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The Atrómitos Way
#016: HR to the Rescue: Navigating the Workforce Shortage in Healthcare
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The healthcare industry faces a growing crisis: workforce shortages. Since COVID-19, burnout and stress among healthcare professionals have reached unprecedented levels, straining the system. Andy Almeter, President of Leath HR Group, brings deep expertise in healthcare administration and workforce solutions, offering critical insights into staffing challenges and their impact on patient care.
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It's you can't change somebody's philosophies. And we're not here to do that. We're here to tease that out on the front end before we plug somebody in with a client, because we want that relationship to last.
SPEAKER_03Welcome to the Odomatus Way podcast, where we have meaningful discussions on the challenges in healthcare and the solutions behind them. I'm your host, Liz Church. Today we are talking about another crisis in the healthcare and human services world, the workforce shortage. The American Association of Colleges and Nursing points to data suggesting that the country will need more than 200,000 new nurses annually until 2026 to fill new positions or replace retiring nurses. To raise more concern, the American Association of Medical Colleges has predicted that by 2032, there will be a shortage as of many 122,000 physicians, and the over 65 population will grow by 48%. Healthcare worker jobs in the United States involve demanding and sometimes dangerous duties, including exposure to infectious diseases and violence from patients and their families. The COVID-19 pandemic presented even more stressors, all from a surge of patients, longer working hours to shortages of supplies and protective equipment. Healthcare workers are reporting feeling fatigue, loss, grief at levels higher than before the pandemic. Addressing healthcare worker burnout is one of Surgeon General Vivek Murphy's highest priorities, so it's quite clear we're dealing with a crisis. But what does this mean for the staffing and hiring situation? How is healthcare being affected by staffing shortages? What other prevalent challenges do organizations face? So in this episode, I am speaking with Andy Almeter with Leith HR Group to shed light on this issue. Leith HR Group is a trusted regional leader in modern people and culture, consulting and recruiting. They aim to provide unparalleled HR leadership and support, empowering businesses with comprehensive talent-focused services. Andy is the firm's president, and he extends their influence into the dynamic healthcare sector, deploying top-tier experts to integrate with client teams, emphasizing a simple and effective approach and fostering sustainable growth. Andy's diverse background adds depth to his leadership with roles such as divisional business operations leader at Novant Health and a research fellow at the United States EPA. Board certified in healthcare administration and holding the noteworthy distinction of Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives, he brings a wealth of experience and expertise to his endeavors. Andy actively contributes to community service through various board roles and has been acknowledged as a 40 under 40 and a healthcare hero. And without further ado, Andy, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me this morning. It is amazing to have you aboard on the podcast.
SPEAKER_00Oh, thank you. No, I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_03So let's jump right into it. So, how does Leith HR Group address staffing challenges for your clients in the current competitive labor market?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's a really good question. We definitely focus on recruiting first. We we invest heavily in recruiting processes, mainly for an ideal candidate experience. It's all about the candidate experience for us. Profiling the right person, working on that two-way communication, um, looking at their pay, make sure the position is paying appropriately, and then you know, finding a good cultural fit. Super important. We love to emphasize that the employee experience begins when they are a candidate. So we kind of start the clock at that point. We we also take a data-minded approach. We we typically start with an industry-specific market compensation analysis, and then we kind of move into like a holistic look at the at the client's overall people operations and what we call an HR audit. During that audit, we typically look at um, of course, the the front to back hiring process. We're going to look at exit interviews. If they've done any exit interviews, we'll review those. We'll talk to leadership, we'll talk to management, we'll talk to the frontline staff to try to get a finger on the pulse of how things have been going. And then from there, we'll we'll review compensation, total benefits packages to make sure that they're within the market range. And then we dig into the details of the structure and function of the position. And when you've got an HR expert that has 18 plus years experience, which our team has right now, it's a wonderful team. I can't say enough about them. I'll say more about them in a little bit, I'm sure. But when you've got an HR expert with this kind of experience, we typically identify issues very quickly and we can help develop a detailed action plan to address them as we're engaged.
SPEAKER_03Do you ever have clients to say, you know, I don't really want to do that? You know, I think I really want to stick with this no matter what you guys recommend.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's totally fine because everybody's operation, let's face it, we're all passionate about our businesses. I mean, each business is very unique. There's different drivers, you people have different philosophies. When we do an audit, we are typically taking, like I said, a holistic look. We're taking a third-party review of your current state. We're doing it through the lens of people operations experts from the lens of people operations experts that have been doing this for a really long time. So when we make recommendations, yeah, with the audit actually culminates with a report that's about 10 pages long. And that sounds crazy, but it's it's in spreadsheet format. So for each each metric, there are notes and a recommendation. And we we hear it a lot. No, I don't want to go down that path. Or yeah, that's a brilliant idea. Can you help us implement? So, and we're fine with either way. We just like to put out there what based on our experience, what has worked and and what hasn't. And um, and it's really just informational for the for the client so they can make the the best decision when they go to move forward with implementing new change.
SPEAKER_03I would love to see this spreadsheet. I mean, I'm I'm all about spreadsheets. This is like that's a side conversation for another day, but I love how thorough this is.
SPEAKER_00It is, it's it's very thorough. And and some sometimes we we engage with a client and and we talk about the HR audit, and they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I just need help with like just this one piece over here. And then so we're like, okay, absolutely. We we will do that. And in everything that we do, we we kind of we don't have a script for, which I think is definitely a differentiating factor for us. Each one of our consultants on the team come from a variety of different experiences, whether it be manufacturing or pharma, retail, and they each come with their own um approach, if you will. So we don't have a a good set-in-stone script. The lead HR group way is is very customizable, I would say, to every client we serve.
SPEAKER_03So I do have a question for you if you believe these to be accurate statistics from your experience within human resources. So we'll start with the first one. Uh a study was done in 2023 by AMN Healthcare Leadership Solutions, and the survey indicated that 66% of healthcare executives, directors, and managers plan to take new positions with organizational culture and compensation being key factors influencing those decisions. This is at 45% for organizational culture and then 41% for compensation. Would you say that from your experience with your clients and just the trends of the current situation, that to be accurate in your world?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. I would say those uh directionally correct with those uh with those figures there. The culture has weighed heavier in this post-pandemic paradigm that we're in than it ever has before in the past. So very, very interesting um stats there around that from multiple different angles. Compensation is still high. I would say it's it's one of the one of the, of course, it's always top of mind. It's always the first thing you think about when you think about um the total benefits in no matter what industry you're in, it's always compensation. But to see the stats you just gave, to see culture kind of outweighing compensation, very interesting. And and I would say that is directionally correct in the current state that we're in right now.
SPEAKER_03And that's interesting because the next one is that high turnover, intensified by pandemic pressures, is contributed to a scarcity of strong candidates for leadership roles at 48%, finding it challenging.
SPEAKER_00The only thing I'd say to that, like right off the cuff here, is it's very interesting. Let's say, let's say you're a frontline staff member and you've got great leadership potential and your supervisor moves on to a different role, especially in healthcare. When you step into a leadership role, you're gonna immediately, in most cases, have have quite a few direct reports and you're gonna have to manage in a way that you've never really had to manage before. And so as these frontline staff members are watching their leaders and watching the burnout that we've seen and watching them just struggle to lead in a high turnover, you know, type of environment that we're in right now, why would they want to be a supervisor? I really agree with the scarcity for strong candidates for leadership roles, the stat you just gave. Absolutely. I mean, just like I said, I it's it's it's it's something that we've had to work a lot with. And we've we've developed some training programs for first-time leaders and new leaders. And I definitely want to talk about that in a little bit, but it's something that we've had to do in the past couple of years because we've been seeing this scarcity uh trend grow.
SPEAKER_03I know a couple of people who are in management positions, they were in healthcare, and um they just couldn't handle it. It was way too much, and they decided to step down from those roles or they changed careers.
SPEAKER_00It's a lot, it's a stressful environment. And and in this, yeah, in when you've got staffing shortages, you're doing more with less. And most of the time, these leaders, when they should be working on a strategy and working on leadership and talking to their direct reports, the big thing that we stress is communication. When they're not able to do that because they're actually working, they're filling in ships themselves. They're the frontline working supervisors when they should be working on um overall management strategy. So we're seeing it often and it's taxing.
SPEAKER_03You know, at this point we're just letting the fire burn. We've we've gone too long. I mean, we are approaching a forest fire at um very frightening levels at this point, and we gotta find a solution. And I feel like this is a revolving conversation because when I first came aboard to Adromedis, we were talking about burnout, and this was like late 2022, a little while after I came aboard. And Michelle made it clear, she said burnout has always been around. We've seen shortages, and we've known it was getting bad. And organizations, providers, you know, these places have been uh delaying taking action to give people what they want. Not only what they want, but what they deserve. So Andy, you know, based on your expertise, what key factors do you see influencing job retention in today's competitive job market?
SPEAKER_00Well, we've we talked a little bit about salary. I say salary remains one of the one of the keys, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. We've got the total comp package we really need to keep an eye on, all the employee benefits, the innovative perks, which have evolved tremendously over the past couple of years. Think about flexible work arrangements, flexible schedules, um, things that entice folks to be recruited. Two major factors that we find that dictate whether someone will stay. Do I trust or like my boss? And do I trust and like my peers? Those are really interesting questions and we ask them a lot. And we have found that that those really are two major, major players. And it's also important to have a finger on the pulse of with regard to feedback. Um, when you think if what you think your employees may want and need at work may be different than reality. So we we really recommend a couple of times a year doing a pulse check. And most importantly, I cannot stress this enough. Don't just do a pulse check, but actually do something with that information. Show them that you're trying, show them that you're listening.
SPEAKER_03Obviously makes sense. Don't do all the work then and just do nothing with it. Right.
SPEAKER_00I see that so often.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's like, why did you it's to me that's at that point, it's kind of like you're wasting your own time.
SPEAKER_00You're you're it is. And they feel like they're getting their time wasted. And so when the next check-in comes around or next pulse survey um or employee survey, satisfaction survey, whatever you may call it, whenever the next one rolls around, they're gonna blow it off and you're not gonna get good data. So when you get good response and bad responses, when you get responses, respond.
SPEAKER_03So, Andy, tell me what Leith HR Group does to combat this challenge. You know, in the light of projected shortages in physicians and nurses, you know, what initiatives is Leith HR group undertaking to support healthcare organizations in addressing workforce shortages and ensuring adequate staffing levels?
SPEAKER_00Okay. So, you know, the most say the most obvious answer here is we do provide third-party recruiting services. Um, so we go after the top talent that's already employed. We call them passive candidates. We've been able, we've been pretty successful the past couple of years in this post-pandemic paradigm we're living in, with finding mid-sized to large healthcare clients, great talent for those hard-to-fill jobs. We've we've been very successful. And I would say that one of the main drivers there is that we are using senior certified, you know, career HR professionals to do the recruiting. Um in our beautiful coastal community that we live here, Wilmington, North Carolina, we're facing a healthcare shortage at the tune of just under 10,000 workers. So here locally, we've been working with uh with the Chamber of Commerce, the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce, providing HR expertise to employer focused groups, including healthcare. There's a there's a there's a tech, there's healthcare, there's manufacturing. So we're we're we're providing some HR expertise to address the systemic shortages. And uh, and so we've been able to launch a website called the nccareercoast.com. The the chamber launched it, but that launched, I'd say, a couple months ago. Um it's really aimed at attracting talent from other areas in the US. And it's a perfect example of innovative collaborative effort that we've had a hand in.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think I I believe they presented it at the Greater Wilmington Business Journal's Power Breakfast. Yeah. And I can't remember, does it also work with the college? Did is are you guys going to be able to work with the colleges at Cape Fear in UNCW? Are they involved with it as well?
SPEAKER_00They are, absolutely. Absolutely. And and they they've had um had a big hand in in the development of this too, especially when you talk about what programs are needed and are there are there are there programs that you don't need to go through a four-year university to get a certification to fill a certain gap, thinking about coding and that sort of thing. And then in the manufacturing realm, where there have been a lot of initiatives with the uh with the community college systems in this whole area with these programs to to address the sort shortages and find fast track options to get that talent homegrown.
SPEAKER_03That's awesome. I love that. It's well, you're building up the community and getting everyone to stay to build the community and make it grow.
SPEAKER_00Wilmington, North Carolina is unique. We've got, you know, we're surrounded by a couple community colleges that have their niche areas. Um, we've got University of North Carolina, Wilmington here. And then we've got a whole array of industry. Like I said, from pharma to to healthcare to manufacturing and tech, big startup scene as well. So Wilmington, Southeastern North Carolina has got a lot of resources. It's just about aligning everybody with in the same mission to make sure that these gaps are are filled.
SPEAKER_03So then kind of putting out there like what can other people do, what innovative approaches do you recommend in the hiring process for other organizations?
SPEAKER_00So I did I did talk a little bit about we do use senior certified level professionals to network with and find talent that's not on the market. And we're not your average recruiting firm. Typically, they are stopped with you know recent college grads. We actually deploy the senior leaders that have been in these hiring seats. They represent our clients to help them kind of get a leg up in the market. So yeah, and we're often selling the business to candidates. So we we really do um a comprehensive and we take a lot of time with our intake with our clients. Uh, we clearly communicate everything that we learn and hear from the client to the candidate because essentially we are an extension of the hiring team. We just bring a lot of horsepower because of our experiences.
SPEAKER_03And if someone doesn't have the ability to work with you all, like say for instance, they just don't have the the time or the capacity to outsource. Do you have any kind of recommendations that they could do to just get them to where they need to be? They being an organization.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. So off the top of my head, some of the common um missteps, mistakes I see in in when when companies internally try to try to recruit and fill positions. Don't I could take this so many different directions. Anytime you you lose an employee, whether it be natural attrition or they've moved on within the organization, if you anytime you have an open seat, let's say, that's a really wonderful opportunity to step back and say, has that position evolved? Do we need to replace it with exactly what was in there before? So step back, look at the business case for that position. That's one of the first questions that I ask when someone calls us and says, I need some help recruiting. We lost so-and-so. We really need the seat filled. It's like, okay, well, let's look at your entire organization. Is there anybody you can move up into that role? Does that role have to remain the same as it was historically? From there, that's that's the business side that we help folks with. From there, spend a lot of time crafting that job description and job announcement, not the job, the job description is cut and dry typically. This is the job, this is what we're after, but the job posting. Take a lot of time, take care with that. If you're trying to find the right talent and the right cultural fit, have those hard stops on there, but also show a little bit about the personality of the company, show a little bit about the culture that they're signing up for. You'll be surprised at the amount of people that you weed out just after they read a job description on LinkedIn or indeed. So spend a lot of time with the job, crafting that job announcement, and really also look at your interviewing schedule. Have a plan. When you get a good application in, start the clock. You should, you shouldn't let this last more than two weeks. Don't drag them on. Be very open about which step, how we're gonna start, what the next step is, who to expect in the room, uh, any kind of itinerary you can provide the candidates. Be very, like I said, the the employee experience starts when they're a candidate. If they have a terrible candidate experience or it seems disjointed, they're gonna step back and say, is this really the organization I want to be part of? Move them along as quickly as possible. I mean, it's we don't want to rush a decision, but at the same time, you we do this is a competitive landscape when it comes to talent. And the longer you take to make a decision with a with a really good candidate, the chances are higher that they will get an offer from someone else. It's and then you get some folks that just don't read and and they don't read the job description. And that's a really that's that's a good, that's a good point to cut ties early with folks too. It's it's and that's another thing I think I would stress. All too often we're we're humans and we want to be people pleasers and and we like to string people on, even if you right off the bat that first phone interview, you're like, yeah, this isn't gonna work. And they didn't do their research, they didn't uh really read the job posting and and job description. Cut ties right away. Just don't don't lead people on, let them get back on the market, give them some good feedback too. People really like the feedback. I have a thing with my team. When we when we do recruiting, we'll we'll collect resumes. So we'll get we'll get let's say, let's say 50 resumes for a role that we're recruiting for. And we're gonna sift through, we're gonna read every single resume. We're gonna code them, we're gonna put them into our spreadsheets, we've got a whole process. The the folks that that aren't moved on to a to a phone interview with with the client, we can send them an email or reply through whatever venue they applied through and tell them, hey, you haven't, you weren't selected to move forward. That's fine. Anyone that we get on the phone with and phone screen, and and if they're not selected to move forward after we phone screen them, it is a if we talk to them and you know on the phone, we talk to them on the phone to give them feedback about why they're not moving forward. So it's and same. If there's a if there's a video conference where they did an interview and the client gives us some feedback and says, hey, we're not gonna, we're not gonna hire John Smith because XYZ, we get on a Zoom with them and get face to face and give them that feedback. And so however we interact with them the first, the last time, that's how we're gonna interact with them again, unless it's in person. We'll those are always going to be either phone or video conversations so we can give the feedback to the candidate. Because as a third-party recruiter, that person is now in my network. And if I like them enough to put them forward to the to the client, I want to retain them in my network because I may have another client that could use them moving forward down the road. So we always like to afford people the opportunity to have dialogue after they're not selected. And it's five-star reviews from our you know candidates that kind of come through that process because they're like, wow, thank you for not just sending me a text. So anyway, that's what we like to do.
SPEAKER_03You know, in your world of human resources, feedback is the most important element in how you provide your services from the poll surveys to the audits, you know, this is coming back to that communication piece that a lot of organizations need. And where I'm going with this is the negative side of retention and mitigating the shortage. A lot of healthcare workers face violence and other dangers in their in their environments given the burnout and harassment. Are there any specific programs or resources that Leith HR group provides to promote employee well-being, addressing fatigue, and you know, mitigating the impact of a demanding and sometimes dangerous work environment?
SPEAKER_00Yes. So so we do we do dig into our client's approach to total wellness uh by taking stock of what's already offered. We look at the business strategy, are they growing, not growing? We look at their budget, we look at what intended outcomes they're trying to get. We use our experience, knowledge, and best practices to introduce and roll out total wellness programs that fit the client's needs. For example, let's say you've got a lot of employees that in a culture survey reported that they're they're they're burned out, not only because of work. Workload and hours, but because of maybe inflation. They're concerned that the pace of their pay isn't really keeping up with housing prices or grocery bills. Now, this is real. I mean, we we see this a lot, and especially now more than ever before. We can roll out financial wellness tools like Mint or Momentum, some Dave Ramsey tools we've used in the past. We can host sessions with our network of 401k providers on specific topics. We can provide tools and training at a low cost through our vendors to help employees understand how to make ends meet during a divorce or how to start saving for retirement when they've got two kids in college. So I think it's all about, again, it's about communication, it's about learning what are the stressors. Super important to do these pulse surveys to get that feedback because you may not know what folks are going through. And I can tell you from personal experience, I worked with Novot for a number of years. Um and I was I was the chair during during the COVID pandemic. Uh I was the chair of our financial resiliency council. So it was a council for employees to to sign up and kind of learn a little bit more about you know creating a budget for yourself. And because we we were hearing that for folks were stressed out about inflation, about the the pay not keeping up with the market. So so we we put together a really cool program that that looked at personal finance budgeting, that it looked at um first-time home buyers. The best way to build that generational wealth is through owning a home. And some folks have no idea where to start there. So we heard that loud and clear, and we we got in touch with um, there's a program here in town, get that deed. And so we we we had that team come in and give presentations about well, where do you even start? And and they have a very awesome script and to lead, to lead the and led a lot of employees through the process of getting their finances in order and getting their thoughts in line for being able to purchase their first home. So anyway, I think it's it's about it's about talking to your employees, learning what what stresses they've got outside the workplace or inside the workplace and and really being innovative and creative and proactive.
SPEAKER_02I would love to learn a lot of these things. I'm constantly going to my husband and like, explain this. I don't know this.
SPEAKER_00It was awesome too because I sat in on a lot of these presentations that we that we did at at Nova and with all these vendors coming in to talk. And I learned things about personal budgeting that I I was like, wow, that's really cool. I'm gonna, and I've actually still do it to this day. Um, I learned some things about different types of mortgages and and pieces of the puzzle when you're looking at buying a home that I said, oh my gosh, like when uh next time I talk to someone that's that's about to go through this, like I made that mistake and I didn't even know it was a mistake. So it's yeah, it very interesting. But it at all points in your life, it's it's good to kind of come back to the basics and relearn how to do or a different approach to doing a budget. So uh yeah, these programs are great. And they also they're more than that too. Like they're more than just the technical knowledge that you get. It's camaraderie, it's you're you're improving the morale. When we all got in a room to hear about from get that deed to hear about how to go about buying your first home, like we're all in there like, you don't, I thought you owned a home. Like, oh, you you've been renting to me too. Like, let's listen. So there's just conversations that we would, you know, start to have with our colleagues that we would have never had otherwise. And and that that fuels recheck.
SPEAKER_03As you brought up financial pressures from the worker standpoint, you know, dealing with inflation, setting a budget. What do you think of financial pressures and clinician issues being predicted as you know the the biggest challenges in the staffing crisis? Do you have any insight how this ties together from your experience or perspective within the human resources realm?
SPEAKER_00Well, it's and I I hate to keep coming back to, I mean, I love coming back to culture and and workplace, how you feel when you're headed into work. And staffing shortages are a a major driver, I would say. I would just I would take it back to culture and and you've really got to listen to your people and figure out where their stressors are. Unhappy people, I mean, to tie this all to finance, you know, unhappy employees are not productive employees. And and when you're not productive, you're seeing, you're seeing that hit, you know, you're seeing the financial impact of that. It's a vicious cycle. But it all comes back to to workplace happiness and to have a a cohesive culture and a place where people want to come to work, it that boils down to good communication with leadership. I don't know if that answers your question.
SPEAKER_03You know, understanding that there is a responsibility that leadership has to listen to its employees because if you keep falling down the hole, it's gonna be harder to get back up, obviously. And I kind of go back to that wildfire uh analogy. So, you know, you have to eventually you're just gonna be like, I just I can't do this anymore. And it's getting dangerous because like the smaller facilities in the rural areas or places that they just don't have enough providers to see everyone, so the wait times are uh astronomically wrong. So uh you have all these situations where you you see places closing because they don't have enough staff. So what does the person do and they live in a rural area and now they have to travel two hours to go see their physician? What if they may not have good transportation? What if they're not physically able to do so? What if they don't have community help that helps can help them get to the office that they need? So the closest healthcare center closes and thus they have to either deal with what they have or they have to go well out of their capabilities to be seen. So what if there's a hospital still nearby? Okay, their only provider that at that point is the emergency room, so you have more people going into the emergency room. When you think about this in the scope of how does workforce shortage impact everyone, it's on a large scale. And you know, folks like us, we may not see it because in Wilmington, North Carolina, there are providers everywhere. But you know, maybe a specialist you have to go somewhere else and have to travel a little bit. But I'm saying this from the scope of someone who myself, I have the ability to travel to another city or a state. I really don't want to do that. But I have the ability to travel because I have those things available to me. What about people that don't? And I think that's the thing people don't remember here is that this shortage affects everyone. Maybe I have to wait two months to uh finally be seen by my dermatologist, but there are people that have to go prolonged periods of time to get critical care that they need. You know, blood pressure, cancer treatments, diabetes. These are people that have critical illnesses that have to be monitored and taken care of. And I definitely ranted it quite a bit, and I talked with my hands and I ended up hitting the microphone a couple times. So I probably I don't think I can edit that out. But but there's there's a crisis here. We're seeing closures and this shortage, it affects people that desperately need care.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, we're definitely seeing the staffing crisis in these um in smaller facilities for sure. We are seeing closures in in a lot of critical access hospitals, for example, prolonged emergency care delays. So that's a staffing shortage issue for sure. I mean, without getting into reimbursement models and how those kind of need to evolve, um, I would say that it's it comes down to being you could just have to you just have to decrease that that turnover and really get the get morale up because the the productivity is gonna follow. And and even if you're in a staffing crisis, you um I'm just thinking about something else too. If you've got a great morale happening, good culture, it that's gonna carry you through the ups and downs. There are always gonna be staffing challenges, I can guarantee you that. One thing that we've seen, and this is a direction I could I could take this and talk for a while, but we've seen a lot. We saw a lot of temp workers, we saw a lot of traveling nursing kind of come up after the the pandemic. And a lot of these skilled workers were were chasing the dollars, right? They quit their day job and they went to work with a staffing agency because they can make three times as much or more. And we it was really, well, there's a place for that. There's absolutely a place for traveling nursing. We saw a disproportionate distribution of traveling nursing to to hired staff. And what that did, it was very interesting, but I really think it impacted the culture in a negative way. There were pay discrepancies or pay disparities there. There was that the traveling um uh teams would not really fit into the culture. There was always kind of that, just a just a little bit of resentment, uh, I think happening. Now we've started to see that normalize. All indication is that the the temporary workforce, the traveling nursing is coming down to pre-pandemic levels, um, which is great. Like I said, there is absolutely a place for that. That is a a brilliant way to staff up. We've also seen a lot of larger healthcare organizations kind of create their own internal staffing agency so they can float staff amongst their network and outside too. It's a great revenue stream. But so we've seen it kind of come back in-house. And I think that's gonna do a lot to help the the culture in in a lot of these organizations.
SPEAKER_03Going into the the positive outlook, how are you guys actively engaging with healthcare organizations to enhance job satisfaction, reduce the turnover, and create a positive work environment?
SPEAKER_00I would I would say frontline supervisors are your greatest asset or your greatest liability. So don't let it be the latter. We've got a full suite of trainings for managers, like I just talked about a minute ago. We've got this one program that we do, it's buddy to boss. And in the buddy to boss program, it's it's where where someone has been internally promoted and really given them the tools that they need to lead amongst their peers, to lead across generations and cultures, how to handle difficult conversations. These are all trainings that we we provide in this program preventing sexual harassment that can come in so many different forms. One of our biggest clients is up in New York. It's an entire the whole SUNY um uh community college system up there. And we do a lot of sexual harassment prevention training for them and their entire staff. We're the preferred vendor, and that's that's wonderful. But every year, the rules and laws change a little bit about what has to go into a program like that. So when you think about a presentation or a training that that is, you know, titled Preventing Sexual Harassment, it's it's an hour and a half, two hours long. I mean, we really do dig in deep to all the ways that all the do's and don'ts. Let's be honest. Because as you're as you're a new leader, that's a whole different set of responsibilities that you've got to have top of mind. We can talk about that one for hours. You know, we also do disk training, communication workshops. We do strength finders, learn how people tick, learn how people, individuals tick, and then learn about how your peers are ticking and figure out how to how to best you know work together to create that that positive work environment. So the list goes on with the with the trainings, and trainings are a great way to get to get folks engaged. We have found that third-party facilitators like us coming in to do these trainings, you get better engagement than if it's facilitated by the own, by their own management team or HRT. It's it's us coming in, it's a fresh look, especially in that buddy-to-boss program, which is typically over three or four days. It's the folks that participate in that program, you start like a cohort mentality almost. So let's say you've got five new leaders that are going through our buddy to boss program. When they graduate from that program, well, now they can, the five of them are close and they are texting on a group thread and they are bouncing ideas off each other. Hey, I've got this situation. How would you handle it? And it's it's it's great because once you start to foster that kind of environment, leadership sees it and your frontline staff feels it and people stay. It's a retention tool above all else.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's helping people be people.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Yes. Yeah. And we see in in the trades, for example, we see a lot of, let's say, let's take a weld nurse, for example, in a manufacturing facility, you may have upwards of 30 welders working on the floor at a time and maybe two supervisors. Well, those supervisors aren't going to be there forever. So really paying attention to succession planning and figuring out who on the team is respected amongst their peers. Do they have what it takes to be a leader? Could they do it? And then enter the buddy to boss program that we provide. Once you identify that next supervisor, put them through the program, make them successful and stay with them. Like, don't just put them through the program and they leave. Like we say every six months, let's have a check-in. Let's bring that cohort back together. What's going well? What's not going well? And sometimes that's the cohort altogether, sometimes that's individual coaching. We do that as well. Let's hop on the phone, let's talk through something. It's the wraparound service that we provide, I feel like, that makes the those new supervisors extremely effective in the workforce.
SPEAKER_03All of these things that you're describing, I'm just thinking like, man, I wish my enter previous job here had these things because it would have made the work environment so much better to be in. Just because if you don't have the right environment, you're not, you're not gonna succeed. You're not really gonna want to be there. You're just like, yeah, man, I'm here.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02And that's it's just terrible to say it that way.
SPEAKER_00I know. I'm gonna make my widget and I'm gonna go home. Yeah. It's more than that. This is where we spend, you know, a third of our life. It's eight hours a day. You know, it's a third. That's a lot. The other third is spent in bed. Get a comfortable mattress, get a good night's sleep because you wanna you're doing all of this, so you can spend that third with the people you want to spend it with, the remaining third. It's it's very important to be happy at work. And it it bleeds over into all aspects of our life.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we're not in that mindset anymore. We're uh I I've seen over the years, ever since the pandemic, there's been a lot of criticism against work the work-life balance, but being actually exposed to it now, being able to be in it and understanding how important it is. I feel like that just does go back to like what you said about the culture, being able to have that, have the ability to have a work-life balance and have my one third of work, like, okay, I'm gonna go do this. And then now it's like, okay, I'm gonna go for a hike with my husband and do this and this, like being able to feel comfortable being like, okay, I'm gonna go do this, and not thinking about to go back to work tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00And you don't want to spend that that hike, you don't want to spend the first two hours of that hike just complaining about things that are going on at work. I mean, that's not it's not fun. I mean, it's a good outlet, and and it's it's good to be able to have those conversations at home, but you don't want to be spending your time doing that. So I think there's there's been a there's been this focus, this new focus on on the work-life balance. I I support it, I like that a lot. And the the workplace culture plays a big piece in into what people are looking for right now. And if if we can, as recruiters, if we can pair top talent with with great companies where there's a cultural match made in heaven, which what we're looking for, you can train skill all day long. It's you can't change somebody's philosophies. And and we're not here to do that. We're we're here to to tease that out on the front end before we plug somebody in with a client, because we want that relationship to last. So I'll bring this back to to recruiting. And it's it's you really gotta spend the time, you gotta be almost a psychologist in a way. You really gotta spend time, have a couple conversations with those, with those clients, with this, with those candidates before you put them forward to the to the client, because anybody can be anyone for 20 minutes on the phone. And you know, we recommend a phone screen first, get all those tell me about yourself type things out of the way, and then hop on a Zoom. And when you get on the Zoom, watch their behavior, let them talk. As a recruiter, you'd think I'd be asking all the questions and and and kind of driving the conversation. Well, no, typically in that in that second conversation where we're sitting on a Zoom, it's I'm gonna sit back and I'm gonna watch you because I know my client and I want to watch the candidate, their mannerisms, how they ask questions, what kind of research do they do? These are the notes I'm taking on the side. Did they research the company? Did they research the players that I told them about during our first conversation? Those are all really important indicators.
SPEAKER_03I agree with that, so, because I have been a part of a lot of interviews as of late. It was a three-month process. So, to close out our conversation today, given the complex landscape of staffing challenges and turnover in the healthcare industry, how can individuals, irrespective of their roles or backgrounds, actively contribute to improving retention and addressing staffing issues in healthcare without being discouraged by obstacles ahead?
SPEAKER_00To the extent possible, if you're a manager, uh, have an open door policy. Bring it back to communication. Some some nurse managers have upwards of 100 direct reports. There's no shortage of people to talk to, but you must take the time to have one-on-one conversations. Can't stress that enough. And then also, this is gonna sound rough, but it even though there's a there's a shortage of skilled healthcare workers, do not get in the habit of putting up with brilliant jerks. If if there's a bad apple on your team, you gotta address it. Don't bury your head in the sand, pretend like it's not happening. If you need help figuring out who's performing and who's not, call us. We've got a good way to do that as consultants. But sometimes you get discretionary effort out of the good employees once you cut ties with the bad eggs. So I think in parting, I would say don't be afraid to have difficult conversations with people who are just not fitting in. It's the quickest culture killer to come to work too for with a with a with a bad supervisor or a bad coworker or just somebody that's constantly undercutting leadership, or the list goes on. It's just be in tune to what's happening at those front lines and amongst your peers if you're a leader and and up the chain. It's there are ways to address issues up and down the chain. And I would say let's just not, let's just not get in a habit of just dealing or ignoring it and sticking your head in the sand and pretending like it's not happening. It's it is happening and let's do something about it. It's it's I just see it so often with folks. They they ignore it because, again, like I said earlier, we're people pleasers. We we want to just smile and nod and take it and move on. But it is the number one killer of culture, and that's a killer of productivity.
SPEAKER_03Thank you for interviewing with me today, Andy. I really appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00Well, thanks for having me. This has been great. I've been looking forward to this for months.
SPEAKER_03We had to get through Christmas and New Year's and then get through December.
unknownYes.
SPEAKER_03All right, well, have a good rest of your day.
SPEAKER_00All right, thanks, Liz. You too.
SPEAKER_03So, what does this mean for organizations? Build bridges with communication, eliminate with transparency, listen to your team's needs, be the helping hand that they seek, and above all, let positivity be the heartbeat of your organization's culture, where traditions, attitudes, and values harmonize staff retention and productivity. In short, ladies and gentlemen, don't be a culture killer. Thank you so much, Andy, for being part of season two of the Adromeda's Way podcast. The Adromeda's Way is produced by me, with the church. Editorial assistance for this episode is by my fantastic team at Adromeda. We are a boutique consulting firm with the imperative mission of creating healthier, more resilient, more equitable communities. I encourage all of you to reach out and get to know us. You can listen to all of our previous episodes on our website, Adromatas Consulting.com slash Adromatas Dash Way. We can also be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you next time.
