Retention! Retention! Retention!

Retention! Retention! Retention!

By Dr. Bill Auxier

One of the biggest challenges rural health leaders currently face is employee retention. If COVID-19 taught us anything, it’s that rural health leaders need to work harder than ever to retain employees. There’s plenty to focus on when working on retention: engagement, loyalty, job satisfaction, burnout, resilience, productivity, performance, professional growth, the list goes on and on. On top of that, pay packages have seen significant increases as many rural health leaders have found themselves in a rush to hire top talent. This is a double-edged sword because your employees may want to take advantage of those rapidly escalating paychecks at another organization. To manage this two-headed monster, rural health leaders need a strategy that helps retain their talent while simultaneously attracting top talent.

A growing volume of research suggests that coaching should be part of that strategy.

The link between retention and coaching may not jump out at you until you start connecting the dots between proven strategies that have been shown to boost retention.

Gallup conducted a survey in the latter part of 2021 and found that 52% of employees who voluntarily left their employer stated that the employer “could have done more to prevent them from leaving.” Let that sink in. Half the people who quit and took another job said they would have stayed if their employer had ‘done something’ to retain them.  The question is, done what?

‘Something’ should include coaching – specifically, two types of coaching.

First, coaching can help a rural health leader become more effective. Coaching can help enhance a leader’s emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and ability to effectively engage with their employees Coaching can give rural health leaders greater confidence to connect with employees in new and more profound ways.

Second, providing coaching for key employees can have the same result. Coaching will help employees grow and learn. It can improve their emotional intelligence and their level of engagement in the organization. Coaching can help improve loyalty, satisfaction, productivity, performance, professional development, and personal growth. Coaching can help reduce burnout and improve retention.

The good news is this: coaching is a solution that is readily available to rural health leaders and their teams. If you do not have a coach you’re working with, the Center for Rural Health Leadership has a team of certified coaches who specialize in coaching rural health leaders. They do this through one-on-one leadership coaching and group coaching. There are other firms and coaches out there as well. The bottom line: investing in professional coaching with a certified coach improves retention.