In a reversal from last year when health systems were laying off and furloughing employees by the hundreds, about 40% of facilities now say they are accelerating their hiring processes to meet surging demand, according to a new survey.
In addition to those reporting accelerated hiring, about 36% are conducting normal hiring processes, the survey by global professional services firm Aon shows. It polled 150 health systems, representing over 1,150 hospitals, between April and June.
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The Covid-19 pandemic has significantly worsened the existing healthcare worker shortage. As a result, health systems are scrambling to ramp up recruitment, even offering sizeable sign-on bonuses in some cases.
The Aon survey shows that a majority of organizations (93%) are focused on both attracting top talent and retaining them through enhanced benefits packages.
These include offering tuition reimbursement programs (94%), flexible work options (69%), cash-out vacation policies (66%), adoption benefits (45%) and gender-affirming surgery (36%).
Further, a majority of respondents (77%) aim to pay 76% or more of their employees’ healthcare costs and 23% offer a no-cost health plan option to some segment of their employee population. About 85% said they provide a discount to employees via plan design to access their own facilities and providers.
Not only that, but nearly half of the health systems surveyed said they offer onsite or near-site health centers for their employees.
Of the 49% of respondents offering an onsite clinic of some kind to employees, 29% said they are offering a primary care practice, 25% are providing an occupational health clinic and 7% are offering clinics for behavioral health.
Approximately 41% of onsite clinics are free for plan members, and 61% provide services for families of employees as well as for the employees themselves.
Employee wellbeing is also a priority for health systems, with 71% of respondents reporting they have a central wellbeing committee in place.
About 46% of health systems said they offer a wellbeing incentive or requirement. These incentives range from non-cash options such as employee recognition, days off, fitness wearables and hospital swag to financial incentives up to $2,000 per year.
“The top priority in 2020 was to mitigate rising costs for the employer — understandably, given the financial shock that health systems were reeling from,” said Sheena Singh, senior vice president of Aon’s national healthcare industry practice, in a news release. “Now, the pandemic has exacerbated a labor shortage that could impact patient care delivery, delay attainment of organizational objectives and accelerate burnout among clinical staff.”
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