I don’t know about you, but I’m a big fan of HISTalk, a fellow HIT website that has strong ties to health tech leaders across the provider spectrum. For that reason, I’m inclined to take the results of the site’s recently-released health IT turnover survey pretty seriously — and unfortunately, these results aren’t pretty.
In a recent progress report on the survey, the site looked at different entities and how turnover was affecting them. Nobody’s staffing situation seems to be good, and some seemed to be downright terrible. While the update summarized responses from several different types of healthcare organizations, in this article I’m focusing on the vendors to keep things focused.
One vendor executive who responded to the survey said that significant turnover was underway, with 25% of staff already gone. (It should be noted that the vendor is in merger talks, but still…)
Another software vendor reported a turnover rate of 15% to 20%, particularly among developer roles. The vendor said that the company has raised wages to closer match inflation, added monthly and annual incentives and boosted health insurance and 401K contributions in an effort to keep the folks who remain.
Yet another vendor executive reported a slightly less grim picture, stating that while their company had seen very high turnover in entry-level positions in Q3 2021, It seems to be leveling out. The executive has budgeted above normal salary increases for 2022, on the (reasonable!) assumption that the typical 3% raise wasn’t going to cut it. Divisions have also been given the flexibility to offer work-from-home arrangements for suitable positions.
Then consider this feedback from a respondent with a consulting firm, who is personally considering leaving because of leadership response to COVID and the questionable honesty of the company culture. Company-wide turnover is at the 25% to 40% mark.
In one break from the turnover ugliness, a vendor technology director reported that while there are some problems with engineering turnover, it has leveled off and that they predict a normal attrition level of 10% or 15% next year. The respondent recently changed jobs to improve their work-life balance, get an opportunity to work with a more technically sound team and manager, a deeper focus on more complex clinical integrations and a 65% pay raise.
And then there’s the vendor executive who told HISTalk that the turnover was highest in customer support, followed by developers. To attack these problems their company has updated the employee experience intranet, implemented 360-degree reviews of leadership, increased referral bonus amounts and made salary market adjustments.
While there’s more than one conclusion to be drawn from this information, one thing that did stand out in particular relief is that many of these companies seem to be closing the barn door after the horse has already left.
If you wait until turnover gets high before you implement things like higher salaries or flexible work options, you’ve clearly been holding out as long as you could. And if yours is a company culture that supports holding out as long as possible before it will do anything extra for employees, turnover is something that was long and coming even before COVID tore through the healthcare industry. You probably have a lot of catching up to do, and there’s no time like the present.
Add in all the health IT jobs we see posted on Healthcare IT Central and we’re in a really fluid place when it comes to filling health IT jobs.
