Many healthcare organizations today strive to meet the needs of their workforce by paying attention to the very human and natural elements of why people work. While it is a given that employees want to be happy at work, so do employers: motivation and satisfaction are directly affecting both sides as they seek to fill open positions. A great way to achieve high employee retention rates and top-quality service is by implementing a sound labor strategy.

In the first part of this series, we described how to view your healthcare workforce as an investment towards outcomes instead of as a cost center. Focusing on dimensions like staffing flexibility, skill mix, staff preparedness, holistic administrative support and backfill strategy is our idea of smart workforce planning.