Health care workers aren’t just doctors and nurses. They’re also the housekeepers who clean the rooms and the patient techs who wheel people around the hospital, not to mention the employees working behind the scenes to prepare meals or staff the laboratory.  

In the face of significant shortages of health care workers and a changing health care system that demands that all of its workers become more focused on delivering quality care in a coordinated manner, hospitals are making greater efforts to retain and advance their front-line workers. 

“With unemployment as low as it is, and the rate at which Des Moines has been growing, you can’t steal (talent) anymore; you have to grow your own,” said Emily Brown, who was hired by UnityPoint Health – Des Moines three years ago in a newly created job as retention specialist. 

UnityPoint is trying to build career ladders for front-line workers as part of of a national effort known as CareerSTAT. An initiative of Jobs for the Future and the National Fund for Workforce Solutions, CareerSTAT seeks to document and endorse the business case for investing in front-line hospital workers, based on health care leaders’ recommendations. 

“Their hypothesis — that they proved to be correct — is that the employers who invest more time and energy in support of their front-line employees will see a reduction in the potential negative impact that the Affordable Care Act could have,” Brown said. In other words, rather than reducing the number of lower-paid workers to cut costs, the smart move is to invest in the workers who will drive patient satisfaction up. 

Over the past few years, UnityPoint has launched several programs designed to extend education and training opportunities to its front-line workers. 

“My goal has really been to offer a buffet of options to our employees, depending on what fits them and where they are in their lives,” Brown said. “I definitely see value in having on-site training programs. The more that we can bring here and the more opportunities we can offer that are a pipeline into our high-demand roles is a win-win.” 

Brown focuses on assisting workers who are paid at or below $15 per hour and who  don’t work in a licensed or paraprofessional role to make lateral moves or advance into paraprofessional positions. 

“I’m really a career coach for those front-line workers who haven’t had a chance to go to (college), or maybe started and had to drop out,” she said. “Life happens, but it doesn’t mean you’re not a capable worker or don’t want to grow, or don’t want to make more money. … I do a lot of one-on-one coaching, helping them discover the career ‘jungle gym’ that’s available to them.” 

The confidential service allows UnityPoint employees to explore different opportunities with no risk to their current position, Brown said. “It’s sometimes a conflicting position for an employee to be in, when they like their job and their manager, but there’s this job over here that has better pay and better hours,” she said. 

Brown also coordinates a program called School at Work, a six-month curriculum in which UnityPoint employees attend classes two hours a week  “It’s a combination of guided classroom activities and online career research and exploration; the goal is to help them build a map,” she said. 

Since its launch in 2013, the program has graduated two classes with a dozen students each, and a third class is underway. 

Another UnityPoint employee program, called Project Search, is designed to train people with intellectual disabilities to work in front-line health worker positions. That program, which began in 2011, provides 30 hours of weekly training through three internships over a nine-month period. 

“It’s about helping them figure out where their skills naturally fall, and it’s become a pipeline into many of our front-line positions,” Brown said. About 85 percent of the 48 graduates in the past four years have been placed with health employers in Greater Des Moines so far, including 14 who have been hired by UnityPoint. 

Next year, UnityPoint plans to use grant funding to develop a program to train its own patient care technicians, also known as advanced certified nursing assistants. “Our hope is that by bringing something on site, internal applicants who don’t see themselves as being a college-type person can come to us and receive the same certification,” Brown said.

Mercy looks to Ritz-Carlton for employee training 

Mercy Medical Center – Des Moines will take some lessons from the hospitality industry to hone its employees’ customer service skills early next year. 

The hospital system has partnered with Ritz-Carlton Leadership, the leadership training program of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co., to provide training to all of its staff — from front-line hospital workers to its physicians and executives — beginning in February. 

“We are working very hard on our ‘Mercy experience,’ not only for our patients but for our staff,” said Kevin Elsberry, vice president and chief human resources officer. “We have purposely partnered with Ritz-Carlton; they are the paramount of hospitality. They train their employees to treat each other with respect.” 

Asked about what employee retention tools Mercy has in its toolbox, Elsberry pointed to higher than minimum wage pay for its front-line workers. 

“As far as our entry-level employees — and this comes from our parent company, Catholic Health Initiatives — we pay well above minimum wage, so we do pay at a higher rate,” he said, noting that Mercy recently adjusted its wages upward as well. 

Additionally, Mercy has just begun using an outside consultant to conduct exit interviews with departing employees in an effort to get more candid reviews, Elsberry said. 

Overall, recruiting and retaining workers in the health care field is “extremely tough,” he said. 

“I would love to see individuals waiting to come to our health system, rather than us seeking them out,” Elsberry said. “That’s ideally where we would like to be three to five years from now.”