How to Harness Automation to Weather the Staffing Crisis in Healthcare

The healthcare industry faces a shrinking talent pool of experienced and trained nurses. In a March 2022 letter to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the American Hospital Association called the workforce shortage “a national emergency,” predicting that the overall nurse shortage will reach 1.1 million by the end of 2022.

Fortunately, there’s a way to minimize the effects of this shortage on your healthcare entity — by using innovative healthcare automation software to streamline your operations. 

Technological systems that automate workflows at healthcare organizations, healthcare automation software can increase retention rates in four innovative ways: minimizing payroll mistakes, encouraging clear communication between HR and employees, helping HR approve PTO on time, and providing employees with seamless payment and benefits reviews.

Read on to learn more about these four innovative ways of using automation to boost your staffing.

4 Innovative Ways to Boost Your Healthcare Staffing Efforts with Automation

Facing healthcare staffing shortages can be daunting, especially when you have many other problems to address. Here are four innovative ways you can implement to improve your employee retention rates. 

1. A Higher Percentage of Correct Payroll Payments

If you still rely on manual payroll processes and paper documentation, your HR and payroll staff are more likely to make payroll mistakes, such as underpaying healthcare workers. The root cause of these mistakes is generally human error, specifically the following mistakes:

• Employee misclassification: Payroll calculation categorizes employees into “employment types,” such as full-time employees, part-time employees, freelancers, contractors, temporary workers, interns, and more. Each employment type may be entitled to different compensation and benefits based on national and regional payroll laws. For instance, some may be entitled to overtime pay, while others may not.
• Attendance and leave miscalculations: Companies that manage attendance and employee time off manually often make mistakes, especially if you have a large remote team.
• Failure to comply with the latest payroll laws: Payroll laws are prone to change. Accordingly, it’s easy for payroll teams to make errors.

Payroll errors can cause many negative consequences, including fines, lawsuits, and reputational loss. It can also lead to disgruntled employees, higher turnover, and lower retention rates. According to a survey from The Workforce Institute at Kronos Incorporated, nearly half of the American workforce will look for a new job after experiencing two paycheck errors. 

That’s why you should adopt healthcare automation software. Streamlined and user-friendly, the right healthcare automation platform can decrease turnover and increase retention by producing correct payroll payments. It can also automate and run massive amounts of nuanced and complex pay calculations.

2. More Communication Between Employees and HR Leaders

Let’s face it: employees don’t usually trust human resources. According to Zenefits’ report, “Human Resources: Helpful or Horrible?”, 38% of employee respondents believed that HR does not equally enforce organizational policies for all employees, with 18% believing that managers received special treatment. Employees also believe that HR values the bottom line over employees’ individual needs and wants.

To combat these biases, HR leaders can use automation software to establish a clear line of communication with employees. Specifically, they can:

• Regularly meet with employees to discuss their goals and desires
• Streamline and keep communication consistent by automating employee communications and receiving notifications about who has received certain messages
• Submit, update, and track incident and discipline reports

Otherwise, HR leaders will have difficulty connecting with employees, leading to frustration, miscommunication, and high turnover rates.

3. Timely Paid Time Off (PTO) Approval

If you have many employees, your HR team may find it challenging to approve PTO on time. This may lead employees to believe you don’t value their personal lives. 

Automatic software for healthcare entities gives your HR staff more control over PTO requests by allowing them to manage them through an employee portal. This software also empowers HR to:

• Create and receive custom alerts about time-off changes
• Create and implement auto approvals for PTO requests
• Communicate last-minute changes with other teams and departments

4. Seamless Benefits and Payment Reviews

Finally, employees are more likely to leave if they don’t have a user-friendly way to review their benefits and payments. They don’t want to request a face-to-face meeting with HR personnel every time they want to know how much they’re earning.

Most automation platforms offer seamless benefits and payment reviews that make life easier for your busy employees. Empeon, for instance, offers employee self-service (ESS), which allows employees to view and join benefits plans, track requests, and more. We also offer:

• An omnipotent engine for powering through custom pay calculations
• A complete union module for setting applicable union rules, deductions, and automation
• Expert compliance and regulatory support in every U.S. state

Make Employee Retention Easier with Empeon 

There are many innovative ways to use automation software to improve your ability to get through staffing shortages. However, finding the right automation software is easier said than done, especially if you’re new to healthcare technology.

That’s where Empeon comes in. As a comprehensive payroll and HR management software for healthcare providers, we automate every stage of the employee journey from recruitment to retirement. Our platform offers the following solutions:

• Talent acquisition: Employee retention isn’t just about keeping existing talent — it’s also about attracting talent who are more likely to stay. Empeon’s talent acquisition software empowers you to do just that by simplifying your entire recruitment process and quickly locating the best candidates for your healthcare company.
• HR: Backed by expert HR services and insights, Empeon’s HR tools let you treat your people right without mistreating your HR personnel. You’ll be able to electronically submit, manage, update, and track incident reports, create an HR support center, record and track disciplines with e-signature, and much more. 
• Benefits administration: Empeon allows you to maximize every dollar and win great people by gaining total control over your benefits program. 
• Reporting and business intelligence: Empeon also comes with reporting and business intelligence tools. Use them to extract valuable insights and identify opportunities, trends, patterns, and inefficiencies.
• Systemwide features: Empeon is a highly customizable platform. Use its systemwide features to customize user roles and permissions and create email alerts and reminders to reduce errors and risks.

Interested in learning more about Empeon? Talk to us today to discover how Empeon can work for you.