My most recent company has a particularly high turnover rate -- and the people leaving are very senior workers with a wealth of knowledge. Management blames it on the Great Resignation, but frankly it was the prior three years of layoffs that made everyone not trust anymore.
Some of the people who left had decades of experience, many just changed careers, while others went to work for competitors or healthcare IT organizations. Given the WFH availability, many can work for high value companies and maintain their current lifestyle. I even heard of a doctor who resigned via post-it note on her office wall -- they found it a couple days after she didn't show up for work. How irritated do you have to be to resign via post-it, and how mismanaged would you have to be for it to take days to notice you weren't there.
I am afraid that the birds have come to roost on poor management and poor corporate cultures. I wonder if there will be consequences for the executives who fostered those cultures.
Exodus - 2 years ago
Mr. H - Thank you for raising this question. I've only lived the experience of this one person. However, my own anecdotal experience still puts me into contact with several healthcare and vendor organizations, and turnover was definitely a common struggle expressed to me from many of those organizations. This is a question that HIT needs to wrestle with, as do most other industries, in terms of finding the right balance.
It's potentially a broad challenge. We always hear about the provider and primary software vendor starting new installs. We also all know that most of the money for that project is likely going to a cornucopia of different hardware and third-party vendors, and consultants that were not named in the headlines. Of course, as I've seen on the provider side, there is also a need to hire more and divert experience from other parts of organizations that have just had a very rough year. The more of these organizations struggling with The Great Resignation there are, the more risk I see.
I hope everyone is thinking about this clearly. Is TGR affecting your company? If you believe it's not, are sure of that? If you believe it is, what are you doing about it?
For provider organizations, I hope all IT departments are talking to the parties they support within their organizations. There are likely many, many clinicians who are leaving due to COVID stress who may be more than happy to stay with the organization in a role that doesn't involve direct patient care. I see opportunities to get important new experience into IT departments. I don't have as many thoughts in the vendor space yet. It's still worth serious discussion among leaders of all stripes, and I hope it's a discussion that's already underway.
Again, thank you for considering this topic.
Ralphie - 2 years ago
Being in a more rural area, staff turnover has been relatively small for about the past decade. In the last year, I've had more resignations than the previous 10 combined. Staff can now work for home at pay rates that are normal for the industry vs the lower pay rates at our regional health system. This in turn causes increased spending for consultants to fill in the open positions. We are changing our hiring patterns to consider staff that live outside our area but it's still a highly competitive market to get those resources, too.
My most recent company has a particularly high turnover rate -- and the people leaving are very senior workers with a wealth of knowledge. Management blames it on the Great Resignation, but frankly it was the prior three years of layoffs that made everyone not trust anymore.
Some of the people who left had decades of experience, many just changed careers, while others went to work for competitors or healthcare IT organizations. Given the WFH availability, many can work for high value companies and maintain their current lifestyle. I even heard of a doctor who resigned via post-it note on her office wall -- they found it a couple days after she didn't show up for work. How irritated do you have to be to resign via post-it, and how mismanaged would you have to be for it to take days to notice you weren't there.
I am afraid that the birds have come to roost on poor management and poor corporate cultures. I wonder if there will be consequences for the executives who fostered those cultures.
Mr. H - Thank you for raising this question. I've only lived the experience of this one person. However, my own anecdotal experience still puts me into contact with several healthcare and vendor organizations, and turnover was definitely a common struggle expressed to me from many of those organizations. This is a question that HIT needs to wrestle with, as do most other industries, in terms of finding the right balance.
It's potentially a broad challenge. We always hear about the provider and primary software vendor starting new installs. We also all know that most of the money for that project is likely going to a cornucopia of different hardware and third-party vendors, and consultants that were not named in the headlines. Of course, as I've seen on the provider side, there is also a need to hire more and divert experience from other parts of organizations that have just had a very rough year. The more of these organizations struggling with The Great Resignation there are, the more risk I see.
I hope everyone is thinking about this clearly. Is TGR affecting your company? If you believe it's not, are sure of that? If you believe it is, what are you doing about it?
For provider organizations, I hope all IT departments are talking to the parties they support within their organizations. There are likely many, many clinicians who are leaving due to COVID stress who may be more than happy to stay with the organization in a role that doesn't involve direct patient care. I see opportunities to get important new experience into IT departments. I don't have as many thoughts in the vendor space yet. It's still worth serious discussion among leaders of all stripes, and I hope it's a discussion that's already underway.
Again, thank you for considering this topic.
Being in a more rural area, staff turnover has been relatively small for about the past decade. In the last year, I've had more resignations than the previous 10 combined. Staff can now work for home at pay rates that are normal for the industry vs the lower pay rates at our regional health system. This in turn causes increased spending for consultants to fill in the open positions. We are changing our hiring patterns to consider staff that live outside our area but it's still a highly competitive market to get those resources, too.