Staffing: Data That Matters

Numbers you need to know — and suggestions on how to use ’em.

An industry standard tells you exactly what’s at stake when adding new staff to your OR team: Hiring the wrong person will cost you three times that person’s annual salary.

A costly mistake

In other words, if you hire a new employee for $150,000, it will cost you $450,000 if that person doesn’t work out. How is that possible? Here’s how it breaks down: Most employees — and companies for that matter — find out that the job isn’t a fit within the first six months. So if you hire an employee in February, and that person lasts six months in the position, you’re going to need to start searching for another employee by August.

That means your facility will need to spend additional expenses you didn’t anticipate reposting the position online or hiring an external recruiter, like me. While you’re looking for a new person, you may need to pay an interim person a lot more than $150K to take the job until the role is filled or assign additional responsibilities to your current employees and compensate them accordingly. Plus, you may not be able to find a person you can hire for the same $150,000 salary, so it may cost you $200K the second time around. Lastly, once you do hire a new person, you’ll need to train that person, go through the same “adjustment process” all over again, and cross your fingers that everything works out.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Hiring the wrong person can also lead to a decrease in staff engagement, a reduction of productivity and distress the overall morale of the organization, which inevitably affects profitability.

Give milestones meaning

According to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), healthcare directors or senior-level managers spend an average of four years in a given position, and individuals in mid-level management roles have a shorter average of two-and-a-half to three years.

Based on this information, it would be wise for companies to address these milestone years carefully. Whether that means scheduling a meeting six months before the employee reaches that work anniversary or discussing their career goals and feelings about their current role in more detail during an annual review, tackling this issue proactively instead of retroactively can go a long way.

In my experience, when facilities discuss these milestones with their staff, great things happen. The most important thing that happens is the employee feels valued and heard, which gives them confidence their employer cares about their career ambitions. It also helps employers to retain great people, and promote their best people to higher titles and more responsibility.

Healthcare directors or senior-level managers spend an average of four years in a position, and individuals in mid-level management roles last an average of just two-and-a-half to three years.

Instead of (or in addition to) a traditional five- or 10-year milestone marking, consider a “four-year anniversary party” for the entire staff to celebrate any senior-level managers who have stayed the course. With this small and unexpected act, you can ensure the senior-level manager feels appreciated, and show the staff that you value and cherish good people and that you take note of loyalty milestones. Another idea: Schedule an off-site meeting with the employee three to six months before they reach that four-year milestone and discuss their career ambitions. The idea here is to show that you’re aware they’re about to reach an important milestone, and that you care about keeping them around longer.

Why new leaders fail

When a new leader fails, it’s often the result of several factors: Not offering enough training and education on the expectations of the role; not actively seeking to make that person feel welcomed and an engaged part of the team; and/or not providing an honest and accurate assessment of their performance during the first 90 days with the organization.

The latter is especially important for both achievements and critiques. If you see a new employee is doing a great job interacting with the staff and managing them, go out of your way to let them know they’re doing a great job. If you see that person is struggling to interact with certain physicians or that they aren’t grasping all aspects of the job, pull them aside and gently ask how you can assist them with these specific issues.

By recognizing staff’s strengths and complimenting them on what they’re doing right while tactfully pointing out improvement areas with an offer of help in real time, new employees will feel comfortable coming to you with any potential challenges they face. It’s astonishing how significantly you can reduce turnover simply by regularly checking in to make sure staff are supported early on.

Turnover is a problem at every level, but a leadership failure that results in termination or resignation will create an additional workload for other staff and require the organization to start the hiring process all over again. This creates a vicious cycle that leads to current staff feeling overworked and burned-out.

The big picture

With the current staffing shortages we’re experiencing throughout the country and the DOL projection that more than 275,000 additional nurses will be needed by 2030, employment opportunities for registered nurses will grow by nine percent through 2026, according to the agency. That’s a faster increase than all other occupations the DOL tracks. Factor in the unprecedented demands the pandemic placed on the nation’s nurses and an aging, retirement-ready workforce and the need for skilled nurses is at a critical juncture. Surgical leaders need to do everything they can to hang on to staff.

Top talent isn’t easy to come by, and competition for job openings is fierce. Surgical leaders can avoid losing great people by looking closely at and responding to the story that industry standards key staffing data tells us about when and why people jump ship in the first place. OSM