As the skilled nursing sector has shed hundreds of thousands of jobs over the last two years, we’ve had plenty of professionals try to explain why providers can’t get staff to stay.
It seems like just about everyone who cares even a little about nursing homes has gotten really good at asking, and answering, “Why?”
But no one truly has solved for the “what” yet — that critical understanding of what will turn things around by more than a couple thousand jobs a month.
We all know the labor crisis can’t be solved with a single strategy.
But in sharing the same concerns over and over again, are we perpetuating the crisis?
Does hearing other nurses complain — including, increasingly, those well-paid travel nurses — lead more nurses to find unhappiness in their work?
Now, don’t get me wrong. I think anyone working in the sector during the pandemic (and long before it) more than earned a step-up over the last two years. My concern is more about shifting the focus from one of groaning about problems to the more proactive owning of solutions.
I’d love to see more polls and proof about what does work. Many of you are blessed with at least one of those stick-with-it-come-what-may warriors.
But you also have less-tenured staff who have responded to raises with appreciation and a willingness to stay on. Those who have worked with you to find or create solutions like shared jobs or childcare support. Those who may be thinking of building a permanent career in long-term care.
Policymakers and lawmakers are debating, and in some places acting on, changes that reduce barriers to nursing home employment. Some, like building a labor pipeline and encouraging more nursing school opportunities, will take longer to cash in on.
But in the meantime, let’s hear more about what on-the-ground approaches have been proven to work, from the workers who’ve embraced them.
We need answers from the provider level, from states that have embraced reform during these unprecedented times and from the national perspective to foster and spread whatever good workforce news exists.
Someone please do that study, and send along your results. I know a place where we can write a new kind of headline together.
