers should record both positive and constructive feedback throughout the year so
it’s readily available during annual reviews. Annual reviews are a great time to measure
employee development, review compensation, discuss career paths, and determine
additional opportunities for development. Employee performance management software
can help you align employees with job descriptions and organizational values, select
competencies to develop through ongoing coaching, and track performance growth.
16. DEVELOP DISCUSS CAREER PATHING
Employees who feel that they have a future with your organization are more likely to be
engaged and provide patient-centered care. When they have something to work toward,
they will be more motivated to improve their performance and exceed expectations. Career
pathing should be discussed with your employees early and often to determine suitable
career paths, based on their goals and strengths, and your organization’s needs. Create
structured development action plans to ensure that feedback, coaching, mentoring, and
professional development are tailored toward the employee’s current role, as well as their
plan for the future. By laying out a clear career path for your employees and helping them
reach it, you will demonstrate your commitment to them.
17. DEVELOP PROVIDE LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES
After identifying your employees’ areas for improvement and creating a career path, map
learning opportunities to their development plans so they have the resources they need
to reach their goals. Provide employees with classes that teach them new skills to deliver
safe and compliant patient care. To build a Patient-Centered Workforce you need to create
engaging learning and development opportunities with readily available resources that
motivate your workforce. Many critical skills today are behavioral: teamwork, communication,
coordination, and critical thinking. Leveraging an eLearning solution that integrates with
an employee assessment program can provide managers with recommendations on what
courses employees need to develop these critical competencies.
Formal learning and development programs help your team reach its full potential and
provide the best quality of care to your patients. By laying out a clear career path for your
employees and developing them reach their career goals, you will be able to keep them
engaged, and focused on patient-centered care.
RETAIN CONTINUOUSLY RETAIN TOP TALENT
Ensuring that everything — from performance reviews to salary decisions
— is aligned with a culture of retaining top talent, is critical when it comes to
building a Patient-Centered Workforce. Organizations that align and reward their
workforce with patient-centered goals are constantly assessing competencies
across staff and leadership to develop them, so they can grow in their existing
roles or gain opportunities for advancement.
As the competition for in-demand talent heats up, time to fill and cost of hire
will increase dramatically — and smart organizations are focusing on retention
to ensure continuity of high-quality patient care.
19. RETAIN
In healthcare, the selection process is critical for hiring the right fit employees. Employees
who match the mission, vision, and values of the organization are more likely to be retained.
According to Frederick Morgeson, Ph.D., who conducted the Healthcare Retention Study,
more than 90% of all staff turnover occurs within 18 months. Behavioral assessment
software with job-specific retention index scoring can help you identify applicants who are
more likely to stay with the organization and better predict employee retention. Retention
measures are different according to job family, so nurses should be compared with other
nurses. For example, a factor driving nurse retention is an intrinsic interest in nursing as a
profession, and that’s not a factor that drives IT.
Assessments should be adjusted regularly as you analyze turnover. Learn why people are
leaving willingly, and what their attributes are. Also learn who stays and excels, what their
attributes are, and how they differ from people who leave. Adjust assessments so you don’t
bring in more people like those who willingly left or were managed out, and instead focus
on the traits and skills of people who stay and excel. Feed information from performance
management back into assessments to constantly tailor those outcomes. You should
be constantly measuring and using performance management learning to improve your
Patient-Centered Workforce.
PREDICT EMPLOYEE RETENTION
More than 90%
of all staff turnover
occurs within
18 months.
20. RETAIN
A positive work environment is more important than staffing levels for ensuring patient
safety and quality of care because it sets healthcare employees up to be successful in their
work.4 Elements of a positive work environment include workplace culture, availability of
sufficient supplies and equipment, interprofessional relationships and collaboration, and
a work-life balance.
Top-tier healthcare talent is in high-demand, and has many choices about where they work.
A positive work environment will help you attract top talent from healthcare organizations
that lack a great work environment. Conversely, healthcare workers who don’t feel they
work in a positive work environment are more likely to turnover, thereby putting more
strain on colleagues left behind, and leading to more turnover. Older workers may retire
altogether, further adding to the healthcare shortage. If you want to retain your Patient-
Centered Workforce, and attract more top-tier talent, make sure you have a positive work
environment in which your employees will thrive.
CREATE A POSITIVE WORK ENVIRONMENT
4 A Positive Work Environment
21. RETAIN
To build a Patient-Centered Workforce you need to incentivize employees to put patients
first, and recognize their contributions to ensure workforce satisfaction. Healthcare work
can be as stressful as it is rewarding, and one of the best ways to show employees you
value them is to compensate them fairly. If people don’t feel that they’re being paid fairly,
they will be dissatisfied and their quality of work will suffer.
A compensation market data solution can you help you quickly build market composites
for clinical and non-clinical positions and pay markets, and align salary decisions with
data to develop better compensation strategies. When you know appropriate pay rates
for varying factors, such as location, role, experience and company size, you can reduce
pay-based turnover and retain talent by staying competitive within the local and national
job markets. Merit planning software lets you easily align the merit and bonus cycle
with the performance management process, and select the right increase amounts to
develop a more cohesive merit planning strategy. Select increase and bonus amounts
that align with performance, providing a direct connection between annual evaluations
and compensation decisions.
PROVIDE COMPETITIVE COMPENSATION
22. RETAIN
More than ever, it’s important to retain highly-engaged people who can deliver quality care.
With nurses, for instance, studies suggest the average tenure of nurse managers is five
years. The costs of nursing turnover at the state and national level are equal to or greater
than two times a nurse’s salary. What’s more, according to The Advisory Board, nearly
1 million nurses will retire in the next 10 -15 years.5
Many of your best employees will have a desire to constantly learn and grow, and
developing a path for career advancement is one of the best ways to retain your
Patient-Centered Workforce. When a position opens up, look to internal candidates
first to determine who may be best suited for the role. If you can’t find a suitable internal
candidate, and expect a similar position to open up in the future, it may be a good time
to start succession planning and development of your staff. You should always have a
pipeline of internal candidates ready to go, and deliver on your plan to move them up in
your organization.
FOCUS ON EMPLOYEE DEVELOPMENT FOR CAREER ADVANCEMENT
Nearly 1 million
nurses will retire in
the next 10 -15 years.
5 AONE Guiding Principles for Creating Value and Meaning for the Next Generation of Early Careerist
1. BETTER PATIENT CARE & HIGHER PATIENT SATISFACTION A workforce focused on providing patient-centered care will improve community health, and have fewer errors and readmissions.
Employees are also more engaged and satisfied with their jobs, and will go above and beyond in their duties to support patients,
leading to higher patient satisfaction. With higher patient satisfaction, healthcare organizations will see higher HCAHPS scores
and reimbursements.
2. HIGHER EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT & LOWER TURNOVER A workforce that is focused on the same goals and working together to achieve them will have higher employee engagement
levels. Development opportunities also increase employee engagement levels, while allowing your workforce to provide a higher
quality of patient care. Engaged employees have lower turnover, which reduces recruitment costs and improves continuity of
patient care.
3. HIGH-QUALITY WORKFORCE ATTRACTS BETTER TALENT The ‘A-players’ will be attracted to the healthcare organizations that have a high quality of care, good benefits, and better
financials. This will help you build strong talent pipelines so you’ll have access to top talent when you need them, thereby
reducing time-to-fill.
TOP 3 BENEFITS OF A PATIENT-CENTERED WORKFORCE
SELECT
CONCLUSION PATIENT-CENTERED WORKFORCE
As you build the healthcare workforce for the next generation, you may
find that there simply isn’t enough talent to go around. In order for your
organization to be successful, you will have to recruit healthcare workers
who are engaged and accountable, and will go above and beyond to do
more with less.
You will need to attract the most qualified talent, align them with your
patient-centered goals, develop them to constantly improve, and continually
retain them. By properly aligning a skilled workforce with a service-excellence
culture, healthcare organizations can better leverage employees to provide
quality care and increase patient satisfaction.
HealthcareSource 100 Sylvan Road, Suite 100 Woburn, MA 01801 800.869.5200 [email protected] www.healthcaresource.com
About HealthcareSourceWith more than 3,000 healthcare clients, HealthcareSource is the leading provider of talent management solutions for the healthcare industry. The HealthcareSource Quality Talent SuiteSM helps healthcare organizations build a Patient-Centered WorkforceTM by selecting, aligning, continuously developing, and retaining highly-engaged people. The company’s cloud-based platform of software, content, services and analytics includes applicant tracking, reference checking, behavioral and skills-based competency assessments, compensation analysis, performance and learning management, eLearning courseware, education and advisory services. A private company focused exclusively on the healthcare industry, HealthcareSource consistently earns high marks for client satisfaction and retention. HealthcareSource has been regularly ranked as a leader by KLAS Research for Talent Management, in addition to recognition in Healthcare Informatics 100, Modern Healthcare’s “Healthcare’s Hottest,” Inc. 500|5000, Deloitte Technology Fast 500, and Becker’s “150 Great Places to Work in Healthcare” list.
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