Category Archives: Talent Imperative

The 6 challenges facing health care in 2023—and how to handle them

Posted on by • Posted in Challenge, Digital Health, Digital Health Initiatives, Financial Stewardship, Financial Strength, Financial Transparency, Financial Viability, Financially Distressed, Health Equity, Health Policy, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Inflation, Labor Shortages, Labor Spend Management, Leadership, Market Consolidation, Payor Contracting, Quality Measures, Quality of Care, Quality Reporting, Recruiting, Talent Imperative, Talent Management, Talent Pipelines • Leave a comment
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With input from stakeholders across the industry, Modern Healthcare outlines six challenges health care is likely to face in 2023—and what leaders can do about them.

1. Financial difficulties

In 2023, health systems will likely continue to face financial difficulties due to ongoing staffing problems, reduced patient volumes, and rising inflation.

According to Tina Wheeler, U.S. health care leader at Deloitte, hospitals can expect wage growth to continue to increase even as they try to contain labor costs. They can also expect expenses, including for supplies and pharmaceuticals, to remain elevated.

Health systems are also no longer able to rely on federal Covid-19 relief funding to offset some of these rising costs. Cuts to Medicare reimbursement rates could also negatively impact revenue.

“You’re going to have all these forces that are counterproductive that you’re going to have to navigate,” Wheeler said.

In addition, Erik Swanson, SVP of data and analytics at Kaufman Hall, said the continued shift to outpatient care will likely affect hospitals’ profit margins.

“The reality is … those sites of care in many cases tend to be lower-cost ways of delivering care, so ultimately it could be beneficial to health systems as a whole, but only for those systems that are able to offer those services and have that footprint,” he said.

2. Health system mergers

Although hospital transactions have slowed in the last few years, market watchers say mergers are expected to rebound as health systems aim to spread their growing expenses over larger organizations and increase their bargaining leverage with insurers.

“There is going to be some organizational soul-searching for some health systems that might force them to affiliate, even though they prefer not to,” said Patrick Cross, a partner at Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath. “Health systems are soliciting partners, not because they are on the verge of bankruptcy, but because they are looking at their crystal ball and not seeing an easy road ahead.”

Financial challenges may also lead more physician practices to join health systems, private-equity groups, larger practices, or insurance companies.

“Many independent physicians are really struggling with their ability to maintain their independence,” said Joshua Kaye, chair of U.S. health care practice at DLA Piper. “There will be a fair amount of deal activity. The question will be more about the size and specialty of the practices that will be part of the next consolidation wave.”

3. Recruiting and retaining staff

According to data from Fitch Ratings, health care job openings reached an all-time high of 9.2% in September 2022—more than double the average rate of 4.2% between 2010 and 2019. With this trend likely to continue, organizations will need to find effective ways to recruit and retain workers.

Currently, some organizations are upgrading their processes and technology to hire people more quickly. They are also creating service-level agreements between recruiting and hiring teams to ensure interviews are scheduled within 48 hours or decisions are made within 24 hours.

Eric Burch, executive principal of operations and workforce services at Vizient, also predicted that there will be a continued need for contract labors, so health systems will need to consider travel nurses in their staffing plans.

“It’s really important to approach contract labor vendors as a strategic partner,” Burch said. “So when you need the staff, it’s a partnership and they’re able to help you get to your goals, versus suddenly reaching out to them and they don’t know your needs when you’re in crisis.”

When it comes to retention, Tochi Iroku-Malize, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), said health systems are adequately compensated for their work and have enough staff to alleviate potential burnout.

AAFP also supports legislation to streamline prior authorization in the Medicare Advantage program and avoid additional cuts to Medicare payments, which will help physicians provide care to patients with less stress.

4. Payer-provider contract disputes

A potential recession, along with the ensuing job cuts that typically follow, would limit insurers’ commercial business, which is their most profitable product line. Instead, many people who lose their jobs will likely sign up for Medicaid plans, which is much less profitable.

Because of increased labor, supply, and infrastructure costs, Brad Ellis, senior director at Fitch Ratings, said providers could pressure insurers into increasing the amount they pay for services. This will lead insurers to passing these increased costs onto members’ premiums.

Currently, Ellis said insurers are keeping an eye on how legislators finalize rules to implement the No Surprise Act’s independent resolution process. Regulators will also begin issuing fines for payers who are not in compliance with the law’s price transparency requirement.

5. Investment in digital health

Much like 2022, investment in digital health is likely to remain strong but subdued in 2023.

“You’ll continue to see layoffs, and startup funding is going to be hard to come by,” said Russell Glass, CEO of Headspace Health.

However, investors and health care leaders say they expect a strong market for digital health technology, such as tools for revenue cycle management and hospital-at-home programs.

According to Julian Pham, founding and managing partner at Third Culture Capital, he expects corporations such as CVS Health to continue to invest in health tech companies and for there to be more digital health mergers and acquisitions overall.

In addition, he predicted that investors, pharmaceutical companies, and insurers will show more interest in digital therapeutics, which are software applications prescribed by clinicians.

“As a physician, I’ve always dreamed of a future where I could prescribe an app,” Pham said. “Is it the right time? Time will tell. A lot needs to happen in digital therapeutics and it’s going to be hard.”

6. Health equity efforts

This year, CMS will continue rolling out new health equity initiatives and quality measurements for providers and insurers who serve marketplace, Medicare, and Medicaid beneficiaries. Some new quality measures include maternal health, opioid related adverse events, and social need/risk factor screenings.

CMS, the Joint Commission, and the National Committee for Quality Assurance are also partnering together to establish standards for health equity and data collection.

In addition, HHS is slated to restore a rule under the Affordable Care Act that prohibits discrimination based on a person’s gender identity or sexual orientation. According to experts, this rule may conflict with recently passed state laws that ban gender-affirming care for minors.

“It’s something that’s going to bear out in the courts and will likely lack clarity. We’ll see differences in what different courts decide,” said Lindsey Dawson, associate director of HIV policy and director of LGBTQ health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “The Supreme Court acknowledged that there was this tension. So it’s an important place to watch and understand better moving forward.”

CFOs to boost compensation

Posted on by • Posted in CFO, Employee Compensation, Employee Raise, Labor Spend Management, Retention, Talent Imperative, Talent Management, Wage Growth, Wage Increase • Leave a comment
https://www.cfodive.com/news/cfos-to-boost-compensation/641788/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Issue:%202023-02-02%20CFO%20Dive%20%5Bissue:47759%5D&utm_term=CFO%20Dive

Dive Brief:

  • CFOs are planning to increase their compensation spend in 2023, with 86% of finance chiefs noting they plan to raise it by at least 3% year-over-year, according to a recent survey by Gartner.
  • CFOs are still facing a tight labor market in 2023. As CFOs weigh increased turnover and a more remote workforce, “they’re thinking through, how do they use compensation as a lever to engage and retain talent across their workforce,” said Alexander Bant, chief of research in the Gartner finance practice.
  • Only 5% of the 279 CFOs surveyed stated they planned to reduce their compensation spend in 2023, according to Gartner.

Dive Insight:

While CFOs typically budget more for compensation every year, ongoing inflationary pressures and a still-tight labor market puts compensation plans “front and center” in CFOs’ “ability to engage and retain top talent,” Bant said in an interview.    

However, this does not mean finance chiefs will be budgeting for sweeping pay raises across their entire workforce — CFOs are “not trying to keep up with inflation across the board,” Bant said.

Rather, they are working with other members of the C-Suite such as the chief human resource officer and using tools like advanced analytics to single out and reward top performers which might be at more risk of departing for other opportunities, he said.

“CFOs are being more deliberate about how they allocate that money,” Bant said.

While the pace of wage growth slowed in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to recent data from the Labor Department, tamping down fears of a wage-price spiral, the war on talent remains a top worry for finance chiefs. Raising compensation can allow companies to be more competitive in the face of ongoing talent shortages, especially as workforce needs change.

For those companies which are moving employees back into the office, for example, raising compensation can help them to better compete against the remote or hybrid work opportunities which are becoming increasingly common, for example, Bant said.

Upping compensation can also help firms to find or hold onto employees with the key skills they need in areas such as digital transformation. Despite cost pressures, 43% of finance chiefs said they plan to increase their companies’ technology spend by 10% or more, according to the Gartner survey.

“What we’re hearing is, ’Yes, we are right-sizing parts of our organization and reducing head count in certain areas, but at the same time, we still have open roles and we’re still searching for talent in those areas that align to our digital transformation priorities,” Bant said of the search for technology talent.

Such skills still come at a premium, for that matter, despite the recent spat of layoffs across high-profile tech companies such as Google parent Alphabet, IBM and Microsoft. While these companies have reduced staff, they may not be letting go of employees with critical hardcore coding, data analytics or artificial intelligence related skills, Bant said.

“There is more talent available from technology companies, but that doesn’t mean that talent necessarily has the technical skills to drive the digital transformations that many CFOs and their leadership teams need,” he said.

KPMG primes shrinking CFO, CPA pipeline

Posted on by • Posted in Accountant, Accounting Talent Shortage, Certified Public Accountant (CPA), CFO, Controller, Financial Reporting, Financial Statements, Financial Stewardship, Financially Distressed, Recruiting, Talent Competition, Talent Imperative, Talent Management • Leave a comment
https://www.cfodive.com/news/kpmg-primes-shrinking-cfo-cpa-pipeline/641245/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Issue:%202023-01-26%20CFO%20Dive%20%5Bissue:47579%5D&utm_term=CFO%20Dive

The shortage of accountants is one of the main concerns keeping KPMG’s Greg Engel up at night. The firm is teaming up with universities to expand the talent pool.

KPMG’s Greg Engel likens the accounting profession to the turtle in the proverbial race with the hare — a turtle that’s seeking to pull ahead even as it competes with flashier industry sectors for workers.

The shortage of accounting talent is one of the main concerns keeping Engel — vice chair of tax in the U.S. for the Big Four accounting firm — up at night as he assesses the new year’s challenges, even as KPMG has undertaken numerous initiatives to ease the talent crunch. 

At the same time, he sees a potential silver lining for his sector in the recent surge of layoffs in the formerly sizzling tech sector that has won over some college graduates who might have otherwise gone into accounting.

“A lot of people went to the technology sector because it was exciting. But now that Meta and Twitter and all these other companies are laying off people, kids going into college might go, ‘wait a minute, maybe KPMG sounds a little better than Twitter,’” Engel said in an interview. “Accounting is that boring, stable profession that doesn’t do as well in hugely expansive economies but does great when the economy’s on the downslide.”  

Making accounting’s case

Historically, the Big Four accounting and consulting firms have mounted robust programs designed to recruit and train accounting students right out of colleges and major universities. 

KPMG, along with PwC, Ernst & Young and Deloitte, hire thousands of graduates and students each year out of colleges, often training them through internships which lead to full-time jobs. Many of the certified public accountants go on to be controllers, tax directors and even CFOs. The entry level accounting salary range at such programs in the tax area can be roughly in the $70,000 to $80,000 range, depending on the market, according to some industry estimates. 

“The hallmark of the Big Four was to train people really, really well,” Engel said. The longer employees stay at a firm, the better their prospects after they leave, Engel said.

That means an employee who leaves after a couple years could probably join a company’s accounting department at a lower level, he said. But if the employee leaves after rising to the level of senior manager, he or she could join the same company as controller — and those who leave as a partner might join as a CFO, Engel said.  

CFO machine showing signs of wear  

But the machine generating CPAs and CFOs has shown signs of wear in recent years. For one thing, KPMG has not been immune to the Great Resignation. It was hit by the surge in turnover that weakened the middle ladder rungs of its workforce. “There’s a kind of battle in the middle,” Engel said. The company responded in part by hiring experienced accountants from companies like Apple and Home Depot, he said. 

At the same time, accounting has attracted fewer students in recent years. The total number of U.S. students completing a Bachelor’s degree in accounting fell about 8% in the 2019-2020 school year compared with the 2011-2012 period, shrinking to 52,481 graduates from 57,482, according to a 2021 report from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

Priming the pipeline

Firms and accounting organizations have been taking deliberative steps in recent years to boost their case with talent and solve the talent shortage. For instance, the AICPA and the Department of Labor announced in November that they had teamed up to cultivate candidates and expand the pool of professionals, CFO Dive reported. 

If students are not deterred by the accounting profession’s long hours and subdued reputation, they may feel reluctant to put in the credit hours required before taking the exam to become a Certified Public Accountant. That typically means a student will need more study beyond that of a four-year degree. 

In an effort to make the extra course work pay off, KPMG worked with a number of universities to develop a Master in Accounting and Data Analytics Program that gives students the data analysis skills that are increasingly important in the field.

Recently, an additional seven universities were added to the program and KPMG has pledged to provide more than $7 million in scholarships. The schools added to the program included some historically Black Colleges and Universities such as Howard University School of Business and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. Other universities that offer the program include Villanova University and The Ohio State University. 

Separately, KPMG has teamed up with Engel’s alma mater, the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, Iowa, to help strengthen the accounting program and opportunities for students attending Des Moines Area Community College.

The company will also aim to provide internships to the students who often attend school at night or part-time, which can make it difficult to obtain the credit hours needed to become a CPA. 

“We’re going to start adding people to the profession with two-year associates degrees,” Engel said, noting that similar programs are cropping up elsewhere. “We’ll give them a pathway to add the extra courses and programs they need.” 

Hospitals living paycheck to paycheck, unable to make long-term investments

Posted on by • Posted in Administrative Complexity, Administrative Costs, Administrative Workload, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Leadership Excellence, Resilient Teams, Smarter Technology, Talent Acquisition Strategy, Talent Competition, Talent Identification, Talent Imperative, Talent Management, Talent Pipelines, Workforce Challenges, Workforce Crisis, Workforce Executives, Workforce Providers • Leave a comment
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/hospitals-living-paycheck-to-paycheck-unable-to-make-long-term-investments.html?utm_medium=email&utm_content=newsletter

Healthcare added almost 45,000 jobs in November, but many hospitals and health systems will continue to struggle to meet staffing needs, retain top executives and providers, and foster long-term pipelines for talent, Ted Chien, president and CEO of independent consulting firm SullivanCotter, wrote in a Dec. 15 article for Nasdaq.

Hospitals and health systems are living “paycheck to paycheck” and unable to make long-term investments at the height of the current workforce crisis, Mr. Chien said.

The challenge boils down to a healthcare delivery problem, not a demand problem. 

Baby Boomers are the greatest source of care demand on the healthcare system, but are unable to contribute to the provider workforce in the numbers needed to achieve balance, according to Mr. Chien. To compound that issue, burnout is a major factor why “too many” frontline workers have left or plan to exit healthcare, he said. 

Last year, an estimated 333,942 healthcare providers dropped out of the workforce, including about 53,000 nurse practitioners, which has led hospitals to spend more on contract labor and feeling more pressure to consolidate, according to an October report published by Definitive Healthcare.

Long term, a continued lack of healthcare workers would force hospitals to operate in a heightened crisis mode, according to Mr. Chien, depriving non-critical patients of sufficient health prevention and demanding too much of providers who are already overly taxed. 

Mr. Chien highlighted three key areas to tackle the workforce crisis: smarter technology, resilient teams and excellent leadership. 

Technologies that alleviate providers’ administrative burdens will be critical to reduce burnout and keep caregivers focused on patient care, while smarter tech can also forge pipelines for future providers by streamlining clinical experience operations and aligning student placements with existing opportunities.

Building resilient teams begins with competitive pay and robust benefit packages, which fosters trust and demonstrates that a hospital values its staff, according to Mr. Chen. Supporting career growth, including upskilling and redeploying staff when appropriate, empowers employees.

Lastly, capable executive leadership teams, under intense scrutiny from industry stakeholders, must clearly outline their hospital or health system’s strategy and provide the change needed to support their staff. Lack of trust in leaders drives staff out of healthcare, so it is crucial to recruit and retain “modern, strategic thinkers with depth of experience who are prepared to lead,” Mr. Chien wrote. 

Click here to read the full article.

The gig economy is back — even for execs

Posted on by • Posted in C-Suite, Gig Workers, Interim Executives, Interim Resources, Leadership, Leadership Skill Sets, Leadership Transition, Talent Acquisition Strategy, Talent Competition, Talent Imperative, Talent Management • Leave a comment
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hospital-management-administration/the-gig-economy-is-back-even-for-execs.html?origin=CFOE&utm_source=CFOE&utm_medium=email&utm_content=newsletter&oly_enc_id=2893H2397267F7G

Contract or “temp” employment used to be viewed as a means of supplemental income: a side hustle to an average day job, or a way to pay the bills while searching for full-time work. Now, gig work is back in style, and more workers want in on the flexibility — including C-suite executives, Korn Ferry recently reported.

The gig economy surged when older millennials, born in the 1980s, began rejecting the one-firm careers their parents had, according to Korn Ferry. Although they are currently midcareer, older millennials have switched jobs 7.8 times on average. Baby boomers are also using temporary work to keep busy during retirement, and Generation Z appreciates the flexibility that comes with contract labor. 

As temporary work grows in popularity, its influence is spreading to the C-suite. Interim executives are becoming more likely to be tapped when a leader departs, Korn Ferry reported. This gives organizations like health systems, which urgently need leadership in a rapidly changing industry, more time to conduct their searches for full-time replacements. 

Sixty percent of executives predict that the number of interim workers at their companies will “substantially increase” within the next three years, Korn Ferry reported. In a period of economic instability, temporary labor can mean less commitment and cost than a permanent worker. But there are downsides to contract labor, too. Since they lack benefits, many contract workers demand higher pay — which can trickle down and lead their permanent counterparts to ask for matched salaries. In the healthcare industry, this is visible in travel nurses’ paychecks, and their controversial effects on health systems’ finances. 

For better or for worse, contract labor does not appear to be dying out anytime soon. Fifty-eight million U.S. workers now consider themselves “independent,” Korn Ferry reported — an estimated 36 percent of the total workforce. 

As hospitals make cuts, the losses are loud or quiet

Posted on by • Posted in Budget, Budget Cuts, Cost Management, Cost Reduction, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Labor Spend Management, Talent Acquisition Strategy, Talent Competition, Talent Imperative, Talent Management • Leave a comment
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/as-hospitals-make-cuts-the-losses-are-loud-or-quiet.html?utm_medium=email&utm_content=newsletter

There are few easy ways to cut expenses. But in hospitals and health systems, there are quieter ways. 

Workforce reductions are never painless — or never should be, especially for those doing the reducing. Involuntary job loss is one of the most stressful events workers and families experience, carrying mental and physical health risks in addition to the disruption it poses to peoples’ short- and long-term life plans. 

But as health systems find themselves in untenable financial positions and looming risk of an economic recession, job cuts and layoffs in hospitals and health systems are increasingly likely. In a report released Oct. 18 from Kaufman Hall based on response from 86 health system leaders, 46 percent said labor costs are the largest opportunity for cost reduction — up significantly from the 17 percent of leaders who said the same last year. 

Job cuts at hospitals may seem counterintuitive given the nation’s widely known shortages of healthcare workers. But as hospitals weather one of their most financially difficult years, some are reducing their administrative staff, eliminating vacant jobs and reorganizing or shrinking their executive teams to curb costs.  

Decisions to reduce administrative labor tend to garner quieter reactions compared to budgetary decisions to end service lines or close sites of patient care, including hospitals. While the implications of administrative shakeups may be felt throughout a health system, the disruption they pose to patients is less immediately palpable. Few people know the name of their community hospitals’ senior vice presidents, but most do know how many minutes it takes to travel to a nearby site of care for an appointment during a workday or a tolerable amount of time to wait for said appointment. 

It doesn’t hurt that hospital and health systems’ administrative ranks have ballooned compared to their patient-facing counterparts. While the number of practicing physicians in the U.S. grew 150 percent between 1975 and 2010, the number of healthcare administrators increased 3,200 percent in the same period. More broadly, administrative spending accounts for 15 to 30 percent of healthcare spending in the U.S. and at least half of that “does not contribute to health outcomes in any discernible way,” according to a report published Oct. 6 in Health Affairs.

A couple of health systems have denoted their plans to cut nonclinical employees and jobs in the past week. 

Cleveland-based University Hospitals announced efforts to reduce system expenses by $100 million Oct. 12, including the elimination of 326 vacant jobs and layoffs affecting 117 administrative employees. The workforce reduction comes as the 21-hospital system faces a net operating loss of $184.6 million from the first eight months of 2022.

Sioux Falls, S.D.-based Sanford Health is laying off an undisclosed number of staff, a decision the organization’s top leader says is “to streamline leadership structure and simplify operations” in certain areas, the Argus Leader reported Oct. 19. Bill Gassen, president and CEO of Sanford Health, also said the layoffs primarily affect nonclinical areas and that they will “not adversely impact patient or resident care in any way.”

These developments are only several days old, but have not yet triggered any newsworthy follow-up developments or pushback. Cost reduction efforts that close facilities or reduce services tend to — on the other hand — catalyze scrutiny, debate and conflict in communities that can span for months and even years. 

Look to Atlanta. Marietta, Ga.-based Wellstar unexpectedly announced on Aug. 31 that its 460-bed Atlanta Medical Center will end operations on Nov. 1, with plans to progressively wind down services leading up to that date. The system attributed the decision to the $107 million loss incurred operating the hospital over the last 12 months. Noteworthy is that the system has said that 1,430 (82 percent) of Atlanta Medical Center workers affected by the facility’s impending closure have accepted job offers at other Wellstar Health System facilities. 

Since, the decision to close one of Atlanta’s level 1 trauma centers has drawn attention from Georgia’s governor and gubernatorial candidate, congressional members and Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, who in a town hall Oct. 19 said that in closing Atlanta Medical Center, “Wellstar said they don’t want to be in the business of urban healthcare.” 

The decision has also spilled over to affect area hospitals, namely Atlanta’s public Grady Health System, which received a $130 million cash infusion from the state and reported a 30 percent increase in patient volume after the emergency department of Atlanta Medical Center closed. 

Health systems have a lot to weigh. Their administrative layers are thick, varied and necessary to a degree, meaning this broad category of workers still poses tough decisions when it comes to cost containment efforts. But in a very simple view, laying off people who care for patients will only hurt health systems’ chances of recruiting and retaining clinical talent — in a time when no health systems’ odds of doing so are especially outsized.

CFOs need to prep for healthcare’s lagging inflation

Posted on by • Posted in Affordability, CFO, Employee Benefits, Health Insurance Premiums, Health Insurance Self Funded, Inflation, Retention, Talent Imperative, Talent Management • Leave a comment
https://www.cfodive.com/news/cfos-need-prep-healthcare-lagging-inflation/632366/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Issue:%202022-09-23%20CFO%20Dive%20%5Bissue:44744%5D&utm_term=CFO%20Dive

Healthcare costs are expected to jump 6.0% next year. CFOs must prepare accordingly, advises WTW’s Tim Stawicki.

CFOs need to be prepared for a “higher tail” of medical inflation — even if general inflation eases in the near future, Tim Stawicki, chief actuary, North America health & benefits of Willis Towers Watson (WTW) told CFO Dive.

With the Consumer Price Index (CPI)  rising to 8.5% in July and the recent rise in the core Producer Price Index (PPI), the Federal Reserve will probably look to hike interest rates even farther. 

“CFOS need to be prepared for the case that if general inflation eases, there may be two or three more years where they need to think about how they are managing the costs of health care plans,” he said in an interview. 

Inflation, which can more immediately impact consumer prices, works somewhat differently when it comes to costs of medical care. “Employers are paying healthcare costs based on contracts that their insurer has with providers, which are multiple years in length. So if a deal with the hospital or contract does not come up until 2023, then that provider has the opportunity to renegotiate higher prices for three years,” said Stawicki. 

The recent Best Practices in Healthcare Survey by WTW consisting of 455 U.S. employers found that employers project their healthcare costs will jump 6.0% next year compared with an average 5.0% increase expected by the end of this year.

Further, employers see little relief in sight — seven in 10 (71%) expect moderate to significant increases in costs over the next three years. Additionally, over half of respondents (54%) expect their costs will be over budget this year.

Balancing talent retention and healthcare costs

Talent retention has also remained an entrenched challenge for CFOs over recent months and continues to be top of mind. 

Given inflationary pressures and a potential looming recession, employers are having trouble finding the workers they need to run their businesses. A rise in healthcare benefit costs will make this all the more challenging, said Stawicki. “Employers are looking around and saying ‘I need to find talent to help me run my business and I can’t do that if I have an ineffective program in healthcare benefits,’” he said. 

There is a direct link between business outcomes and in particular employee productivity and employees’ ability to manage their health and financial environment, according to WTW’s Global Benefits Attitude Survey. “Losing the ability to offer programs and benefits that meet employee needs is impacting business,” said Stawicki.

It comes down to finding the balance between cost management in an environment where talent is hard to come by, he said. In order for CFOs to be successful in financing benefit programs they need to look at finding ways to partner with their counterparts in human resources, said Stawicki. 

Sixty-seven percent of employers said that managing company costs was a top priority in the company’s August Best Practices in Healthcare Survey, versus the 42% who said that achieving affordability for employees was a top priority. In the near future, CFOs need to establish a relationship with HR counterparts that can facilitate “ways to manage company costs without shifting it to employees,” said Stawicki. 

Ultimately, company costs remain paramount for employers but running a successful business will also require keeping employee affordability top of mind.

CFOs continue talent retention battle

Posted on by • Posted in Career Development, Career Growth, CFO, High-Value Activity, Meaningful Work, Recognition, Recruiting, Retention, Talent Competition, Talent Imperative, Talent Management, Work Environment Flexibility • Leave a comment
https://www.cfodive.com/news/cfos-continue-talent-retention-battle/632483/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Issue:%202022-09-23%20CFO%20Dive%20%5Bissue:44744%5D&utm_term=CFO%20Dive

Dive Brief:

  • CFOs looking to attract and retain the right kind of talent amidst inflationary pressures, rising interest rates and other economic tensions need to “double down on recognition and meaningful work for employees,” said Jessica Bier, managing director of Deloitte Consulting, in an interview. 
  • In order to attract and retain viable talent to keep business afloat, 71% of CFOs indicated that a flexible workplace environment was their approach, 63% said clarity around career development and growth opportunities and 62% pointed to increased salaries, per the second wave of data in the Q3 CFO Signals report.
  • The report also revealed that CFOs who took steps to alter, reduce or streamline the type of work their finance organizations performed saw several benefits throughout the enterprise — 78% said one benefit was more time spent on higher-value activities and 71% indicated greater use of technology was another. Contrastingly, only 20% saw talent retention as a benefit, and even less (10%) saw higher quality talent as one.

Dive Insight:

The managers and workforce of financial departments are looking for five main things, said Bier, per the report — those being work environment flexibility, career growth and development, salaries, meaningful work and recognition, she said.

“As we think about the workforce experience, every CFO is also the chief talent officer,” Bier said. “Your HR business partner can support you but at the end of the day the way your managers work and the way you connect people to the work that they’re doing — that’s the CFO’s job to set that tone.”

In today’s macroeconomic environment, with inflation at its highest point in nearly four decades, meeting the expectations and needs of finance employees is all the more expensive, and important. 

One misconception, Bier said, is that a recession means workers will be happy just to have a job. “The people in the workforce who are the ones you want to keep, are the ones who are always going to have options,” she said. 

Talent retention continues to be a multifaceted challenge for CFOs and remains top of mind. Over half of CFOs (54%) cited hiring and retaining staff as the most difficult task over the next 12 months, according to a July Gartner study.

Why 67% of nurses want to quit—and what would make them stay

Posted on by • Posted in Employee Expectations, Employee Experience, Employee Retention, Employee Satisfaction, Employee Staffing, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Labor Shortages, Labor Spend Management, Nurse Agency Staffing, Nurse Morale, Nurse Retention, Nurse Staffing Ratios, Nurses Shortage, Recruiting, Talent Acquisition Strategy, Talent Competition, Talent Imperative, Talent Management • Leave a comment
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As RNs struggle to work through staffing shortages, their job satisfaction has sharply declined, with 67% saying they plan to leave their jobs within the next few years, according to a survey from the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) published in Critical Care Nurse.

RNs cite poor work environments

For the survey, AACN collected responses from 9,862 nurses, 9,335 of which met the study criteria of being currently practicing RNs, in October 2021. The mean age was 46.5 years, and the mean years of experience was 17.8 years.

Of the participants, 78.3% worked in direct care, and 19.4% worked in a Beacon unit, meaning that their unit had been recognized by an AACN Beacon Award for Excellence. Half of the participants said they spent 50% or less of their time caring for Covid-19 patients, while the other half said they spent 50% or more.

To measure the health of a work environment, AACN looked at six standards:

  • Skilled communication
  • True collaboration
  • Effective decision-making
  • Meaningful recognition
  • Authentic leadership
  • Appropriate staffing

Overall, AACN found that nurses’ perceptions of quality on these six measures had declined across the board since the organization’s 2018 survey.

In particular, appropriate staffing was the lowest rated of all the standards at 2.33 out of 4, which is the lowest rating the standard has received since AACN first began the survey in 2006. Only 24% of RNs said their units had the right number of nurses with the right knowledge and skills more than 75% of the time—down from 39% who said the same in 2018.

In addition, there was a significant decline in how RNs rated the quality of care in their organizations and their units. Only 16% rated their organizations’ quality of care as excellent (compared to 24% in 2018), and 30% rated their units’ quality of care as excellent (compared to 44% in 2018). Over 50% of nurses said quality of care in their organization or unit has gotten somewhat or much worse over the last year.

Many nurses also reported difficulties with their physical and psychological well-being in the survey. For example, less than 50% of RNs said they felt their organization values their health and safety, a significant decline from 68% who said the same in 2018.

In addition, 40% of participants reported that they were not emotionally healthy. The percentage of RNs who reported experiencing moral distress also doubled from 11% in 2018 to 22% in 2021.

A significant portion of RNs also reported experiencing verbal abuse, physical abuse, sexual harassment, or discrimination over the past year. Of the 7,399 RNs who answered this question, 72% said they had experienced at least one negative incident, with verbal abuse being the most common at 65%, followed by physical abuse at 28%.

RN job satisfaction

Only 40% of RNs said they were “very satisfied” with their job, down from 62% who said the same in 2018. Further, a significant number of RNs in the survey reported planning to leave their jobs within the next few years.

Overall, 67% of RNs said they planned to leave their current position within the next three years, compared to 54% in 2018. Of this group, 36% said they planned to leave within the next year, with 20% planning to leave within the next six months.

According to the respondents, the top factors that could lead them to reconsider their decision to leave their job were a higher salary and more benefits (63%), better staffing (57%), and more respect from administration (50%).

“Without improvements in the work environment, the results of this study indicate that nurses will continue to exit the workforce in search of more meaningful, rewarding, and sustainable work,” the survey’s authors wrote. “It is time for bold action, and this study shows the way.” (Firth, MedPage Today, 8/3; Ulrich et al., Critical Care Nurse, 8/1)

Hard truths on the current and future state of the nursing workforce

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Concerns about an imbalance in supply and demand in the nursing workforce have been around for years. The number of nursing professionals nationally may be healthy, but many nurses are not in the local areas, sites of care, or roles where they’re needed most. And many of today’s nurses don’t have the specialized skills they need, widening the existing gap between nurse experience and job complexity.

As a result, gaping holes in staffing rosters, prolonged vacancies, unstable turnover rates, and unchecked use of premium labor are now common.

Health care leaders need to confront today’s challenges in the nursing workforce differently than past cyclical shortages. In this report, we present six hard truths about the nursing workforce. Then, we detail tactics for how leaders can successfully address these challenges—stabilizing the nursing workforce in the short term and preparing it for the future.

Read More

Companies expand CFOs’ role to retain them amid high demand

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https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/companies-expand-cfos-role-to-retain-them-amid-high-demand.html?utm_medium=email&utm_content=newsletter

The pressure is on for boards to hold onto chief financial officers as firms face the prospect of an economic slowdown and intense competition for talent.

Demand for finance chiefs continues to be high in U.S. businesses, according to a July 4 report from The Wall Street Journal. Data from Russell Reynolds Associates indicates that CFO turnover at companies in the S&P 500 rose to 18 percent in 2021, compared to 15 percent in 2020 and 14 percent in 2019. 

Some new strategies call for broadening CFO responsibilities or elevating their positions altogether to retain top executives, according to Joel von Ranson, head of recruitment firm Spencer Stuart’s global functional practices. 

“Companies create these broader roles and titles to engage and recognize and motivate the very best of the best,” Mr. von Ranson said. 

CFOs at companies in the S&P 500 and Fortune 500 average about five years in their job, according to executive search firm Crist Kolder Associates. Expanding the CFO role allows organizations to create opportunities to retain key talent past the five-year mark. 

In 2021, just under 8 percent of chief executive officers at companies in the S&P 500 and Fortune 500 came from the CFO seat.