Many Hospitals 'Get' What Older Workers Want

Last week, I cited a new study suggesting that high employee turnover in hospitals could be linked to low funding of healthcare human resources departments, as compared with industry averages.

It was a fair critique, and there has been lots of commentary of late about the need for hospitals to improve retention, especially among younger nurses.

On a related issue, however, many hospitals do exceedingly well: retaining older workers. That point was brought home in an AARP report in September that placed 18 hospitals among the nation's Top 50 "Best Employers for Workers Over 50."

It shouldn't be surprising that hospitals dominate the list. Some professions—such as journalism—regard older workers as expensive, hidebound, and slow-moving wildebeests that are easy pickings for layoffs when they begin to straggle behind the herd.

Hospital HR leaders, however, recognize the value of their senior staffers, who carry in their skulls a lifetime of institutional wisdom and real-life experience. Hospital HR leaders also understand the skyrocketing costs of recruiting and retaining older staffers' replacements when a nationwide workforce shortage means qualified candidates are holding most of the cards.

I spoke with HR executives at two health systems that made the AARP list: Bonnie Shelor, senior vice president of human resources at Richmond, VA–based Bon Secours Richmond Health System; and Sid Seligman, senior vice president for HR at West Orange, NJ–based Saint Barnabas Health Care System. When it comes to retaining older staff, Shelor and Seligman are singing in the same choir.

"We put a premium on older employees," Shelor says. "In our organization we greatly value the kind of knowledge and experience and intellectual capital and wisdom that the older worker brings to us. You just can't replicate it. We see the older worker is a great mentor/guide/coach for the younger worker. A pairing of those two is the best of all worlds."

Seligman says: "We look at the needs of all of our demographic, especially staff over 50, because we are heading to an organization with an average age in that area, around 47 years old. We want them to believe that if our leaders are attuned to the needs of their staff and support them adequately, the staff, in turn, will be engaged in the mission as we like to see it executed."

Let's concede that the stalled economy has played a role in lower turnover of senior staff at many hospitals. Bluntly stated, many people can no longer afford to retire, or they may be supporting a family member who's lost a job.

But that isn't the only explanation. Seligman and Shelor say hospitals do a better job retaining senior staff because hospitals have been practicing for longer than most other industries. And one of the first things they recognized that seniors want is flexible scheduling. "Healthcare lends itself to flexibility," Shelor says.

"We are open 24/7 and there are many different roles for healthcare workers, nurses in particular. It is not a cookie cutter job."

Shelor says Bon Secours designs career paths for its staff that will allow them to remain working for the health system for their entire career. "When nurses come into our organization, if they come in right out of school, what we tell them is they can have a job with us for life through the many stages of their own lives," she says.

"That would be as a young person, a young mother, a mother of teenagers, as a daughter of aging parents. The needs of workers change in their lifespan, and healthcare is uniquely designed to respond to those needs because of the 24/7 platform and the ability to be flexible."

Both Saint Barnabas and Bon Secours also allow senior staff to keep their health insurance plans even as they reduce hours. "We offer a program where people can work part-time, get full-time benefits, and when the census spikes they are the first people we go to put in additional hours. It's a way for people to phase into retirement," Seligman says.

As workers grow older, Seligman says, the physical demands of the job become even more challenging. Nurses are sometimes on their feet for 12 hours. "The desire to retire is there, although the fear that one is unable to retire is there and we try to deal with those concerns as well with financial planning," he says.

Every day about 10,000 baby boomers turn 65. What does that portend for the future of the workforce across all industries? We often hear about what healthcare HR can learn from other industries. When the topic is retaining older workers, however, Shelor says other industries need to learn from healthcare HR.

"Healthcare HR was on the forefront because of a definitive need early, and that is the shortage of nurses. But every industry needs to take advantage and promote and support older workers," she says.

"Other industries, if they have not, need to wake up and realize that they have to respond with flexibility to the needs of the older workers," Shelor says. "Not only are they able to keep workers in the workforce and reduce their vacancy rate, also, they get the advantage of the wisdom and history that older workers have."