Four key strategies to improve employee well-being for best-in-class patient care

By Christina Waddy, Enterprise Account Executive for Healthcare and Public Sector at Ceridian

The aged care industry faces significant disruption driven by rapid technological advancements, accentuated by the pandemic. This shift is compelling organisations to reassess care delivery, emphasising cost reduction, increased access, and enhanced patient outcomes.

While some of these new technologies are helping workers spend more time with patients, an aging population is putting significant strain on the healthcare system and increasing demand for care providers.

Organisations have an important contradiction to consider. As the industry trends toward prevention, holistic wellness, and personalised care for patients, the healthcare workforce faces rising burnout, mental health strain, and a lack of work-life balance.

Given that patient care outcomes are inextricably linked to providers, organisations must prioritise employee well-being and engagement as highly as patient care. The future of care must start with those who do the caring. 

Many organisations are exploring technology to enhance productivity and free up time to focus on patients. Yet, the many ways technology can improve healthcare, employees’ work lives are often overlooked.

Healthcare providers should leverage technology not only to elevate patient outcomes but also to improve the employee experience, enhance workforce efficiency, mitigate burnout, and manage labour costs.

Here are four key workforce strategies to enhance employee engagement, reduce turnover, improve well-being, and ultimately bolster patient care.

1. Attract: Rethink the hiring process to attract top candidates

The rapid technology evolution has fuelled efficiency in the aged care workforce, but it has also created a gap between the skills providers needs and those available in the talent pool. Organisations can tackle this challenge by streamlining the recruitment process to improve the quality and speed of hiring, while reducing the administrative burden.

• Build talent pools: Organisations should consider building talent pools from a variety of sources to help address the labour shortage and skills gap. By forging relationships with candidates before the hiring need arises, healthcare organisations can fill empty roles faster and ensure access to the right skills.
• Let data drive the hiring process: Strategic, data-driven recruitment processes can help minimise the administrative burden and lessen the negative impact of poor hiring decisions. Analytics tools can help identify and understand the reasons behind turnover and uncover flight risks. 
• Simplify the hiring process for candidates: This includes revisiting communication with candidates, from setting expectations about the process to staying in touch throughout the hiring cycle. Offering a personalised experience helps keep top candidates engaged, reducing the likelihood of losing them to competing offers.

2. Engage: Elevate the employee experience to retain workers and improve employee wellness.

Many providers are turning to contract workers to address the labour shortage and skills gap, but that can come at a high cost. The cost of contract labour increased by 37% from 2019 to 2022. Organisations should also consider addressing burnout and improving existing employees’ engagement to reduce turnover and encourage skill-building.

Amidst labour shortages and rising contract labour costs, organisations must combat turnover and skill gaps. Prioritising employee well-being and utilising technology can enhance the healthcare sector’s work experience, empowering workers and reducing disengagement.

3. Train: Build learning systems that make access to learning easier and more engaging for workers 

Implementing strategic training initiatives empowers employees to maintain their professional certifications, acquire the necessary skills to provide exceptional care, harness advanced technologies, and evolve into effective leaders.

• Rethink employee training: Modernise employee training to cater to millennial and Gen Z preferences for personalised, Netflix-style learning. On-demand modules reduce HR workload and offer flexibility with various formats. Internal training options encompass mentorship, social learning, and bite-sized microlearning.
• Close the leadership gap: Healthcare organisations must prioritise succession planning to fill leadership gaps. Succession planning ensures knowledge retention, stability, and operational resilience amid an aging workforce and rising demand. Invest in it to handle workforce changes effectively.
• Build a culture of continuous learning: To succeed, promote continuous learning, including technical and soft skills development, and align it with performance and succession planning.

4. Optimise: Invest in tools to optimise productivity and efficiency

Effective workforce data utilisation enhances productivity and efficiency, but this requires the appropriate tools to gather data and drive insight from it. Automation has proved to be successful in improving patient care by supporting workers and can offer similar benefits in managing human capital.

• Maximise the interoperability of people data: Interoperability of data is forecasted to be at the heart of patient care in the future. Converging data from various sources helps organisations gain insight into the workforce for better decision-making on the people side of the organisation.
• Streamline people management processes: Investing in tools to automate and streamline processes on the people side of the business can help employees focus on higher-value work.

Healthcare organisations are making significant investments in technology to adapt to changing patient expectations and the shift to value-based care. To see a return on that investment, equal focus should be put on building an engaged, healthy workforce that is prepared for the future of work.

Christina Waddy is the Enterprise Account Executive for Healthcare and Public Sector in Ceridian. Learn more about how aged care leaders are equipping themselves in a time of change so they can focus on providing care and prioritising the needs of their residents and employees in Ceridian’s on-demand webinar, “Rethink the future of care with technology.”