How a Rural Health System Reduces Turnover, Invests in Its Workforce

May 01, 2023 - Staff turnover is a challenge for Northern Light Health, Maine’s only integrated health system. Still, it is admittedly not as bad as it has been at other hospitals and health systems across the country.

“When I look at turnover of our staff at our physician group, for example, there has been very little change in terms of our physicians from prior to the pandemic and throughout the last three years,” Paul Bolin, MBA, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, senior vice president and chief people officer for Northern Light Health, shares in the latest episode of Healthcare Strategies.

“Now, turnover still isn’t where we want it [elsewhere in the system], but it’s better than it was last year,” Bolin says, attributing the health system’s success to its “grow-your-own” approach to workforce development.

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Northern Light Health has been praised for not only building an adequate workforce despite facing the typical recruitment challenges rural providers encounter but also ensuring the diversity of their staff. Maine may not be the most diverse state in the country; however, Northern Light Health is making sure it understands how demographics are changing in the state and how it can tap into the talent of “new Mainers.”

“One of the fortunate things that has happened within Maine in the past five or so years is we’ve had a lot of migration into the state,” Bolin explains. “We’re welcoming these populations, who generally start in the southern part of our state, which includes larger metropolitan areas, to other parts of our state and to join our workforce.”

“There’s been a lot of the work on outreach, cultivating the environment, and really embracing our differences and recognizing that without new people in our community, in our state, and in our organization, we won’t have the workforce that we need to take care of our patients going forward. We see this as a critical piece of our workforce development.”

Northern Light Health provides scholarship and professional development programs, as well as volunteer opportunities, to recruit new hires who may need some time to settle up their work papers after moving. This has been critical to attracting much-needed team members and keeping them working for the health system. But Northern Light Health is also investing in its current workforce through better benefits, such as education opportunities, enhanced parental leave policies, and behavioral health supports, to name a few.

“We certainly saw significant turnover, as did other healthcare organizations, early on in the pandemic,” Bolin says. “We’ve worked hard to listen to our staff to understand why people might be leaving and use that information to make changes.”

That feedback loop — and the changes coming out of it — is key to Northern Light Health’s success in maintaining an adequate, diverse workforce.

“Some organizations think, ‘Well, this is the way it is now, and let’s just move forward,’” Bolin says. “That’s not going to work because having that close pulse of feedback from your staff is invaluable. Staff will tell you quickly if their needs are changing; they did it during the pandemic. We know that [what we offer] today is not what we’ll need to provide for our staff a year or two from now…Keep that close communication and be receptive to changing how we’ve done things.”