Staff retention and workplace culture at ASCs took a hit during the COVID-19 pandemic, but there are ways ASC leadership can support and maintain staff.
Anne Hargrave-Thomas, CEO of Oak Leaf Surgical Hospital in Eau Claire, Wis., and senior vice president of operations at Surgery Partners, joined "Becker's Ambulatory Surgery Podcast" to discuss best practices for staff retention.
This is an excerpt of the podcast. Click here to download the full episode.
This excerpt was edited lightly for clarity and brevity.
Question: When you think about building resilient teams, what types of things have been working well in setting up that workplace culture?
Anne Hargrave-Thomas: We have spent a lot of time communicating with our staff and with our leadership team. We've been aiming to find out where the pressure points are to see what we need to do to help them. Not only do we see how to help them because it impacted them personally and professionally, but also to see what we need to do to help them refocus. What are the tools we need to provide for them?
We have spent a lot of time, on every level, communicating. Every day, I meet with the staff, I meet with my leadership team, and get out a lot of communication. It's not just via email, we also have spent time having our human resources department meet with people to ask: How are you doing? How's it going? How can we help?
We do a lot of "stay interviews" to see what's working. We certainly do exit interviews, but the stay interviews have been quite informative for us to help us move forward, retain our staff and keep leadership engaged.