Focus on Employee Recognition in Healthcare: 4 Keys

The healthcare industry has been disrupted since 2020, and despite a hesitant return to normalcy for most, there’s no denying that healthcare professionals are still dealing with stress, uncertainty and burnout.

Employee rewards and recognition in healthcare is an effective solution to many of these challenges. This doesn’t mean gift cards or service awards only. Modern recognition is much more than traditional gifts, and it can guide the fundamental cultural shift that makes work more rewarding, engaging, and sustainable for the amazing people in the healthcare industry.

Reality and Recognition in Healthcare

Why is recognition such an important aspect of healthcare? It’s because healthcare professionals are struggling, which leads to challenges for healthcare organizations, as well. Here are some recent stats to give you an idea of the state of the industry:

• Turnover:
  • The national hospital turnover rate is 22.7%
  • Nurse vacancy rate is 15.7%
  • Hospitals lost an average of $8.55 million in 2022 due to turnover-related expenses, and
  • 80% of healthcare professionals quit because they don’t feel appreciated.
• Mental health
  • 93% of healthcare workers report feeling stressed
  • 86% report anxiety
  • 77% report frustration
  • 76% report exhaustion and burnout, and
  • 75% report feeling overwhelmed.

For even more context, stress and burnout lead to reduced patient satisfaction, lower quality of care, increased absenteeism, reduced productivity, and reduced job satisfaction.

In short, nurses, physicians, and other healthcare workers are feeling overworked, burned out and dissatisfied, which leads to turnover and lower-quality levels of work. This then leads to organizations struggling to keep positions filled and keep a high quality of care.

How Does Recognition Help?

Value-driven, individual-focused recognition that’s focused on making work more rewarding for employees can lead to many organizational improvements, such as:

• 31% lower turnover
• 14% increased productivity
• 43% increased engagement
• 3X greater employee loyalty to the organization
• 2X lower chance of employees quitting, and
• 5X greater employee connection to company culture.

Remember, recognition in today’s world is so much more than a plaque after a five-year anniversary or a gift card for a birthday. No, recognition means recognizing employee contributions, recognizing their struggles, recognizing their needs, and doing what you can for them.

Best Practices for Recognition in Healthcare

As someone who hasn’t worked in the healthcare industry myself, I’m not going to try and give advice for what these organizations should do to help their employees. Instead, I want to share what one of Awardco’s clients has done to help their employees.

Children’s Nebraska Hospital operates over 11 outreach pediatric clinics and employs over 4,000 people, and they’ve made great strides in creating a culture of support, value, and appreciation for their staff. Here are some of the recognition programs they’ve created:

• Sending Sunshine recognition program: This allows for on-the-spot peer-to-peer recognition as well as leader-to-peer recognition.
• Brightest Star Executive spot bonus program: This rewards executives and other leaders who excel.
• Local area recognition programs: These are custom programs that recognize and reward the specific efforts of different departments, such as IT, Patient Safety, and Emergency.
• Paid volunteer program: This rewards those who volunteer in the community.
• Well-being incentive program: This rewards people who take steps to better their physical and mental health.
• Spirit Week: One week each year is full of games, activities, and rewards for staff.
• Social events: These include a family zoo night, well-being fair, chili cookoff, and more.
• Peer-nominated internal awards
• New employee onboarding and orientation
• Bereavement program
• Nurse residency bonus program
• Patient Experience program
• Service awards, and
• Personal milestone recognition.

How did the leaders at Children’s Nebraska build such an impactful culture that meets their employees’ needs? According to them, it all started with listening. They didn’t assume they knew what their employees wanted or needed. Instead, they set up focus groups, asked for employee opinions, sent out engagement surveys, and listened to anecdotal comments.

Children’s Nebraska targeted not just employee workplace habits but also their physical health, mental well-being, familial situations, social relationships, and individual needs. 

Let’s Care for the Caregivers

Healthcare is a challenging industry, regardless of location, job responsibilities, or tenure. However, custom recognition, built around employee wants and needs, can transform your culture in the best way. Through it you can create a workplace that supports the health of your people, provides better care services, and retains your best talent.