A new Argentum report, “Navigating the Nexus: Addressing Workforce Challenges in Senior Living,” looks at results from a survey revealing the high costs of turnover and the importance of professional development to reduce it, as well as to improve retention and support recruitment.
“If we want to keep our employees here, and if we want to spend the money in the appropriate way, we need to then be working on professional growth for our employees,” observes Katelyn McCauley, Director of Senior Living Research at Holleran Consulting.
Holleran worked with Argentum to field the survey on workforce perceptions, which looked at current and emerging workforce trends, and to analyze findings for the report. In the survey, Argentum members responded to questions about effective strategies to recruit and retain staff, the cost of turnover, recruitment methods, and more. Responses were collected in late 2023 and early 2024.
Survey results also suggest that senior living recruitment is increasingly focused on finding the “right” candidates. They also point to state and federal resources that might offer a new opportunity for recruitment.
Here are four top-line findings and insights from the report:
1. While most senior living organizations spend under $200,000 annually, turnover costs top $1 million per year for some.
Turnover comes at a high cost for senior living organizations. Hard costs, such as recruitment and training, have led the majority of senior living organizations to spend $100,000 to $200,000 a year as a result of turnover. However, nearly as many said turnover runs them $1 million or more annually. This includes a sizeable contingent that reported spending of more than $2 million annually on turnover.
Turnover also has soft costs, notes McCauley. These may include a dip in employee morale due to a disruption in workplace socialization and the temporary need to shoulder a greater share of the workload. Residents may also be inconvenienced by a decline in worker morale and an increase in workload.
“When you’re talking about residents, they create relationships with these employees and these families create relationships with these employees. That starts making the community a home instead of a place where mom lives,” says McCauley.
2. Professional development and leadership development are essential for retention and recruitment.
To retain workers, survey respondents identified competitive wages and a range of professional development investments as effective strategies. Beyond wages, the respondents pointed to employee recognition, reasonable workloads and supervisory leadership development. Career pathing / growth opportunities and staff empowerment were also important.
The survey also asked respondents why employees leave, revealing strikingly similar responses. By far, the most-cited reason for employee departures was a bad relationship with a supervisor. Other reasons include a non-competitive salary or wage, lack of work-life balance, lack of growth or advancement, and poor organizational culture.
Despite these findings pointing to the role of leadership in retention and departures, the survey also found that many organizations aren’t investing enough in leadership development. More than half of respondents reported that leadership development is an important practice for their organization, yet more than one in three said their organization’s investment in leadership development is not what it should be.
This underscores the opportunity for senior living organizations to focus more resources on professional development, including leadership development.
“We know what is going to keep our employees and make them happy, but we’re not spending our money that way,” observes McCauley. “When you are talking about professional growth – executive coaching, internships, apprenticeships, whatever that may be – there’s not always an ROI right away. It takes time to see it, but that’s an investment in your employees, which then will be a positive investment for the organization.”
3. Senior living organizations are getting back to recruiting for “fit.”
Looking at recruitment practices, some of the tactics reported in the survey – word of mouth, or employee referrals; training, development and apprenticeship programs; and college and other training programs – shine a light on a positive transition in senior living, observes McCauley.
“Before COVID, we were able to say, ‘You may not be the best fit for our culture.’ We were the ones that were able to choose,” says McCauley.
She sees senior living starting to make a shift “back to that place where we were, of making sure that the employees that we’re hiring aren’t just a number, they really are the best for that position, even if it does take longer.” The use of training and education programs to connect with good candidates, she says, is evidence of that shift.
“When you hire people that aren’t right for your community, that’s where you’re going to see turnover, when they work there for less than three years,” says McCauley.
4. Senior living organizations may be missing the opportunity to tap some federal and state workforce recruitment resources, and in doing so, they may be missing the mark with diversity goals.
Survey respondents indicated that, although they are aware of certain federal and state recruitment programs, some are underutilized.
One of these is American Job Centers. (Read more about the Argentum partnership with American Job Centers (AJC) and the financial incentives available to organizations that employ candidates referred by AJC.)
Also, awareness and utilization are both low for foreign-born service organizations.
“There are communities that have begun to utilize their resources to hire foreign born workers,” observes McCauley. “This not only increases diversity, it also provides residents with the opportunity to use their skills to tutor the employees to receive their citizenship.”
As the proportion of immigrants has grown in the U.S. population, so has the proportion of immigrants working in the health care sector. As of 2021, immigrants made up more than 16% of the U.S. health care workforce of 18.5 million. Recently, Argentum published the Foreign-Born Workers Resource Guide. The Guide includes state and local facts, figures, and other resources and provides a reliable and easy-to-use resource that connects foreign-born individuals working in the senior living industry, their families, and stakeholders with important organizations and service providers at both the national and state levels. This comprehensive resource guide aligns with Argentum’s overall Workforce Development and Policy initiatives and serves as a valuable tool that can help facilitate inclusion, create connected communities, and address key challenges faced by foreign-born employees and their families.
About the Survey
The Workforce Survey was conducted by Holleran Consulting and sponsored by UKG and provides important benchmarking information for senior living firms looking for information on the factors influencing recruitment, retention, leadership development, diversity and policy. The survey was distributed between November 2023 and January 2024. Responses were received from Chief Operating Officers, Human Resources leaders, Executive Directors, and Operations leaders. Full survey results are available in the report, Navigating the Nexus: Addressing Workforce Challenges in Senior Living, released in conjunction with the Argentum Senior Living Executive Conference earlier this year.
About Holleran Research
Holleran is the premier provider of employee and resident engagement and satisfaction research and benchmarks, serving not-for-profit senior living providers nationally. For over 30 years, Holleran has specialized in researching and consulting with senior living providers, retirement communities, and healthcare systems to develop business strategies that match their mission, vision and values. Utilizing sophisticated research analysis, alongside our extensive survey benchmarks, leaders gain a clear vision of the strengths and opportunities within their business.
About UKG
At UKG, our purpose is people. We are on a mission to inspire every organization to become a great place to work through HCM technology built for all. More than 80,000 customers across all sizes, industries, and geographies trust UKG HR, payroll, workforce management, and culture cloud solutions to drive great workplace experiences and make better, more confident people and business decisions. With the world’s largest collection of people data, work data, and culture data combined with rich experience using artificial intelligence in the service of people, we connect culture insights with business outcomes to show what’s possible when organizations invest in their people. To learn more, visit ukg.com.
