The U.S. unemployment rate remains at historic lows, declining further during the current pandemic. According to BLS stats, the unemployment rate dropped to 11.2 percent in June 2020. Despite the downward trend in the unemployment rate, employee turnover remains a daunting challenge for employers. According to the 2018 North America Mercer Turnover Survey, an average of 22 percent turnover rate was reported by U.S. companies in 2018. This marks a significant increase from less than 16 percent in 2014. The primary reasons underlying this trend were identified as personal and family reasons, salary complaints, and overall job dissatisfaction. Interestingly, the direction highlighted the increasing power of employees in the workplace.

Key takeaway: If your employees are not content, they’ll leave.

The situation is even more complicated when we talk about the healthcare industry, where the staff has to cope up with immense pressure and burnout concerns. Their work-related stress increases manifold when they are faced with the daily onslaught of incoming calls, in-person patient volumes, and other routine administrative tasks. According to MGMA DataDive Cost and Operations datasets, a typical primary care front desk employee responds to 30 inbound calls every day, handling over 1500 patents and 4300 total encounters per annum.

Managing employees and keeping them motivated and content is, then, a difficult task. As tricky as the healthcare jobs themselves, managing employee turnover calculator is an equally cumbersome activit.. According to research, front office support staff turnover has reported exceeding 18 percent, while that in the surgical practices is above 20 percent. For clinical support staff, these figures are 16 percent in primary care and 25 percent in surgical.

This constant disruption creates turmoil within the organization as staff comes and goes, draining the team that does stay and is ultimately forced to pick up the slack as well as train new employees. At the same time, it is a significant financial nag on the overall practice. Hiring a new employee is six times as expensive as retaining an existing employee. Just imagine the cost of hiring over and over again for the same position!

Employee appreciation programs have emerged as a viable solution to rewarding performance to retain staff. Ranging from tying bonuses to key performance indicators to offering perks such as extra vacation time, premium parking, and paid leaves, these appreciation programs have gained much attention in the workplace. As much as they are successful in other corporate settings, these appreciation programs have, however, not proven much fortunate for the healthcare industry.

These benefits should go beyond paid sick leaves and health coverage, to offering stock options, and employee group parking, for instance, flexible work schedules, parental leaves, paid time off, and so forth.

Stats reveal that front desk turnover is higher (exceeding 24 percent annually) in primary care offices with employee appreciation programs as compared to those without such programs. Interestingly, even those categories that have experienced improvement due to the introduction of such programs, employee turnover remains high. For instance, primary care clinical support staff turnover has fallen to 14 percent while front office support staff turnover has fallen to 15 percent, but it’s still not hitting zero.

Ever imagined why? Well, this is primarily because of the disconnection between the appreciation programs and the employees themselves.

What to do then?

There are mainly four pathways to improve the effectiveness of employee appreciation programs and reducing employee turnover simultaneously:

Connect with the Employees

Employee appreciation programs must necessarily foster an environment of trust and connection amongst the employees. More than often, the staff feels that their input is not valued. Employees must feel valued as an essential component of the workplace. The entire practice staff must meet regularly, discuss the ongoing issues, and communicate with each other about any concerns. The whole crew will then be well-versed about what all in happening at the practice and will, therefore, be able to deliver better patient care.

Regular Training

Regular training is an integral component of uplifting staff morale. As a practice, you must be willing to spend money on training your staff for various skills, including communication and interpersonal skills, technology tools, etc. Regular workshops and certifications can also play an essential role in providing the team with real value, facilitating the acquisition of new skills, new processes, and new technologies, contributing to the overall success of the practice.

Offer Career Growth

Everybody wants to excel in their career path, and if your practice offers ample growth opportunities, your staff is bound to stay. Healthcare is no exception when it comes to the staff’s inclination to progress. The front office employee wants to take a more clinical role as a medical assistant; a medical assistant wants to move forward the career ladder to become a medical records manager, and so forth. Hence, employee appreciation programs must be designed to offer room for advancement and career progression to help retain the workforce. Providing ongoing education, such as a doctorate in physical therapy, can significantly enhance the growth prospects of your employees.

Offer the Right Benefits

Offering benefits and perks remains atop the strategy list for retaining staff at your practice. Happy, engaged, and healthy employees translate into the overall success of the organization. Any employee exceeding the performance goals must be rewarded, whether financially or non-financially. These benefits should go beyond paid sick leaves and health coverage, to offering stock options, for instance, flexible work schedules, parental leaves, paid time off, and so forth.

Working in private practice is exceptionally challenging and least rewarding. Meeting endless and steadily increasing patient demands, keeping abreast with the latest technological advancements, and heavy workload all collectively make the routine of medical staff monotonous, culminating into higher staff turnover. However, retaining talent in a highly tight market such as healthcare is of utmost importance. It saves your practice from all the costs associated with lowered productivity, decreased engagement, training costs, and the cultural impact.

That said, employee turnover is sometimes inevitable. So, you must be prepared to lose your star support staff, especially if they have the opportunity to move into their dream jobs.