How to Retain Healthcare Employees

In 2022, 44% of healthcare workers looked for a new job, up 33% from 2018. That number continues to rise as healthcare employers struggle to retain top talent. But that doesn’t have to be the case for your practice. With the right healthcare employee retention strategies, you can retain top talent, deliver an excellent patient experience, and create a fulfilling workplace for you and your staff.

What Is Employee Retention?

In healthcare, employee retention refers to the strategies and efforts used to reduce employee turnover and keep staff members – clinical and administrative – employed for extended periods. It’s a critical element to any successful business, and especially in healthcare because those employees are often required to have advanced training, certifications, and experience that are harder to replace.

Employee Recruitment and Retention in Healthcare

If you want to have the best employees working in your practice, you need to focus on the 2 Rs: recruitment and retention. Recruitment is convincing qualified healthcare professionals to join your team. Getting top talent in place is one thing; keeping it there is another. That’s where retention efforts come into play. Key to any retention strategy is ensuring your staff feel satisfied in their careers and like they have great work/life balance. 

Many healthcare practices have difficulties with both recruitment and retention. In 2023, WHO estimated a shortage of 10 million healthcare workers globally by 2030, in part due to an industry wide failure to recruit new talent and retain current healthcare workers. 

Top Retention Issues in Healthcare in 2024

A predicted 10 million worker shortage by 2030 is a clear indicator that healthcare staffing challenges are pervasive. Understanding the top retention issues in healthcare can empower your practice to better combat them. 

• Pay and benefits: Some healthcare workers are upset with their compensation packages. This is especially true for entry-level roles, with an ASPE report suggesting salaries for entry-level healthcare workers are lower than entry-level roles in other fields. 
• Burnout: Perhaps the biggest issue facing healthcare workers is burnout. Long hours, demanding shifts, workplace harassment, and a lack of work/life balance can all lead to burnout. The CDC reports 46% of healthcare workers report feeling burned out, and that number is rising, not falling — the number was only at 32% in 2018.
• Access to healthcare training and education programs: Continuing education is crucial to delivering great patient care and empowering your staff to progress in their careers. However, many healthcare workers lack access to the right training or can’t find time to complete continuing education programs.
• An aging population: It’s no secret the U.S. population is aging. In fact, one in six Americans are now over 65, a 38.6% increase from 10 years ago. As the population ages, demands on healthcare systems grow. 
• Retirement rates: Due to America’s aging population, many nursing and physician leaders are reaching the age of retirement. One study suggests a third of the healthcare workforce may reach retirement age in the next 10-15 years.

Ways to Improve Employee Retention in Healthcare 

The challenges facing healthcare employers are significant, but not impossible to overcome. With the right retention strategies in place, your top staff will stay for longer tenures, take interest in advancing their career at your practice, and refer friends when a new role opens. 

To help, we compiled a list of the top seven ways to improve retention in healthcare:

1. Onboard employees the right way
2. Implement supportive leadership practices
3. Prioritize diversity and inclusion
4. Invest in workers’ mental health
5. Keep the workload manageable
6. Offer flexible work schedules
7. Increase staff engagement

1. Onboard Employees the Right Way

Retaining top talent starts the minute a new employee walks in the door. By having an onboarding process that engages employees and clears up any questions about their role, your practice can improve retention by up to 82%. 

Typically, an excellent onboarding process involves a set structure for the first 90 days. By the 30-day mark, you and the new employee should review basic skills for their role, such as how to talk with patients or how to ensure the practice is HIPAA compliant.

By their 60th day in the practice, the employee should have opportunities to shadow other staff and explore how their role supports the practice as a whole.

At the 90-day mark, have a one-on-one with the employee to assess their skillset, their fit in the current role, and how satisfied they are. If any concerns come up in this 90-day meeting, address them as soon as possible. 

2. Implement Supportive Leadership Practices

Physician-owners and practice administrators play a big role in retaining top talent because they set the tone for the practice. The best tone to set? One that’s collaborative with clear communication and mentorship opportunities. 

Amy Anderson, the cofounder of BrinsonAnderson Consulting, shared the best way private practices can keep top talent: treat employees like colleagues. The role of a leader is to empower and uplift their staff, and that’s often cultivated through a collaborative, respectful work environment.

Along with cultivating a collaborative environment, your practice leadership should also establish communication protocols. Mara Shorr, a consultant with BrinsonAnderson Consulting, explains, “establish solid lines of communication protocols for how you communicate what, and really establish everything surrounding who's talking to who about what and who reports to whom in the practice.”

Along with clear communication and a collaborative work environment, starting a mentorship program can improve employee retention. A 2024 study analyzed what could strengthen Virginia’s healthcare workforce. One suggestion was to create formal mentorship programs, which are especially useful at retaining younger physicians and healthcare workers. 

3. Prioritize Diversity and Inclusion

As the U.S. population grows more diverse, the healthcare workforce should too. By prioritizing diversity and inclusion in your practice, you can foster and retain top healthcare talent. 

In fact, a 2022 study analyzed different healthcare organizations’ diversity and inclusion policies. It found organizations that promoted diversity, specifically through providing more growth opportunities and professional training for female workers and staff of color, were more efficient, and staff at these facilities felt more empowered. 

4. Invest in Workers’ Mental Health

With burnout rates surging among healthcare workers, mental health benefits aren’t just nice to have. They are essential to retain your staff and ensure they feel supported at work. Prioritizing mental health can take the form of not overbooking staff members, making time for self-care breaks, and offering mental healthcare benefits, such as access to a mindfulness app or talk therapy. But while the traditional ways to invest in employee mental health (i.e., offering free therapy sessions and mindfulness apps) are amazing, they don’t address the underlying issue that causes burnout in the first place: unmanageable workloads and inflexible schedules. 

The right tech stack can help manage workloads and make it easier for staff to control their work schedules. The right EHR, for example, offers advanced scheduling features that ensure all practice locations and shifts have enough staff scheduled and that staff have more flexibility in how they use their PTO. 

5. Keep the Workload Manageable

Heavy workloads can lead to burnout, mental health problems, and an urge to scroll Indeed.com for open roles. According to a 2023 study, more healthcare workers are reporting overtime hours and unmanageable workloads than ever before. 

By keeping workloads manageable, your employees are less likely to experience burnout and overwhelm at work. 

It can be hard to keep workloads manageable without reducing productivity. But the right administrative technology can help. For example, these practices have saved time for employees and increased practice productivity by switching practice software providers:

• McKnight Eye Center staff experienced a 20% time savings per patient after upgrading their tech stack. 
• After implementing a new EHR, Southwest Eye saves 3 minutes and 45 seconds per patient. 
• North Texas Plastic Surgery can complete a month’s worth of reconciliations in 35 minutes. This used to take staff one whole day. 

6. Offer Flexible Work Schedules

In an article for SSM Population Health, researchers polled over 1,100 healthcare workers and found workplace flexibility correlated to lower rates of burnout. Workplace flexibility can look like offering employees more control over their schedule, but it can also include opportunities to work from home for some shifts, to unplug on vacations, and to not work more than 10 hours per shift. 

As a private practice with a more “normal” work schedule than hospitals, you have a leg up at providing workplace flexibility; there’s less (or no) need to fill up night shifts or recruit staff for holidays and weekends. 

Implementing technology that enables more scheduling flexibility and ensures no shift is understaffed can make your employees feel even more in control of their careers. After switching EHRs, Epstein Plastic Surgery, for example, could complete patient consultations in less than an hour, freeing up time for staff.

7. Increase Staff Engagement

Like patient engagement, higher staff engagement improves your practice. Engaged staff are more likely to stay longer and seek out leadership opportunities or continuing education, according to the Impact Wellbeing Guide from the CDC. 

In the guide, the CDC mentions a few effective ways to foster an engaged workplace:

• Foster two-way communication.
• Involve staff in the decision-making process.
• Publish regular practice updates to create transparency. You can even ask staff for feedback on these updates.
• Create support groups or peer networks for staff.
• Acknowledge employees’ wins and progress.

Future Trends in Retention

With the right technology and employee retention measures in place, the future for your healthcare practice looks bright. On top of that, there’s some up-and-coming retention trends to pay attention to in 2024 and beyond:

• Chatbots: A chatbot on your patient portal or website may be able to answer up to 85% of routine questions, freeing up more time for your staff.
• AI: Artificial intelligence is a hot topic, and its benefits may reach your practice soon. AI is currently being developed to help with the medical screening process and administrative tasks, providing staff with space to focus on providing excellent healthcare and better work/life balance.  
• Telehealth: Remote work may seem better suited to corporate offices, but new telehealth technologies are making it possible for healthcare workers. A 2021 study highlighted how telehealth can increase schedule flexibility and retain vulnerable health workers, such as those who are pregnant or immunocompromised. 

The right tech stack plays a crucial role in successfully implementing these upcoming trends and the seven actions you can take today to retain top talent. Often, that tech stack starts with a robust EHR. See for yourself how Nextech’s EHR and practice management software can optimize your clinical and administrative workflow and retain staff.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the top issues related to the retention and turnover of healthcare professionals?

The top retention issues in the healthcare industry include concerns about pay and benefits, long work hours, understaffed shifts, and a lack of training and career progression. On top of these concerns, many healthcare workers are nearing retirement age, and the population as a whole is aging, increasing demand for healthcare services and qualified workers. 

What organizational changes or strategies are needed to improve healthcare worker recruitment and retention?

Recruiting and retaining top healthcare talent starts at the top. When your physician-owners and practice administrators create a collaborative, communicative work environment, employees feel more engaged and valued. Along with staying at the practice longer, they are more likely to refer friends to open roles and to explore opportunities for career progression with your practice.

How does HR improve staff retention?

Human Resources plays an important role in staff retention because HR professionals are often the ones fostering retention initiatives, such as creating continuing education programs, and facilitating a healthy work environment. However, HR can’t solve workflow inefficiencies that cause staff to work longer hours or experience higher rates of burnout. The right technology, such as a quality EHR for healthcare practices, can solve for those inefficiencies and make workloads more manageable.   

How do you motivate staff for retention?

One of the most effective ways to retain staff is to create a collaborative environment with clear communication and pathways for career progression. You should also frequently check in with staff so you can garner their feedback and ensure they are engaged with their roles and fulfilled at work. Make sure they feel like their contributions to the team are recognized and valued.