InFront on the Workforce

Long-term and post-acute care publication

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G.I. Jobs: Hiring Vets Is a Winning Proposition

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In a tight labor market, veterans can help solve your workforce woes.

Many employers look to veterans as a pool of potential employees. Now they can be rewarded for their efforts. The U.S. Department of Labor is accepting applications for the 2019 HIRE vets Medallion Award Program, which recognizes employers for their investment in recruiting, employing, and retaining our nation’s veterans. The award signals your commitment to veteran hiring and retention, letting potential applicants and clients know that you’re a veteran-friendly business. View the award criteria and apply here. If you haven’t get looked to veterans as potential employees, it’s not too late; and the benefits are numerous.

Bright Ideas Are Everywhere: Make Innovation Work for You

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Are you making the most of creative innovators in your organization?

Innovation is essential to getting ahead, especially in a tight employment market. HR can help create a culture of innovation and encourage employees to be visionaries and problem solvers. This process starts with brainstorming, but it doesn’t end with a good idea. Innovation is a process that starts with people asking “what if?” and moves on to involve planning, developing, testing, changing, retesting, and—yes—sometimes failure. In the end, though, innovation results in better systems, products, materials, and tools that make improve work and life.  So now that you understand the innovation process, what’s next?

Employee Journey Mapping: Track Worker Experience to Improve Recruitment, Retention

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Sometimes it’s the journey, not the destination; employee journey mapping can help everyone enjoy the trip.

Journey mapping, though typically associated with efforts to track customer/patient encounters, can help you identify the moments that matter to employees in their work experience.

What is journey mapping? Generally, it is a process in which you visually plot out the experience your employees have in their tenure with your business, helping to identify opportunities for improvement and highlighting the good and bad parts of the experience. Employee journey mapping enables HR to examine what employees are saying about the organization (for instance, on social media) and determine how closely their experiences match what is described in recruitment and hiring materials. Via mapping, HR can track each stage of employment to understand how it impacts the worker’s experience holistically.

Understand Employee Complaints to Improve Retention

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From pay and equity issues to concerns about benefits and communication, employees share their top workplace grievances.

A survey of employees at 2,100 organizations representing various industries identified the top complaints employees have. Consider which of these might be issues in your organization and how you might address them to improve hiring, retention, and engagement.

Bridging Skills Gaps to Build a Strong Workforce

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Here’s what employers are doing to fill skills gaps that keep them from finding qualified job candidates.

In a recent survey of HR professionals, 83% said they have had trouble recruiting suitable job candidates in the past year; and 75% said that part of the problem is related to skills gaps. Over half said this concern has worsened in the past two years. Skills most lacking, the survey suggested, are in the medical, science, engineering, and data analysis fields.

Thirty-five percent (35%) of respondents said that candidates don’t have the right technical skills for job openings, while 30% said applicants don’t have the right soft skills (such as problem solving, critical thinking, the ability to deal with complexity and ambiguity, and communication). About a third of respondents said that candidates don’t have necessary work experience. Even when they could find good candidates, 43% of respondents said that competition from other employers was an issue. Just over 30% of HR professionals said that a low number of applicants or lack of interest by job seekers in the organization makes filling positions more difficult.

How Optimistic Are Employers?

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Looking ahead, business owners see some clouds, but staying positive can help weather the storm.

According to a recent survey, business owners are less optimistic about the employment and economic outlook than they were last year. On a scale of 1-100, with 100 being the highest level of optimism, owners’ overall business outlook is six points lower in 2019. Respondents rated their optimism at 71 points in 2018 and 65 in 2019. Their confidence in the country’s economy is down three points from 65 to 62.

CMS Announces Changes to Star Rating That Impact Staffing

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More than ever, you need an engaged, experienced, reliable team to shine.

Stepping up your game on staffing is more urgent than ever after an announcement last week out of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). The agency outlined plans to update the star ratings on its Nursing Home Compare website in April to include tougher criteria for staffing level ratios.

Specifically, CMS is setting higher thresholds and evidence-based standards for nursing home staffing levels. According to a news release from the agency, “Nurse staffing has the greatest impact on the quality of care nursing homes deliver, which is why CMS analyzed the relationship between staffing levels and outcomes.”

Time’s Up: Set the Alarm to Improve Inclusion, Retention, Engagement

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Now is the time to pursue opportunities to address issues regarding harassment and inequity.

A manager often scolds and criticizes staff—loudly—in front of others. A practitioner interrupts and dismisses others at meetings. A resident uses racial slurs and sexually suggestive language around caregivers. Qualified individuals are passed over for promotions because of gender or age. When such situations occur, they can lead to morale and performance issues and high turnover rates. They also can hurt an organization’s reputation, making it difficult to attract and keep good employees.

Many women and others in healthcare everywhere—at all levels and in all job categories—have experienced harassment, bullying, and power inequity in the workplace. Recently, a group of women in the field—including physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and others–joined together to launch Time’s Up Healthcare, an effort to address sexual harassment and gender inequity in medical communities and organizations everywhere.

Open 24 Hours: The Quality Convenience of the Digital Library

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Give your employees anytime, anywhere access to the training, education, and resources they need.

Poor or inadequate training not only affects how employees feel about their jobs; it can hurt their performance. At the same time, finding the time to identify and attend good training and educational programs can be daunting. The answer may lie in a digital library.

Respecting Religious Freedom in the Workplace

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Federal law prohibits religious discrimination. Are you protecting all of your employees?

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination based on religion. This includes refusing to accommodate an employee’s sincerely-held religious beliefs or practices. Take a few minutes to review the key tenets of workplace religious accommodation and make sure you are protecting all of your employees.