Aon’s Mark Witte, Head of Health & Risk Consulting and Pratik Rathore, Head of Health and Personal Care – Rewards Consulting consider the workforce challenges in the health and social care sector and how organisations can manage their rewards and incentives to best balance the needs of their workforce.
What do you see are the big workforce challenges in health and social care?
Pratik Rathore: The sector is facing significant workforce challenges. All the recent strike action clearly highlights the need for higher wages to compensate for long working hours. But is that the core issue? We feel that is just the tip of the iceberg. We need to address the reasons causing people to leave the profession and find a way to support any employee through their career. A pathway which attracts the right people and provides reasonable pay, a work-life balance, a career development plan, but perhaps most importantly a culture where people’s wellbeing and mental health is always front and centre. We can only guess what the future holds. On the current trajectory of an ever-growing demand from the aging population and emerging health related issues, employers need a rounded approach to attract and retain the right talent.
Mark Witte: Staff sickness, particularly in the NHS, has reached record levels and according to Nuffield Trust, ‘Mental health problems were the most common cause, responsible for nearly a quarter of absences”. In proportion to the days lost of 5.6% in figures reported for 2022, meant the NHS lost the equivalent of nearly 75,000 staff to illness. There are several challenges not least employee access to mental and physical care/treatment, NHS waiting lists hinder access to treatment when people need it most for areas like mental health. The earlier a business can provide support for its employees, the better the chance of mitigating extended periods of ill health. The cost-of-living crisis in a sector where many are not highly paid is hitting home and leaving many employers to ask, beyond raising salaries to unaffordable levels, how can they support their employees with their financial wellbeing as well as their mental wellbeing?
Workplace wellbeing has grown in importance with employers looking to occupational health support. And of course, we must recognise there is a worker shortage and thousands of jobs in the sector are unfilled with providers reverting to agency staff. What else could they do to differentiate their offering and how can employers break the cycle of reliance on agency staff?
How can organisations set out to combat some of these challenges?
Pratik Rathore: Not everything is about pay. Pay is just one element of the recruitment and retention problem. It is important to ensure people are paid fairly, but even if pay is increased, it won’t necessarily solve the problem.
Taking a step back and undertaking a full review from an overall employee experience standpoint – closely followed by a review of total employment package perspective is the need of the hour. The sectors current and future readiness needs to be considered sooner than later because these things like – employee experience, talent attraction and retention, overall culture cannot be built overnight. There needs to be a roadmap for both people engagement and rewards so they can be future ready. Employers ought to evaluate their own business and ascertain how a lack of a workforce planning will affect the business in the longer term?
What role does culture play in retention and recruitment?
Pratik Rathore: Culture plays a critical role in the sectors’ ability to hire and retain talent. This is a noble sector, people who work within it have a paramount need to care and heal above all. Creating a conducive environment to nurture the feeling of service cannot and will not happen on its own. Employers needs to consciously evaluate their HR and reward systems to ensure alignment of the culture to the overall desired employee experience especially given the current and expected future pressures on this sector. The current systems that have held the sector together for so many years are at a breaking point and need future proofing.
What innovations are you seeing in the employee benefits space to help meet the workforce challenges?
Mark Witte: We’re seeing creative standalone offerings that appeal to the modern workforce when it comes to new ways of working, wellbeing, and providing for workers who want more from their career than just a paycheck. Digital GPs, for example, used to be a niche service but the pandemic has really accelerated the trend and it is now in the top three of most popular benefits. Why? Price points have come down, and the big insurers in the traditional employee benefits space are looking to differentiate beyond price and underwriting limits. So, they’ve added additional services to their proposition like digital GP services, employee assistance programmes (EAP), and elements of physio and psychological rehabilitation.
How can health and social care businesses measure the effectiveness of their employee benefits programme?
Mark Witte: Understanding return on investment (ROI) is critical and the key thing about measuring value and return on employee benefits is asking what do you want to see as a result? If I put in a new wellbeing programme, or medical expenses, or cash plan, what do I want to see in return? It can be hard to isolate one thing – such as fewer days lost to absence, or fewer disability claims – which means ROI should take a broader field of vision about the things that matter to your business. Good examples include not just looking at employee claims but also taking a combination of other metrics such as absence data, employee engagement data, recruitment and retention levels, and Glassdoor ratings. There are always other ways you can look at measuring ROI outside of simply securing a reduced premium on your insurance spend.
To find out more about how Aon’s Health and Social Care Practice can help you add real value to your workforce challenges and your business needs, contact Mark Witte ([email protected]) or Pratik Rathore ([email protected])
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