Care for the nurse!

Losing employees is not only time-consuming, it can also cost your company dearly. A study by the Society for Human Resource Management revealed that finding, hiring and training new employees can cost up to nine (!) regular monthly salaries. So how do companies manage to retain employees and spend their money more wisely? Employer branding that thinks beyond the application phase is a key factor.

Alexander von Bülow is an expert in business psychology and knows the answers to the question of what makes people want to go to work every day. In this article, he illustrates his findings using the example of the care professions. However, all other sectors can also benefit from the expert's insights.

There is no doubt that hospitals care: they invest in good training programmes and use a lot of money and creativity to upgrade the image of nursing. As can often be observed in other industries, this is particularly evident in the care sector: employees are disappearing faster than they arrived and every employer branding campaign, no matter how well thought out, is crushed by the hard facts of reality. What are the causes of this costly employee turnover and how can HR managers tackle the challenge holistically?

Employer branding often begins with a sensible idea: creating incentives. According to a recent study, five of the ten best training companies in the service sector are hospitals. Well done! After all, a fascinatingly designed curriculum in the nursing school should of course subsequently benefit the hospital operations. A strategic contribution to covering the immense demand for skilled labour in the nursing professions that has existed for years. But what if the reality in the workplace is completely different to what the training programme suggests? What if the actual activities only make up a fraction of what is learnt? When there is always someone to replace spontaneously? When the end of the working day is a long time coming - not a trace of reliability?

Even successful recruiting campaigns know little about how to counteract the fluctuation in skilled labour. The best analogue and innovative digital approaches and incentives for applications are only useful if the (trial) work on the ward or in the functional areas delivers what it promised. If the expectations of the nursing staff are met. Or even better: exceeded. However, if the operational reality does not live up to these expectations, all the creative concepts and incentives for the nursing profession will be in vain. Cancellations and quick resignations nip any hopes of long-term company loyalty in the bud. The costly investment at the beginning, although highly successful, ends up being a huge flop.

But why does it fail if the basic idea is right? Let's take a closer look: Every successful approach and recruitment programme starts with facts and figures. About the local conditions of the labour market and about the vacancies themselves. And even more: about the must-haves, nice-to-haves and no-gos of suitable candidates. A disclosure of motives. The goal: to find the right fit between the desire and the operational reality in the hospital. It is precisely this approach that needs to be continued in the employment relationship.

For the vast majority of people, successful work means achieving personal work goals, fair teamwork and a secure employer. This requires dialogue. Above all, in order to recognise obstacles and disruptions in the work process, so-called demotivators. Satisfaction in the workplace requires individual attention, prioritisation and effective remedial measures. It requires a performance-enhancing organisational structure and a targeted communication architecture. So that the end result is the perception and experience of caring. Rarely as important as in the caring professions: The care of care. Care for the nurse.

The true goal of holistic employer branding is job satisfaction!

The ‘Care for the nurse’ principle encompasses the entire cycle of the employee journey - from the first thought about the job search to the day-to-day reality of work. This is where the ideal candidates encounter hurdles. Every single one of them can lead to frustration, many of them are avoidable and it is almost always more economical to retain an employee than to recruit a new one.

In order to work quickly and in a focussed manner on what really drives the company forward, the Employee Journey perspective opens up a view of potential - with a dual focus.

1. the journey to, in, through and out of the employment relationship: from the job offer and the conclusion of the contract to payroll accounting and BEM through to the reference. What needs do employees bring with them? How do employers respond to them? Where are the challenges that should be considered in advance?

2. the journey through the normal working day, past the daily recurring critical incidents that determine success: from the edge of the bed and the journey to the start of work and the handover at the end of the day to the journey home and the daily balance sheet.

Every HR manager knows it - emotional benefits have a stronger impact than any monetary incentive. Competitive pay and benefits are important and indispensable, but in the end it's about the desired answer to the only important question: Do I enjoy my work, my team, my patients? Do I want to come back tomorrow? Realistic employer branding that focusses on employees and manages expectations is an indispensable component of this. An appreciative working environment, considered from start to finish through the lens of a customer journey, serves as the linchpin for long-term employee retention, the reduction of personnel costs and secure future prospects - for both employers and employees.

We would like to thank Alexander von Bülow from IST Hannover for his interesting insights and valuable advice.