Strategies for Attracting and Retaining Emergency Medicine Physicians, Physician Assistants, and Nurse Practitioners
Medical and healthcare positions are some of the most demanding jobs out there. Unfortunately, they are also one of the most understaffed fields, and ensuring your facility has the emergency medical staff it needs to operate properly can be an exceptional challenge.
The demand for nurses and other staff members is rising, with many vacancies and new roles appearing daily. It’s important to consider how you can strategize to retain staff and meet the demands in your area. Check out these strategies for retention in your facility.
1. Recruit Strategically
We get it: recruitment is hard. You may feel like you have to take whoever you can get, but this often just leads to more frustration in the end. When you are recruiting and hiring, do so strategically. Engage with any prospects to get to know them well and set a reasonable but high standard for hiring overall. You want the best of the best, and when you recruit strategically, you get team players who are much more likely to stay and contribute to your team in critical ways.
2. Offer a Residency Program
Does your facility offer any type of residency program? This could be a great way to bring in additional people and foster long-term relationships. The best way to get to know prospective staff is to bring them in early for residency and then retain the staff that fits best in your area.
A residency program offers you the opportunity to foster new connections, collaborate with others, develop a thriving culture, and improve leadership skills as well. You’re teaching and training with the concept of preparing for the future.
3. Have a Career-Based Focus
Does your facility cater to career development? When someone joins your facility, they always have the hope of being able to grow and develop their careers. Many staff members who start as nurses or aides may have the desire to advance further. They might also be interested in leadership opportunities. You need people on the floor, but you also need to prioritize helping employees work toward their goals.
Provide pathways for career development and recognize those teammates who have faithfully been with you for many years.
4. Promote Learning
There is always something to learn. Technology is always changing, and we are always learning new things in healthcare. Promote learning in your facility and provide your staff with the tools they need to continue learning. Learning should be positive, whether it’s from CEUs, learning from others, or provisional training.
5. Competitive Benefits and Pay Are a Must
This is a high-demand field, and some facilities out there are paying big bucks to attract the best. You may not be able to financially handle paying more than some locations, but you need to strive your hardest to be competitive when it comes to pay and benefits. The truth is that unless your workplace stands out, people are going to move along.
Even when you have long-term staff, you need to reevaluate their earnings and may need to boost pay for equitable purposes. Pay your employees their worth and provide great benefits to keep them with you.
6. Recognition and Reward
Everyone likes to be recognized, and your emergency medical staff members are no different. They work long, tiring hours. They give their all to care for the people who need them. Recognize their hard work and their efforts. While they may have chosen this challenging career path, they deserve to be appreciated.
Meaningful gestures and ongoing recognition are vital to your team. And an employee who feels appreciated is much more likely to stay with you even through the hard times.
Tap into recruitment and staffing resources to help you find quality candidates and foster an environment that can keep positions filled for the long haul. These strategies will help!
