Top 3 Strategies for Recruitment and Retention of APRNs and PAs

One way organizations prioritize their employees is to create intentional and informed recruitment and retention strategies. Organizations also benefit financially from these strategies. Three strategies stand out when it comes to salaries are

1) implement a market adjustment strategy,

2) provide competitive annual increases, and

3) maintain consistent salary equity policies

Organizations and all employers of APRNs and PAs (called Advanced Practice Providers - APPs) make decisions annually to provide a salary increase. On average, APP salaries are increasing at a rate of 2-3% with the exception of PA first assist, Psych Mental Health NPs, and CRNAs they are increasing at a rate of closer to 8% annually. Organizations that committed to high-quality APP recruitment and retention ensure that they offer annual increases, make market adjustments at least every 3 years to fill in gaps and have a consistent salary equity strategy. There are many organizations that prioritize salary equity to stay competitive and to ensure that they can hire the best and most qualified APPs as well a retain them. This means that they will not offer salaries to an individual that does not align with the new hire's peers within a specialty area and who have similar schedules. When organizations do not have a strict equity policy, APPs do not feel valued and it creates dissension among the team. Generally, this practice leads to turnover, disengagement, or both.

The Salary Debt = Accumulated Market Adjustment

To understand market adjustments consider an organization that offers a 2% annual increase in salaries (starting salary $100,000) in a market where competitive salaries are increasing at 3% a year. Two factors that impact competitive salaries are starting salaries and the amount of annual increase. In this scenario, where the organization plans to make a market adjustment in 3 years, the 1% annual salary deficit creates approximately $600,000 accumulated salary debt per 100 APPs at the end of 3 years. Organizations such as this one, that optimize the starting salaries, salary increases, anticipated market adjustments, and other factors, can create a highly engaged, patient-focused culture because it can attract and retain high-quality APPs.

This article was originally published on Melnic by Jill Gilliland. Melnic was recently acquired by DirectShifts.

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