By Denise Boudreau-Scott
What if I told you, the staffing crisis doesn’t exist?
Yes, I know. The staffing problems in our field are the worst you have ever seen in your career. You can’t find good people. You can’t keep good people. None of the solutions you try seem to work.
A Much Larger Problem
The reality is that what’s happening with staffing is only a symptom of a much larger problem. Turnover, awful recruitment, poor occupancy, terrible employee engagement are all just symptoms. Do you keep throwing resources at whatever symptom crops up?
You’ve probably tried sign-on bonuses, gift cards, and big wage increases. In my work with organizations across the country, these things don’t work for long. If they ever work at all!
Here’s the truth. This staffing problem has been building for years. In fact, I used to share in my presentations a few years ago that our field was headed to the point that we would not have enough staff to care for new residents. People in the audience would always laugh and say, “Close down to new admissions? That would never happen at my place!”
Culture Crisis
Guess who’s not laughing anymore. It took a pandemic and an utterly exhausted workforce to expose an awful truth. Our staffing crisis is really a culture crisis that has existed for years.
Culture is the reason you can’t find the right people and the people you find don’t stay. Culture is the reason.
Yet, culture is also the fix. That’s great news because it means there’s something that you can actually do about it!
Forward-thinking organizations can use the “staffing crisis” to stand out from the pack who are running ragged, trying to fix a problem they don’t understand. Those organizations that understand what the real problem is, and are brave enough to face it, are the only ones who will succeed!
If you’ve spent more than $6,000 this year on your recruitment and retention problem, it’s worth a 15-minute phone call to talk to Drive about our proven Recruitment Relief Bundle. (My guess is you are spending that on one shift between agency employees, overtime, paying leaders to work the floor, training new staff, interviewing applicants, etc.) This bundle gives you the insight and the tools to take control of your staffing crisis once and for all!
