Healthcare Shortage: The Cost of Lost Workdays

It may seem odd given the swelling ranks of the unemployed in this sluggish economy that the healthcare industry is facing staffing shortages. Nonetheless, healthcare organizations across the country are struggling to hire nurses, radiology technologists, lab technicians, and pharmacists. They are forced to incur significant expenses when they hire from temporary agencies, and are faced with scheduling disruptions resulting from employee absenteeism.

How can these problems be dealt with? Gallup data indicate that increasing the engagement levels of current employees is one good approach, especially when it comes to reducing absenteeism. Given Gallup's finding that the likelihood of healthcare employees to be engaged with their jobs is lower than the national average for the U.S. working population overall, this would seem to be a huge opportunity for industry leaders.

What Is Employee Engagement?

Gallup's decades-long study of workplaces in a broad range of industries has found that employees fall into one of three categories:

• Engaged: These employees are loyal and psychologically committed to their organizations. They are owners, not renters, of their jobs. They go the extra mile for patients, doctors, and other staff members.

• Not Engaged: These employees may be productive, but they are not psychologically connected to their organizations or their jobs.

• Actively Disengaged: These employees are physically present, but psychologically absent. They wait for someone else to fix problems. They are unhappy with their work situations and cannot wait to share their unhappiness with their colleagues.

I once observed a radiology technologist who was the perfect example of an engaged employee. He noticed that many elderly patients were cold in their hospital gowns and shivered on the X-ray table. To resolve the problem, he put a blanket on the table to keep it warm between patients. This kind of attentiveness is the earmark of a person who is truly engaged in his work.

How Many Employees Are Engaged?

Using its 2002 Q¹² Employee Engagement database, Gallup has found that nationally, fewer than one in four healthcare workers are engaged. Again, this is below the national average for the total U.S. working population.

The ratio of engaged to actively disengaged healthcare employees is .96:1, far below the desired level of 4:1.

Employee Engagement and Absenteeism

Further, there is a direct relationship between employee engagement and days missed from work. Employees who are not engaged and actively disengaged are more likely to be absent from work than engaged employees are.

Gallup research shows that for a hospital with 2,500 employees, the cost of lost workdays resulting from disengagement could be high. Using the national healthcare engagement percentages illustrated above, and the average number of additional workdays lost for workers in the "not engaged" and "actively disengaged" employees compared to "engaged" workers, we calculated the potential cost of these lost workdays to the hospital.

Adding the totals for the two groups, we get 2,728 lost workdays. At an average cost per lost day of $192 (based on an average salary of $50,000 for 52 weeks per year), the total cost comes to $523, 776.

Bottom Line

By effectively increasing employee engagement, the typical healthcare employer with 2,500 employees has the potential to gain the equivalent of about 11 full-time employees (assuming a 50-week work year) in lost workdays alone, and save over half a million dollars. The message: a focus on helping employees become more psychologically connected to their jobs is not just a way to improve the morale of your workforce -- it also makes good business sense.