Specially written for Sunny Day Fund by Rozellia Jianna
Healthcare's frontline workers aren’t compensated enough for their efforts, despite saving lives. In fact, US News revealed that healthcare workers only received a 5% wage increase in 2020 and a 1.5% increase in 2021, while wages across various industries increased by 6.7% and 6.9% respectively. Given that medical professionals received less financial compensation than other workers during one of the most critical periods in modern healthcare, it’s not surprising that the number of healthcare-related workers experienced a 5.2% drop over the past year.
Financial stress can put a strain on your workforce, and this can lead to alarming effects, especially in the healthcare industry. In fact, Sunny Day Fund estimates that workforce financial stress could be costing companies up to $18,000 per employee a year, due to the overtime shifts of other workers, hiring costs, and onboarding and retaining expenses. On top of that, employees admit that finances are a huge cause of distraction at work, thus reducing productivity and even increasing the chances of on-the-job accidents.
It’s time that the healthcare industry recognized the dangers of ignoring their workforce’s financial stress. If you want to boost your employees’ retention rates and performance levels, you need to support their financial well-being through the following actions:
1: Help Them Pay off College Debt
It can be difficult for healthcare professionals to achieve financial security, given that research by Fidelity Investments revealed that these workers incur student loan debt that’s worth $10,000 more than the industry average. In fact, Fidelity’s Student Debt Tool highlighted that private healthcare workers have an average student loan debt of $72,800 and pay around $690 per month.
These loan payments can take a toll on a healthcare professional’s monthly budget, but organizations can ease this burden by offering student debt repayment programs. Among the current student debt repayment programs available, several are particularly relevant for healthcare workers:
- Public Service Loan Forgiveness. This program is designed to encourage students to enter public service careers with typically lower salaries. Public Service Loan Forgiveness requires workers to make 120 loan payments over the course of 10 years, at which point student debt is forgiven tax free. If you or your workers are not sure whether they qualify for debt forgiveness through this program, you find out using the PSLF Help Tool on the Federal Student Aid website.
- Student Loan Forgiveness for Nurses. Nurses qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, but they also have several other debt cancellation options to call on too. Both the Perkins loan cancellation program and the NURSE Corps Loan Repayment Program are available for nurses to leverage when looking to cancel debt. We recommend checking out resources such as the Nurse Journal for more information on how your workers can access these programs.
There are also many state-specific forgiveness programs available, cancellation agreements for those who work in needy areas, and debt alleviation for clinical researchers.
How to figure out if this is the right benefit for your workforce
Student debt repayment programs are more popular among younger populations. As such, this is a great workplace benefit to offer if your workforce is composed of young professionals, or if you want to attract younger healthcare workers. Before choosing which is right for your workforce, try running an employee benefits survey across all your staff to gauge their preferences.
2: Offer Flexible Working Options
Flexible working options are highly preferred by employees, since the setup allows them to save both time and money. But healthcare has to overcome more logistical challenges than most industries if it wants to implement flexible working. The demands of shift work, 24-hour availability, and round-the-clock care are difficult to combine with affordable childcare, for instance, which can lead to reduced financial well-being among staff.
Despite the obvious challenges, there are ways healthcare employers can increase flexibility and improve financial well-being at the same time:
- Telehealth services: Virtual care solutions increase the possibility of meeting client demands for healthcare while providing a flexible and cost-effective work setup for healthcare workers. This remote work setup helps healthcare workers cut costs from commuting, food, and other expenses.
- Work-hours flexibility: Some healthcare staff absolutely have to be on site at definite times. But many workers with non-patient facing jobs can be allowed greater flexibility around the hours they work.
- Float pools: Float pools are groups of healthcare workers who jump in to different tasks and departments to meet need. Participating in a float pool can provide a valuable stop-gap that gives your in-house staff greater flexibility in scheduling shifts.
- Shift swapping: Allowing workers to exchange shifts with each other easily is a great way to provide flexibility without forfeiting patient care
The above options will increase flexibility, allowing healthcare workers to increase their financial well-being by reducing onerous childcare costs, optimizing commuting costs, and picking up extra shifts if they need an income bump.
How to figure out if this is the right benefit for your company
The flexible work setup is appealing to numerous employees, though certain demographics like the setup more than others. In fact, a survey by Future Forum revealed that Hispanic, Asian, and Black professionals prefer hybrid or remote work environments more compared to white professionals. The survey also revealed that most working moms prefer flexible work setups as compared to working dads, though the percentages come close. As such, offering flexible work arrangements means your organization can attract and retain a diverse workforce, as well as gain the loyalty of working parents.
Interested in improving your company's DEI initiatives?
3: Provide Opportunities to Increase Emergency Savings
Sunny Day Fund's 2022 report, Workforce Financial Well-being 2022: How Businesses Can Compete with Financial Benefits, found that employer-supported emergency savings are third most popular benefit for US workers earning $110,000 and under, including healthcare workers.
In fact, healthcare workers show increased interest in emergency savings as a benefit than the average worker does. You can see that by the way healthcare workers as a group peep above the trend-line in the graphic below, showing higher than average interest:
Since healthcare workers often have to account for their high student loan debt, that means emergency expenses can be particularly tough to cope with. Employer-matched emergency savings can help cushion unexpected expenses and reduce financial stress for people working in healthcare.
If you want to provide emergency benefits for the healthcare workers in your organization, you can follow the footsteps of Ascent Senior Care, which introduced an Employer-Rewarded Emergency Savings program through Sunny Day Fund. This benefit rewards the savings progress of each worker with an employer-match, thus motivating them to achieve financial well-being through positive behaviour change. By providing emergency benefits for your employees, your organization can help in improving the financial well-being of your workers, and thereby the quality of care for your patients.
Interested in emergency savings as a benefit? Find out more!
How to figure out if this is the right benefit for your company
If you're an employer in healthcare, you can use the Sunflower Workforce Financial Well-being Diagnostic solution to gauge the financial well-being of your employees. This diagnostic tool allows you to map out opportunities for improvement, allowing experts to suggest financial management tips tackling these areas. Afterwards, you can measure the success of your financial literacy training by conducting regular testing.
4: Look into Merit-Based Pay
The healthcare industry can improve the quality of its patient care by introducing a merit-based pay system. This practice acknowledges high performers and incentivises excellence, a definite win in workers involved in patient care or medical innovation.
To improve the health outcomes of their clients, Sentara Healthcare is investing in their employees by providing a 3-4% of merit increase for eligible employees. Sentara’s Chief People Officer Becky Sawyer emphasizes that the merit-based compensation reflects the needs and contributions of their team members.
In addition to compensation-based merit increases, Sentara also improved their benefits packages for all employees, regardless of performance. This kind of two-pronged approach ensures that high-performers are incentivised to keep doing great work, while ensuring that the entire workforce experiences financial well-being.
How to figure out if this is the right benefit for your company
Organizations dealing with healthcare worker shortages can benefit from a merit-based pay benefit. Since some employees need to take on more tasks to compensate for the shortage, companies can reward them by providing more financial incentives. On top of that, your healthcare organization can also implement this benefit if you want to increase the retention of your top performing employees.
Invest in Healthcare Workers' Well-Being Long-Term
Healthcare workers sacrifice much of their time to serve others, which is why they need to be properly recognized for their efforts. One way that healthcare industry leaders can do this is by investing in their employees' financial well-being. By providing them with better financial benefits, you can boost their financial security, improve morale, and help them feel recognized for their efforts.