Popular News sources report that employees are leaving the workplace in mass and looking for new jobs and have labeled this workplace exodus as the great resignation. Retention and recruitment for healthcare revenue cycle employees is becoming increasingly challenging, and this is especially true for frontline gatekeepers working in Patient Access in various settings. Revenue Cycle leaders must continue to focus on retention and recruitment and be open to new and different strategies to achieve revenue cycle success.

According to an article on People Scout at https://www.peoplescout.com/insights/engage-and-retain-healthcareworkers/, a healthy healthcare organization has happy and well engaged employees. The article references a survey conducted by Leaders for Today that included 852 participants of clinical and non-clinical employees. The survey results showed that 43% of respondents were with their current organization for less than 2 years and 65.7% stated that they were with their hospital less than 5 years. More than one-third of the survey respondents had planned to leave within 2 years and 68.6% were planning to leave in 5 years. Additionally, there is the high financial cost of employee turnover.

The best way to retain employees and achieve sustainable business growth is by aligning the goals of employees with those of their directors and leaders and providing a world class employee experience. Since COVID 19, it is no longer business as usual in how we engage with employees to align their experience with the organization’s purpose, brand and culture. One of the primary questions we must address is how to retain good people remaining committed to do their jobs during a time of uncertainty?

Outlined below are some strategies to consider in retaining your employees and providing that world class employee experience:

1. Evaluate compensation rates and incentive options to remain competitive in what is now a global market
   for recruiting and retaining top talent.
2. Establish clearly defined goals and performance standards with options for professional development and performance-based incentives.
3. Evaluate onboarding process to ensure new employees experience organization’s values and
   culture during the onboarding process and are affirmed in their decisions to work for you.
4. Provide ongoing training for staff development and provide clear path for career progression.
5. Remain intentional in staying connected to all team members to have a personal touch in building relationships and morale. Consider options for leaders to connect with team members to let them know they are cared for, appreciated and valued perhaps with a handwritten card, virtual lunch to celebrate wins, water cooler chat within Microsoft Teams and/or spontaneous check-in to ask how team members are doing personally.
6. Keep teams connected with frequent team huddles.
7. Allow an alternate work schedule to enhance work life balance while continuing to meet the needs of the
   business and ensure adequate coverage.
8. Conduct monthly meetings to share vital information to keep everyone abreast of new issues or areas of
   concern.
9. Have door prizes that employees can win to show appreciation. Employees enjoy winning prizes, and they feel appreciated.
10. Provide lunch once a quarter to show appreciation for the employees with messages of appreciation for all they do.
11. Provide timely feedback on employees’ progress and continued opportunities to learn and grow.
12. Provide timely recognition and praise for doing good work.
13. Ensure employees have frequent opportunities to provide feedback and suggestions through virtual suggestion box, formal employee engagement surveys and exit interviews and ensure leaders provide timely feedback to address opportunities identified. Employees are any organization’s most important assets. Organizations must be consistently assessing employees’ needs and develop talent carefully to keep employees engaged and committed to their jobs.
    
    
    References: Dyson, E. (2022, March) Medical Staffing: How to Engage and Retain Healthcare Workers PeopleScout
    https://www.peoplescout.com/insights/engage-and-retain-healthcare-workers/