The COVID-19 pandemic changed the world forever. The healthcare industry, already facing staffing shortages pre-pandemic, felt the impact particularly hard. The stress of serving on the frontlines as the virus ripped through communities continues to resonate with frontline healthcare workers today—at least those who remain working in the industry. Turnover rates spiked, causing widespread staff shortages across every healthcare system in the United States.
Even as the pandemic subsided, labor shortages among essential workers like nurses, surgical technicians, and medical assistants persist. Healthcare remains one of the largest sectors of the U.S. economy, employing over 20 million people, roughly 12.5% of the working population as of 2022. As the population ages, the demand for healthcare workers will continue to grow. However, the COVID crisis exacerbated tightness in the U.S. labor market, which experts believe will be with us for the foreseeable future. This is a wake-up call to the entire sector to rethink its approach to recruiting and retaining employees.
Healthcare organizations must embrace a new mindset when it comes to thinking about their employees—especially those serving in lower-wage frontline positions[1] disproportionately filled by women of color. The good news is that there’s clear evidence that employers who invest in designing good jobs, accessible career paths, and equitable workplaces have a competitive advantage.
National Recognition of Frontline Investments
CareerSTAT leaders created the peer-defined Frontline Healthcare Worker Champion Recognition Program to uplift healthcare organizations committed to frontline worker investments and inspire more healthcare leaders to adopt promising workforce practices. This program recognizes organizations that create good jobs and build equitable workplaces by making significant investments in the skills and careers of their frontline workers.
The 2023 CareerSTAT Champions are deeply committed to investing in workforce development strategies that promote racial equity and inclusion, accessible training and skills development opportunities, and frontline career progression. The demonstrate that building inclusive cultures that encourage employees to learn new skills and earn more money delivers many benefits, including higher employee engagement, lower turnover, and, ultimately, better care for patients in the community.
Champions share a common belief: investing in frontline workers is good for business. Each Champion illustrates how a workforce development strategy aligned with organizational-wide goals results in positive changes where everyone wins.
Here are some highlights from the 2023 CareerSTAT Champions.
Trinity Health Michigan (Trinity) is committed to a mission to serve its community members. Trinity embraces the practice of “Building Talent Bridges,” which involves maintaining strong partnerships with local community organizations to engage and assist individuals who experienced barriers to landing a job in the past.
Another successful strategy to impact communities is aligning hiring efforts to match frontline workers with the demographics of their patient population. That’s a priority for Union Health Center (UHC), whose workforce matches its patient population of largely immigrants and Spanish speakers working and living in New York City. UHC actively seeks out diverse candidate pools through internal and external referrals and recruiting through strategic job boards.
Organizations like Atrium Health, have also engaged and partnered with local community-based organizations to give justice-involved individuals in their communities the training, life-skills coaching, and mentorship they need to land and keep a job.
The University of Vermont Health Network faces a challenge familiar to many healthcare leaders: there are not enough workers to meet the needs of an aging patient population. Workers reported balancing work, school, and family responsibilities as a big barrier. Easing those burdens enabled 171 participants between 2022 and 2023 to complete workforce development programs that led to higher-paying organizational roles.
Evidence shows equitable, inclusive workplaces get better employee engagement. Baystate Health walks the talk when creating an equitable, diverse, and inclusive workplace. The health system engaged more than sixty individuals across the organization to assess policies and practices for inclusivity and remove barriers, resulting in a list of recommendations and changes that expanded opportunities for people to thrive.
Employee engagement soars when employees feel that their employer is investing in them in ways that can help propel their careers. Boston Children’s Hospital embraced an enhanced onboarding program to help new hires navigate their benefits package, access training and educational opportunities, and even offers an employee assistance program if an emergency strikes.
In 2018, Ascension St. Vincent (ASV) created the Ascension Training Academy in Indianapolis to provide career development opportunities for its team members, offering nationally recognized certification programs to frontline workers at no cost. ASV has since doubled its commitment by creating similar surgical technology and nursing programs and expanding them to three new locations.
Similarly, Loretto has invested in workforce development programs that give frontline employees opportunities to gain new skills and practical experiences needed to advance their careers and earning potential. More than 500 employees have participated in these programs over the past five years.
Sharing Best Practices
Healthcare workforce challenges are too big and systemic for any organization to solve alone. That is why peer learning is the driving force of the CareerSTAT network. Whether it’s sharing sample policies, strategizing around shared problems, or the ability to show proof of concept to leaders, CareerSTAT is a place where healthcare workforce practitioners and learn and grow from and with one another. CareerSTAT champions lead the way—inspiring and energizing their peers to bring successful strategies to their organizations.
Healthcare organizations can no longer afford the status quo. To remain competitive, they must modernize their workforce strategy to fully realize the advantage of creating good jobs and more equitable workplaces. The good news is that the 2023 CareerSTAT Champions and Emerging Champions are rewriting the playbook that will enable them and those who learn from them to build a frontline workforce for the future
[1] CareerSTAT defines a frontline worker positions that require an Associate’s degree or less and earn $60,000/yr or less
