Can You Maintain Staff Excellence in a Chaotic Job Market—with Disincentives to Seek Employment?

Robust unemployment benefits may be easing the burden for people who can’t find suitable work, but they’re also having the unintended consequence of making it (maybe too) comfortable for the unemployed to stay that way. Would-be candidates are even applying for jobs they have no intention of interviewing for in order to show that they’re engaged in a “bona fide job search” in compliance with requirements to maintain unemployment benefits. The effect is being felt directly and severely in some urgent care operations. One chain in Ohio is struggling with a dearth of staff to such an extent that a solo nurse practitioner is doing the work of medical assistants and front-office staff on site, in addition to their own clinical work. As this is occurring simultaneously with a physician shortage that’s only expected to get worse—the Association of American Medical Colleges projects that the U.S. will need 124,000 more physicians by 2034—urgent care management is feeling a severe pinch on the staffing front. This all makes reducing turnover, especially of high performers, critically important. And  your reputation as an employer can either further hinder or energize your search for bright new hires. How do you earn such a reputation? Read Becoming the Employer of Choice for the Emerging Urgent Care Workforce in the JUCM archive for some helpful insights.