Hiring Outside the Industry, Flexible Scheduling Are Key to Clearing Skilled Nursing’s Staffing Hurdles

More than two years from the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the senior care labor market remains in a state of disruption.

The industry has yet to fully recover the jobs lost since early 2020, but some in the space are further along than others. The skilled nursing industry remains 15% below the level of jobs reported in January and February of 2020, according to Beth Mace, chief economist at the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care (NIC).

Nursing homes have lost nearly 238,000 nursing home employees – amounting to 15 percent of its total workforce – since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows.

That is a fairly stark comparison to the assisted living sector, which still remains 7% below 2020 job levels, Mace said during the NIC 2022 Spring conference in Dallas last week.

Given the challenges the industry as a whole still faces to not only recruit but retain staff, now is not the time to “double down” on solutions that have been used in the last 10, 20 or even 30 years, according to Arena Analytics CEO Myra Norton.

“Things aren’t going back to the way they were, they’re simply not. So we have to accept that and start to navigate through to the new labor market realities, the new normal if you will,” Norton said during a NIC panel.

The issues

High levels of turnover among senior care positions across the board, resulting in the need to find creative ways to retain staff, was an issue in the industry long before Covid.

Employee turnover, which was 65% in the industry prior to the pandemic, now sits north of 85%, according to Activated Insights CEO Jacquelyn Kung.

That in turn can affect resident and family member experiences at a facility, she said.

Recruitment has also been an issue, as the senior care industry sees far fewer applicants applying to jobs compared to other industries.

Places like hotels, hospitals, or even retail, on average, get between 21 to 25 applicants per job posted, Kung said during a NIC panel. For larger companies like Walmart or McDonalds, that number could reach north of 1,000 applicants.

The senior living industry in comparison averages between 13 to 15 applicants per job posted, she said.

Kung also highlighted the disparity between senior living and other industries when it comes to internal promotions. Hospitals promote nearly half of their roles from within, whereas hotels and retail promote roughly one-third of their candidates internally.

Senior living internally promotes about 17%, she said.

“The takeaway from this is in order to get great candidates … you want to stand out, you want to become great,” Kung said.

The solutions

Norton offered five ideas that highlight ways to find, deploy, retain and grow talent, one of which being tapping into non-traditional candidate pools.

She said doing so also diversifies organizations across multiple spectrums.

“We need to look outside our own industry, we need to think about how we embed ourselves more in our communities and institute community hiring initiatives and rethink the requirements that we have in our role definitions,” she said.

She also pointed to supporting work life integration, focusing on hiring for outcomes, rethinking staffing mix and cocreating solutions.

“What the data shows us is that in excess of 40% of part-time workers want more hours. We’re struggling to staff our buildings, we should be taking advantage of that reality,” Norton said.

Craig Deao, managing director at Huron Consulting Group, stressed the importance of engagement – what he defined as being emotionally invested in an organization, and the difference between commitment versus compliance.

‘You don’t develop people’s skills by telling them what to do and having them be compliant. You develop people’s skills by asking them what problems they are addressing or opportunities they have, and then help them create their own solutions,” Deao said.

On the leadership side, both self-awareness and knowing what employees want are key when employers are looking to recruit and retain talent, according to Ed Frauenheim, co-founder of The Teal Team.

“In particular what we’re talking about is knowing our strengths and weaknesses, what we’re good at and not good at, knowing our blind spots, especially in a world of a more diverse workplace,” Frauenheim said.

Knowing and caring about building employees and staff ultimately results in better engagement, retention and even innovation. Frauenheim pointed to several ways to create a culture of camaraderie in an organization, including hosting happy hours, virtual coffee hours and even starting meetings with a check-in.

“It’s really important in this moment to really know what your employees want, what they need, what their fears are, including around questions of safety and workplace protocol as this Covid pandemic lingers,” he said.