Retaining Qualified Staff
Critical issues are involved in staffing the clinical laboratory--not only in how we recruit staff but also how we maintain them as our colleages once they are recruited? These are some of the burning questions that continue to plague laboratory professionals. For some staggering statistics on current laboratory staffing: see http://ccclw.org/fastfacts.aspx.
We've seen the staggering statistics on lab staffing and are aware of the issues that face our profession. Recently, my eyes were opened to why retention of young professionals may continue to be an issue.
While attending the Lab Institute 2009, I attended a session on "Recruiting and Retaining Top Talent in Tough Economic Times." In her presentation, Tara Kochis of Slone Partners offered some eye-opening information. As I crawled out from under the rock where I had obviously been hiding, I realized that maybe we don't maintain our workforce because we do not know them.
I am a "boomer." I look at the current workforce (my own children included) and I wonder, "What are you thinking?" As I reflect on this session, I think I should have been wondering, "What are we thinking?"
The bottom line is that the younger groups of the workforce are notboomers and they do not think like us. As "boomers," we are, quite frankly, very different from our younger workforce. Talk about a generation gap. I think we may be anything but "boomers" and we may certainly lack pizzazz in terms of thinking outside the box and knowing our inside customers (our employees).
There I was in Crystal City (how ironic) listening to Tara's presentation when some things became crystal clear. I realized that myself and all of the other boomers in the room were listening to a description of ourselves. Baby boomers, Tara noted,
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were born in 1946-1964,
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challenged authority,
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were idealistic,
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viewed money, a title and recognition as important,
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tend to be competitive and crave a stellar career,
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are starting to burn out,
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and believe in paying your dues, working hard, and that people are recognized for a job well done.
Hmmmm... sounds like me and my friends. Relatively stable workforce. People in my graduating class have had the same job for 30 + years. Some of us competed with each other, scrambling to the top of the ladder. But stellar... I guess that some of us were/are stellar in our chosen career directions in other ways, not so much.
Then there are my children and their colleagues. Now, this is a group that I know very well. I have lived amongst them.
How very different they are from the "boomers." My own three children are all healthcare professionals, including one clinical laboratory scientist. None of the three spent a full year in their first job. All three work hard, but they "take the time coming to them." I pride myself on having a bank of PTO, "in case I need it." My children all use their PTO in a manner that it will NEVER burn a hole in their pocket.
Young professionals are leaving healthcare professions in droves. Laboratory science suffers not only due to low salaries and lack of professional respect, but also a perceived lack of fulfillment of professional needs by the older work force. Remember the "stellar" boomers? Well, with regard to retaining our young workforce, these folks are not viewing us as stellar colleagues. They are rotating jobs like they change cell phones and leaving the laboratory professions in droves. We have not kept up with the technology of staff retention. As role models and leaders, young professionals think we just don't understand them. Looking at the above information, I think they may be right.
As I reflect on my current work environments and unglaze my eyes as my children relate stories of their work environments, I realize that boomers run the show. As a group, we are not doing these younger folks justice. We have not, in many cases, found what is valuable to them as employees. We certainly don't know what makes them tick. Keep in mind that I work in a University environment. If I don't have a clue about this, my guess is that other boomers don't either. We cling to the philosophies that include "it worked for me" and "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." This is the same type of authority that we rejected when we were young professionals. Now that roles are reversed, we are those same authority figures that we swore we would never be.
Quite frankly, I don't need a scary Halloween mask or a haunted hayride to frighten me. It scares me to think about who will care for myself, my family and my fellow boomers as we age. It is not just laboratory professionals who are in shortage, but other healthcare professionals, as well. I plan to take this shocking information and do something with it. Presenting it here in this blog is the beginning of my boomer's challenge to authority. I am presenting my personal "campaign promise" to educate and encourage my colleagues to change our approach to what works and convince them that it is broken and we need to fix it. My next blog will include some ideas on retaining a qualified youngwork force. You may even hear from someone of a different generation and get an alternate take on staff retention.
In the meantime, do you have any suggestions on retaining qualified young staff members?