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Mending the Gap: Overcoming Understaffing

 

Mending the Gap: Overcoming Understaffing

The number of service providers needed is steadily increasing as demands for these services continue to rise. As the Baby Boomer Generation approaches the traditional retirement age, keeping a fully staffed Health and Human Service Organization is becoming a top priority throughout the country.

A study of 20,000 US Physicians showed that 80% of doctors feel over-worked, or are working at full capacity. Along with this, Healthcare professionals are beginning to retire at earlier ages and the industry as a whole is experiencing high turnover rates. These challenges are requiring organizations to re-evaluate their strategies to maintain proper staffing levels while continuing to provide the quality of care necessary today. Consider the following three strategies to overcoming the growing trend of understaffing.

Hiring Novice Nurses
Today’s nursing programs are not only preparing nurses for providing bedside care, they are also preparing them to properly assimilate with the aging nursing workforce. In fact, many healthcare providers are already partnering with universities to prepare the future workforce for their new patient care environment. Coming right from college, early career nurses are typically more tech savvy, making them more comfortable with utilizing Electronic Medical Record (EMR) and Human (HCM) software, as well as other systems designed to improve quality of care. Novice nurses typically have a thirst for learning new techniques and can be more motivated to improve their caregiving abilities.

Training Displaced Workers
Some industries have made cuts in their workforces, leaving many Americans without a stable job or career path. Organizations, such as , worked with Oakland University to create a two-year nursing program for Ford and GM workers laid off from factory relocation. While there were several pieces of criteria and pre-requisites that were necessary, nurses that passed their nursing licensure exam helped diversify clinics and fill those desperately needed positions. This program found that the formerly displaced workers would typically work for less salary, as well as bring an outside perspective to the Health and Human services industry.

Improve your Recruitment Success Rate
Every organization wants to have the best-qualified talent that they can afford, but without setting performance metrics, it can be difficult to measure how successful a candidate will be. Data analytics have become increasingly popular over the past few years, especially during the recruitment stages. By identifying metrics such as cost-per-hire, quality-of-hire, daily lost revenue, and turnover rates, organizations are able to identify efficient, and inefficient, areas of their recruiting process.

The demand within these specified industries is expected to increase within the upcoming years. Organizations that establish and maintain a strategic staffing plan will be able to remain competitive, despite the upcoming challenges. By utilizing these three strategies at hand, organizations will be able to optimize their workforce and meet the challenges ahead. Is your organization ready to start overcome understaffing?

This DATIS Blog was written by Phil Krison, DATIS, on August 30th, 2016 and may not be re-posted without permission.

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