Award Winning Book: Navigating the Healthcare Workforce Shortage

Preface

The objective of this book is to provide a launching point for creative thinking utilizing existing resources to narrowing the workforce shortage for your organization. The book focuses on providing practical strategies for healthcare executives in navigating one of the biggest workforce shortages of our time. Information is drawn straight from the field backed with real life examples of how organizations are addressing workforce supply challenges. Times have changed and so have the very talent we seek to fill our vacancies.

The successful use of this book will require:

• an open mind to embracing new ideas
• courage to question status quo
• curiosity to experiment, monitor and adjust practices

The above mindset will help you overcome a trap of making incorrect assumptions about the status of your organization in each lever and chapter. For example, if your eyes tend to glaze over when talking about organizational culture, you may be tempted to skip that chapter in the book and move on. However, culture may be the very thing that is derailing your organization from attracting and retaining talent which will help ease your workforce shortages if optimal.  Those executives that have an open mind and courage to question the status quo will stand a better chance to resolve organizational derailers.

Recommendations to get the best use of this book:

• Take a step back and leave the “this is the way we do it here” at the door. Consider even for a moment if your organization did something different to fill even one more vacancy and retain one more employee?
• Consider setting up a cross functional team that will exhibit the above mindsets. Have the team evaluate your organization up against the levers described In this book. Make it safe for them to ask questions, challenge status quo, bring up issues, and make recommendations. From an executive level you may feel it’s safe to speak up. But is it really safe for all those who may have valuable input in your ability to attract and retain?
• Go beyond just talking about it. Have you sat in meetings where hours go by with lots of debate and discussion, but yet nothing happens? Get into a plan, act, and do. Time is wasting away!
• Make this effort an authentic effort to enhance your ability to impact workforce shortages. It should not be a part of political positioning, fiefdom building, or pet projects. If you really want to attract and retain start with being authentic throughout.