Employee Engagement

It is no secret that the holidays are the best time to boost your physician recruitment efforts, suggests Aime Echevarria, Creative Strategy Manager at MDR HealthCare Search. During this downtime, Echevarria says, physicians have increased availability, experience fewer distractions, and find themselves reflecting on the past year and possibly seeking new and more exciting opportunities.

Unfortunately, physician turnover is costly for any healthcare organization and research shows it’s a growing concern. The latest survey from the American Medical Group Association (AMGA) reported an average turnover rate of 6.8 percent in 2013, the highest rate since data was first collected in 2005. “The survey findings provide evidence that recruitment and retention continue to be major challenges for health systems,” states Donald W. Fisher, President and CEO of AMGA in a press release.

As the days grow shorter and we get ready to celebrate Thanksgiving, one of my favorite holidays, I thought I would discuss a few ways healthcare employers can show appreciation for employees (no turkey necessary). According to a 2014 CareerBuilder survey, healthcare workers had the highest rates of stress levels across industries.

Customer service arguably is one of the most critical factors in an organization’s long-term success and even survival. Excellent customer service found in other industries has raised the bar for hospitals and the healthcare industry, so it’s imperative that they strive to meet the demands.

Employees are only as good as their leader, right? Not only do great leaders create the right environment for engagement, they also play a significant role in shaping a group of creative minds and inspiring new leaders.  “We know that frontline staff, when provided with enough freedom, confidence and encouragement, can be capable of incredible things,” says Clair Cater, founder of the Social Kinetic and a member of the Wish Forum for Patient Engagement.

There is no doubt that positive employee morale is a key component in your organization’s success—it can either make or break your organization. Statistics reveal that letting engagement slide can cost companies 20 percent less revenue growth than their competitors. Therefore, it is critical that healthcare organizations prepare and support their team during this challenging time of new technology and constant change.

The term “employee engagement” may have different meanings to different employers. Although healthcare organizations may share similar goals—to improve patient satisfaction or increase productivity, just to name a few—outcomes are dependent on its success or failure. According to a recent HRsoft study, more than 90 percent of managers/CEOs believe that an engagement strategy is key to an organization’s success, but only 30 percent actually have one.

I had the opportunity to visit Disneyland this summer, which is celebrating their 60th anniversary in 2015. Whether you’ve been to a Disney park or watched one of their classic films, it’s pretty clear that Disney has a well-crafted recipe for success.

While exit interviews are conducted to understand why an employee is leaving, it’s a little too late to retain them at this stage of the process. What if there was a way you could retain your employee and avoid the exit interview altogether? That’s precisely the purpose of retention interviews, also referred to as stay interviews.

Boosting motivation across an employee population can be tricky, as motivations are personal and can be as unique as people themselves. Motivating healthcare employees can be an even bigger challenge, as research shows they tend to find their motivation from intrinsic sources, which can be difficult to manage through external measures.