McKnight’s Mood of the Market Part 2 Includes Quotes from MedBest’s Katie Piperata
The 2023 McKnights Mood of the Market Survey Part 2: Adapt or the Desire for Flexibility Will Drive Workers Away, Providers Warned McKnight’s
BY KIMBERLY MARSELAS
Flexibility Takes All Shapes
Flexibility, already a major buzz word in the skilled nursing sector, is becoming an even more critical tool for hiring managers and building leaders in 2023, results of the latest McKnight’s Mood of the Market survey show. Read full article
Katie Piperata said the leadership candidates she works with are “very much” demanding some flexibility, even if it’s just one day a week at home to catch up on all reports, emails and other non-clinical requirements. But she doesn’t see her clients, meaning nursing home HR leaders, budging much.
“When you’re leading the whole building either on the clinical or ops side, it’s the customer who wants to see you, it’s the customer who is wanting that visibility and that representation. So I get where the client is coming from on that,” said Piperata, workforce architect at recruiting firm MedBest. “But I also get that we’re in this gig worker mentality. People want the flexibility to be able to have a day to get everything done or to work for longer days because staff nurses are able to do Baylor [12-hour weekend] shifts and things that do allow flexibility. So I think we’re just seeing the DON and administrator saying, ‘I want that too.’ ”
SEEKING MIDDLE GROUND
For leaders resistant to demands for flexibility, Piperata suggests testing it first in buildings where there might be less risk.
“If you have a 5-star building that’s performing well and the administrator and DON have been there a while, there hasn’t been a lot of turnover, why not allow something like that?” she asked. “It’s not in a regulatory crisis … I think that maybe they could start to look at it more from a custom standpoint. If your building is doing well, then you can earn this. If these two or three things are met, then this is something that we would work with you on versus just saying, across the board, ‘We’re not doing that.’”
Without more change, recruiting nurses who can find the hours they want in hospitals and keeping entry-level employees who have plenty of options in retail or hospitality will continue to be a slog, Piperata said.
Visited 557 Times, 1 Visit today