Workforce turnover is one of the biggest expenses for a community health center. Most people want to blame turnover on low salaries, but is it really just about the paycheck?
Since the pandemic, healthcare organizations have had difficulty recruiting and retaining good staff. Finding high-quality medical, dental, and behavioral health providers is even more challenging.
Leaders always blame poor recruiting and retention efforts at FQHCs on lower salaries than their competitors.
Maybe we're blaming the wrong thing.
Most healthcare providers are mission-driven professionals who want to work for an organization that aligns with their values and personal mission, even if the salary is lower than other healthcare organizations in the area.
Sure, compensation is essential for successfully recruiting and retaining providers. Still, the organization's culture, mission, and values and the leadership teams' abilities to foster a positive and productive work environment are equally important.
Do an inventory of your leadership team's skills and abilities around managing other people, communicating with their teams, managing their time, and getting their team on track to hit organizational goals and targets. Equipping your leaders with the right tools will help them build a welcoming atmosphere that will attract the right healthcare providers and keep your high-quality providers working for you.
At my health center, when I started coaching my clinical directors to be better leaders, I noticed the provider retention rate really increased. Giving my clinical leaders the right tools to manage their team, train others below them to be good leaders, and re-enforcing the providers’ purpose proved to be a much more successful retention tool than the small bumps in their paychecks.
If your health center is losing hundreds of thousands of dollars on provider turnover every year, schedule a meeting and let’s chat. It might be an easier fix than you think.
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