Speaker 1: With the current shortage of health care workers, the number of staff needs to dramatically increase to keep up with the demand for care. So many health professionals have been leaving the field, resulting in not enough staff to care for patients even more so. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, overall health care employment has decreased by 524,000 staff. By 2032, the industry will be lacking close to 122,000 physicians. These shortages come at a time when there's a rapidly growing aging population, and more people are relying on health care than ever before. Because of this health crisis, it's more important than ever for practices to attract and keep their employees. Turnover would just pose more complications for facilities that already need more staff. So what do you do as a health practice administrator to prevent employees from leaving? Hi everyone, I'm Matt from eTactics, and today I'm going to share four retention strategies for health care employees. Before we get started though, make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel by clicking the button below. While you're down there, hit that alert bell icon next to it as well so when we post new helpful content, you get notified. You need to set a positive tone from the moment that a new employee starts at your practice. That way, they'll think highly of you from the beginning. Otherwise, coming in with a poor experience would already give them a reason to leave right off the bat. There are ways you can give a more lasting impression besides just sending them a welcome email on their first day. One idea is to give them a welcome gift. These could be items such as a reusable water bottle to use during work, a travel mug to get them through their long shifts, a company branded jacket, or scrubs in your practice's uniform color. If you don't want to maintain purchasing these items every time someone starts that's new, you could keep things more simple. Consider treating them to coffee or lunch for the first day either with a gift card or by taking them out yourself. These ideas don't require much planning, but it shows that you take care of your team from the beginning so that they'll want to stay for the long run. These welcome ideas are the fun part of starting with your practice. You can implement as many as you want, but they won't retain staff if your onboarding doesn't also include effective training. They wouldn't want to stay if they end up causing mistakes or feel stressed because they don't know what to do. It would also be frustrating for current staff if they have to pick up the slack of new hires. But effective training gives these new employees the confidence that they need to succeed at work. Now it sounds obvious that your healthcare organization should be following safety standards. Yet hospitals are one of the most hazardous places to work. Medical professionals worry about workplace violence, which makes them more likely to quit their jobs. To prevent this, your practice needs to take necessary precautions to prevent those injuries. Your practice also needs to follow safety standards when it comes to patients' health. 10% of all U.S. deaths are due to medical errors, and 80% of these errors are due to miscommunication among staff. If these mistakes are common at your facility, workers won't want to stay. It could jeopardize their medical license, or they'll risk a malpractice lawsuit because of the lack of safety. As if it wasn't already important to follow safety standards for patients, it's even more important so that you don't lose your staff too. Assisting with relocation costs can help attract staff to the area so that your organization has more local employees. This is necessary for rural areas that lack enough medical personnel. Almost 60% of areas that have a shortage of primary care professionals are rural. Because they don't have the necessary staff, relocation assistance can incentivize more people to travel to the area for work. Covering the cost of their housing adds financial support for them so that they're more likely to stay with your company. There are so many ways to boost employee retention, but they don't always have to be extremely costly for organizations. Sometimes it starts with improvements as simple as leaving a good first impression and providing the best training out there during the onboarding process. These give employees confidence in being a part of the team. Making the environment safe for both staff and the patient will help them feel more secure in showing up to work every day. And if your organization struggles to attract employees in the first place because of a lack of workers in the area, it might take some spending to help them relocate. But once you've set the foundation for a positive environment to work within, they'll be less likely to leave, period. And when you reduce turnover, you'll be able to afford even more ways to improve retention such as with raises and bonuses. If you'd like to learn more about healthcare employee retention and strategies that go along with it, reach out to eTactics. And you already made it this far into the video, so you might as well like it, share it, and comment below. What are you waiting for? Subscribe to our YouTube channel.