An aging population requires skilled nursing and care staff. However, many organizations struggle to attract and retain high-quality talent. Employee investment is a key solution to this problem. Here’s how you can find and keep the best workers and ensure your facility earns a reputation for being a great place to work.
Understanding the Turnover Challenge in Senior Care
Statistics show that only 26.8% of nursing homes met essential staffing levels in the first quarter of 2022. In an average facility, more than half of the workers leave each year. Only 30.5% of them have adequate numbers of registered nurses.
These extremely high turnover rates impact organizations in a number of ways. Front and center is the impact on resident care. When so thinly stretched, even the most professional and compassionate caregivers cannot do the job to the standards they might wish.
The operational impact is also significant, especially on weekends when staff numbers typically drop further. It only takes a single crisis or a couple of caregivers to be ill at the same time for a barely managing facility to become a potential care disaster.
High turnover also has financial implications. The organization must advertise or employ agency services, and then there are expenses for recruiting, onboarding and training new employees. Hidden costs include the loss of institutional memory, a decreasing funnel of potential new leaders and struggling levels of staff morale.
Falling levels of care lead to fewer new residents, as families look for homes with higher staff ratios and better reviews. This, in turn, impacts the bottom line, making it even harder to recruit and retain high-quality talent.
Managers who are wondering how to attract senior living talent are increasingly looking toward employee investment — ways to attract and retain staff — for a solution. This often takes the form of training and wellness programs. Does this really help?
The ROI of Staff Training and Wellness Initiatives
Research increasingly shows that employee satisfaction and well-being matter. When workers feel valued, appreciated and invested in, companies in high-turnover fields can cut turnover by up to 21% — and staff are typically more productive, too.
To assess the ROI of caregiver investment initiatives, organizations can look at a number of financial, operational and qualitative metrics, including:
- Reduced turnover costs
- Less absenteeism
- Lower health care claims
- Productivity gains
- Decrease in reported incidents
- Post-training assessment results
- Employee satisfaction surveys
- Resident satisfaction ratings
- Worker feedback
The Impact of Staff Training on Care Quality and Safety
Quality of care is the most important metric of all and one that cannot be measured in financial terms. Training improves resident outcomes in intangible ways, and improved employee morale lifts the entire spirit of a facility.
However, some impact can be measurable. For example, nursing facilities typically experience medication errors in around 6% of admissions to the home. Upskilling staff can significantly reduce this figure, directly impacting resident safety. That provides a reputational boost to the establishment and a sense of pride for workers, which can lead to better retention and more new residents.
When care levels rise, so does the bottom line.
How to Attract Senior Living Talent Through Employee Investment
There are many ways that employee investment can help you recruit and retain a high-quality caregiver workforce. Building a positive work culture starts with strong communication from leadership and ensuring you’re approachable. Your caregivers must hear about your training and wellness program and feel you are taking them seriously. Here’s how to show that.
- Career Development and Training
Outlining opportunities for growth within the facility should show potential employees that they can advance. These should include increased responsibilities and associated rewards, such as higher pay. Offering professional development courses can help talent move up their career paths and stay up to date with senior living best practices.
- Competitive Compensation and Benefits
Offer competitive wages, sign-on bonuses and differentials for hard-to-fill shifts. Provide comprehensive health care benefits, including mental health and reproductive coverage, to show that you invest in your workforce as people. Prove that you value work-life balance with generous paid time off policies — burnout is high in this industry, because the emotional labor involved is intense.
- Prioritize Staff Well-Being
Invest in programs to ensure that your workers feel motivated and supported. These may typically include some or all of:
- Fitness classes, gym membership or nutrition guidance
- Stress management workshops
- Access to online counseling
- Flexible working arrangements
- Health screenings
- Training in breathing exercises to reduce stress and fatigue
- Mindfulness training to enhance mental health
Implementing a strong culture and a positive workplace lets you rise above the majority of care organizations by encouraging your staff to stay, learn and grow with your business.
Empowering Senior Care Leaders to Drive Change
Senior care is a people-first industry. Therefore, leaders should drive recruitment and employee retention with people-first strategies. To attract senior living talent, see them as people first and caregivers second.
Your staff are empathic, caring and extremely hardworking. By showing that the organization recognizes this, wants to invest in them and truly wishes to support them, you can lower your turnover rates and build a resilient workforce that can truly perform at its best.
