From workforce shortages to challenges in retention and recruitment, developing sustainable strategies is essential for driving organizational performance and ensuring long-term success in healthcare.
During a panel discussion hosted in collaboration with HWL at Becker’s Hospital Review 15th Annual Meeting, leaders unpacked the evolving definition of the contingent workforce and how internal flexibility, community engagement and strategic external labor use can drive workforce sustainability.
Here are four key takeaways from their conversation:
1. Build the Workforce of tomorrow, todaySabrina Broadnax, vice president of human resources at Grady Health System stressed the importance of caring for existing employees to enhance the work experience and build a culture that potential talent wants to join.
"When you are working shoulder to shoulder with someone that you respect and who respects you, you feel like you're seen, you're heard and you're valued, you'll bring your best self to work," Ms. Broadnax said. "We needed to step back,pick up the mirror and listen to our employees that weren't having that experience."
An important part of facilitating this experience is making sure existing employees and candidates have an opportunity to realize as much of their talent as possible. The organization's clinical upskilling program actively engages community members to become healthcare professionals.
College students are invited to the organization to learn and receive advice on what their resumes and internships should look like to land their dream job at Grady. This and other programs help fill high-turnover roles like CNAs or even offer a career path to people who otherwise couldn’t afford to stop working to pursue education.
"That connection to the community opens yet another line for us to try to recruit and hire from," Ms. Broadnax said. "It gives the organization an opportunity to interview people and for them to interview the organization. And at the end of the internship, we offer them a job in healthcare, which is where they want to be.
2. Flexibility is the new currency
Sentara Healthcare used to operate on a "one size fits all model". There was little flexibility, and hours were pre-determined with little regard to individual or position specific indicators.
For Amanda Bearden, senior director at Sentara healthcare, that approach had to change.
"Generational ideology is changing," Ms. Bearden said. "People don't want the same work hours as they did before. They want variations. We have to start giving that to them."
After extensive communication with their staff, anesthesia staffing was completely revamped. Realizing the importance of individual needs, Bearden deployed compressed schedules and redefined 1.0 FTE roles to help create more flexibility. By reallocating desirable shifts to core staff, she reversed a 50% vacancy rate at a hard-to-staff facility in under a year to reach 100% staffing.
"All it took was listening to our teams and redefining what it was that they needed," Ms. Bearden said. "Understand the things that are the most important to them when it comes to their roles and how they're valued.
3. The right approach matters
Building internal contingent labor teams helped Amanda Wheeler, vice president of insourcing at HWL, slash dependency on expensive contract labor. Her work with internal float pools trained clinicians to become ambassadors across units, enhancing retention and providing agile staffing solutions.
"If you can bake all of this into strategy and start building buckets for contingent workforce internal to your organization, you're going to be far more flexible for your workforce and far more agile in how you can respond to events that drive that variability in your bottom lines," Ms. Wheeler said.
At the same time, she also added the importance of finding a balance between existing staff and potential contingent labor being added.
"You're always going to have your staff that carry the flag of what that unit's purpose for a specific patient population is," Ms. Wheeler said. "But you are also going to need the ability to have a workforce that can come in and help and give relief and support."
4. Change management crucial to success
For all panelists, change management is a key component when integrating contingent labor strategies into existing workforce planning. At Grady, Ms. Broadnax's team launched their own internal staffing agency in 2022. While primarily a reaction to the pandemic, Broadnax credits part of the organization's success to being bold and trying something new.
"What it boiled down to was unknown, a misperception and fear," Ms. Broadnax added. "Realizing that I had to step back a little bit and think about how to gain allyship was very important."
One of the keys to success was looking at the data and easing fears around the bill rate and cost. The move to an internal agency now opened the door to proprietary data and a clear path to ease clinical leadership concerns with access to greater cost transparency, flexibility and long-term hiring gains.
"The numbers led the way," Ms. Broadnax said. "You have to identify the right stakeholders and then you have to devote the time to explain to them what they want to know. It's given us a lot of flexibility and leaders have had to learn that it was not something that was easy."