Healthcare workers are increasingly asking for psychological help as a result of absenteeism and turnover within the healthcare sector. An alarming development, says Roland Kip.
The healthcare sector is not doing nearly enough to prevent the shortage of employees from becoming disastrous for healthcare. In order to turn the tide, the sector must work together on three buttons: prevention, shifting the priority from recruiting to retaining staff, and healthy limits. That requires good employership.
If healthcare organizations do not focus on prevention, absenteeism and turnover within the healthcare sector will increase enormously. The result is demonstrable damage to health among healthcare workers. Recent healthcare use figures from our foundation paint an alarming picture.
On average, 8 percent of healthcare workers rely on psychological care. This demand for help among health care providers has increased by 29 percent this year and by 35 percent among health care workers under the age of 35. That is very disturbing. Young people are our future workforce. We must keep them.
Healthy boundaries
In addition, the healthcare sector must shift its focus from recruiting to retaining staff. This year, the healthcare sector has a shortage of approximately 80,000 FTEs and this will increase in the coming years due to the rising demand for healthcare. Although the sector is increasingly successful in recruiting new staff – 100,000 new employees were added in 2021 – the outflow is just as great; it increased by 13.4 percent in one year. Recruiting with the back door open doesn’t work.
In addition to Covid-19, issues that influence outflow are the workload, too little autonomy, too many administrative tasks and ‘nuisance’ of patients. Think, for example, of drunken revolving door patients who behave aggressively and obnoxiously every weekend, preventing healthcare professionals from doing their real care responsibilities – the reason they chose the profession. We need to talk about this as a society. How can we prevent care from becoming overcrowded due to unnecessary care demands?
The numbers show an alarming picture. Everywhere in healthcare we are reaching the limits. We have already passed that of the care employees; there is a shortage of people, so the limit can no longer be stretched. Recovery is only possible if we start healthy boundaries.
Increase work happiness
That means: putting the care professional at the center and doing everything that contributes to the happiness of the people who have chosen this profession with full dedication. We need to look more critically at ineffective care. Managers must limit the workload, so that more people do not drop out. But also setting limits to the influx of patients, by focusing on prevention.
When you, as an employer, simultaneously turn these three buttons – prevention, staff retention and healthy limits – you can make a difference. That starts with good employership. This is all about pride, development and craftsmanship. This should make the sector much more visible. Healthcare needs appreciation and respect. As a manager, you have to listen to your employees, take them seriously and get to know them by going much more into the workplace.
In addition, we must further develop and make career paths visible, promote training and coaching of younger employees by older employees, improve retraining opportunities and job differentiation. Healthcare organizations must have an active policy to retain employees. Talk to each other about staff shortages, work and regulatory pressure and work towards solutions. Invest in leadership and prevention. A healthy and safe organizational climate contributes to the retention of healthcare employees.
Roland Kip is director of the IZZ Foundation