I recently read an article from Reuters by Mrinalika Roy, entitled "Over half of US healthcare workers plan to switch jobs by next year, survey finds". The survey was conduced by The Harris Poll and surveyed 1,504 frontline healthcare employees and 304 employers between June 26th and July 21st earlier this year. Not surprisingly, the survey found widespread burnout, dissatisfaction, and a high attrition risk. I say that is not surprising because many surveys on employee engagement, burnout, and work satisfaction have shown almost identical results. And those results have been shown in just about every sector outside of the healthcare industry as well.
The study found that 55% of workers intended to search for, interview for, or switch jobs in 2026. Only one in five of those surveyed said that they believed that their employer was invested in their long-term career growth, while 84% said that they felt underappreciated by their current employer. These results are certainly sobering, particularly at a time when experts are predicting a shortage of physicians, nurses, and allied health workers in the near future.
Adele Webb, a registered nurse with over 40 years of experience, reviewed the findings and said, "In my experience, it is worse than it's ever been. We are losing more staff than we have ever lost. Jobs are harder, patients are older and more chronically ill. We do not have enough staff."
Most of these problems are longstanding, and while they became dramatically worse following the COVID-19 pandemic, they were certainly there even before 2019. What is also not lost, at least on me, is that these problems are not unique to healthcare. The survey did reveal at least one potential solution - over 60% of the workers surveyed said they would be more likely to stay if tuition assistance or other continuing education and/or professional development opportunities were offered. Webb commented on this point, "A really surprising finding (was) the role that opportunities for continuing education and career advancement play in keeping our patient-facing healthcare workers at the bedside."
I am reading a book by the author and researcher Zach Mercurio called The Power of Mattering (see also Mercurio's Harvard Business Review article, "The Power of Mattering at Work"). I've mentioned Mercurio's concept of mattering a couple of times in recent posts (see "Mind-set matters" and "To be of importance to others is to be alive..."). Mattering can be defined as feeling valued - it is the feeling that we, as individuals, are seen, valued, and needed by others. Studies have shown that when people feel valued (i.e. when they feel that they matter), they experience less burnout and more engagement. So, it seems reasonable to suggest that one of the reasons that so many health care workers are experiencing burnout and are planning to leave their current jobs (or worse, planning to leave health care altogether) is that they do not feel valued - in short, health care workers today do not feel as though they matter.
Martin Stillman and colleagues reported the results of "The Coping with COVID-19" survey, which surveyed over 58,000 health care workers between April 2020 and December 2020 (see "Understanding what leaders can do to facilitate healthcare workers' feeling valued: Improving our knowledge of the strongest burnout mitigator") in the journal, BMJ Leader. Consistent with previous studies, feeling valued as significantly negatively related to higher burnout and higher likelihood to leave practice. In other words, health care workers who felt highly valued had 8.3 times lower odds of burnout and 10.2 lower odds of intent to leave compared to their peers. Through qualitative analyses, Stillman and colleagues identified six major themes associated with feeling valued:
1. Ensuring health care workers are safe from physical harm
2. Adequately supporting health care workers financially when needed and making sure that the organization's financial compass aligns with patient care
3. Demonstrating high-quality communication
4. Supporting high-functioning teams that foster efficiency, camaraderie, and a sense of belonging
5. Having present leaders that are empathetic and welcoming of feedback
6. Providing organization support of health care workers through access to mental healthcare, childcare, flexible work schedules, and assignments that account for health care workers' abilities and preferences
While the survey was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic (and was directed at the burnout and moral distress that occurred as a result of the pandemic), these six recommendations certainly apply to what health care workers continue to experience today. What is clear is that healthcare leaders will need to work together to try to address these longstanding issues. Our teams - and ultimately our patients - are depending on us to find the solution to this "wicked problem". The future health of our nation is depending on us to figure this out.
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