Matthew Mawby, Co-Founder of StaffHealth.com, joins On The Job to discuss the major impact the pandemic has had on healthcare staffing, what kind of impact higher pay for nurses can have on the industry, and why travel nursing is on the rise.

On the Job

Ways to Increase Employee Retention in Healthcare Industry

Welcome back to on the job presented by ADP the pandemic has put more pressure on the healthcare industry than ever before. And as a result, healthcare workers are seeing an increase in pay, particularly nurses. The average annual salary for registered nurses increased by about 4% in 2021 to over $81,000, just about. So, what does the future of the nursing industry look like joining us now to talk about just that is Matthew WABI, co founder of Staff health dot com. Matthew, welcome to the show. So, put into perspective the major impact the pandemic has had on healthcare staffing in the last two years. Yeah, so the pandemic has taken a big toll on health care staffing, especially with nurses in the industry. So the nurses are burnt out. You know, there's there's been low pay, there's been overworked mental health issues going on as well. Uh And most nurses are looking for not only higher pay, but they're also looking for flexible schedules and a work life balance. And that has been some of the top findings throughout the pandemic that we have seen on our side. Do you anticipate wages to go even higher for nurses? Why is higher pay so important for these nurses? Great question. We do. We do see pay uh increasing, especially for more of the long term care side. Now we have seen pay increase with travel nursing and some of those types of positions, but the long term care space prosecute some of those facilities are definitely struggling with pay, but we we do see a pay increase rising in all levels of care. Uh and that's what's gonna keep these nurses in, you know, um uh you know, good, good, good nurses. And even nurses graduating from school, which has been tough to are also looking for higher pay increases as well to deal with the nurse to patient ratio in these facilities. Matthew talked to me about how higher pay for these nurses and the impact it would have on the industry as a whole, it's gonna have a quite a big impact. You know, a lot of the covid relief funding is drying up. There's also budgets that are drying up as well. Uh And then there's just a demand of higher pay for nurses, which has been a challenge for many years even before the pandemic. So the pandemic has amplified this to a whole new level and increasing pay for low wage employees is definitely gonna be a big factor in the coming 18 months here. As, you know, some of these healthcare providers are, you know, competing with wages that, you know, your Starbucks and your walmart and places like that as they have been increasing wages as well. That's right. That's something we've been covering very closely here. Let's talk about the employer. What should health care facilities be doing to address these nursing needs? How do they increase retention when it comes to these nurses retention is a big factor for healthcare facilities. And a lot of healthcare facilities have been starting to do, you know, flexible scheduling. They're trying to retain nurses through bonuses and maybe even some tuition reimbursements. Uh you know, things like that to really keep them. But retention is going to be a major key factor in the next 18 months. Uh and that's gonna go hand in hand with hiring new healthcare workers as well for these facilities to keep their staff and keep their staff happy. So travel nursing has increased during the pandemic. What was driving this change? And do you think this trend will stick around moving forward? Matthew, I the the travel travel industry has definitely expanded over the past two years. I believe it went up right around 62% which is huge, huge numbers for the travel industry. Uh One big major cay factor is once again wages, travel nurses are getting way bigger wages, they're getting an opportunity to travel there, getting lodging expenses paid for. So this is definitely gone up almost tenfold, pretty much from the previous years. And do I see it sticking around? I do for a little bit. But once again, those budgets will be drying up. You know, the covid relief programs will be drying up as well. So how much longer can this truly go on to be sustainable. Um is a big question in the air over the next couple of years here to come and that's why it's very, very important that healthcare facilities retain employees and also use maybe some outside sources to get employees in and also to hire new new grads ways to fit their, their level of care. Matthew we've seen so much change in the healthcare industry in the last few years. What are your predictions for the future of staffing? What direction do you think this industry is headed in? I think this industry is heading in a whole new direction in terms of nurse nurse staffing as well. A lot of these nurses have kind of treated almost like a gig economy. You know, they want to work work life balance, they want to be home with their kids. Some of them don't even have child care because of the pandemic. So work and home life balance is going to be huge over the next 18 months as this pandemic uh semi continues and we don't know what the future holds either. Uh So we see this shortage sticking around um like I said in the beginning there was a nursing shortage before the pandemic and it's only amplified since the pandemic started, which really proved the shortcomings that are in the health care system that need to be fixed and worked on. Uh and we truly believe that it's going to be adjusting, switching from block scheduling to maybe, you know, shift work something in that area. But we definitely see the shortage continuing on for the next 18 months at least. Yeah, we certainly saw the discrepancies even more during the pandemic across all industries, especially nursing. Thank you so much for coming on Matthew Mabi, co founder of staff health dot com.