In hashtag#seniorliving the turnover numbers in frontline positions are a bit of a mystery. There's a general awareness that it is "bad" but the actual data behind this feeling is vague at best. Reports of average turnover rates in the industry range anywhere from 35% to 200% depending on who you ask.
Recently a Assisted Living home owner uses an article from a bias source (Senior Living) to suggest there is no accurate data for nurse aide turnover rates. Here are his reasons for this:
- There is no standard measurement or formula for calculating turnover
- There is little to no incentive for companies to report their own real data
- Some data lumps "aging services" together to include Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNFs) alongside assisted living and independent living
If you have seen a recent report of hashtag#turnover rates in the senior living industry, will you please share them below? Citations or links would be awesome, but even a "I heard..." would be interesting. (I suspect we'll have a wide range of answers.)
The most basic of employee turnover calculations is:
(Number of employees who left the company) divided by (Average number of employees who work for that company) multiplied by 100 = your percentage of turnover during that period.
So on a team of 20 people, if 10 people left your organization that year, your turnover rate would be 50%.
By this standard, I could see senior living turnover rates of 100-200%. Honestly, though, what effect does knowing this have on leaders other than "that (still) stinks."
To further compound the turnover issue, most organizations have no real strategy that ties their team formation (selection, orientation, development) to their company's strategy - their differentiation. In other words, any ol' cog will do, because a caregiver is a caregiver is a caregiver. (No)
A sign of this disconnect is how often the interviewing and selection of the caregiver role is delegated to people who:
- Are not trained in interviewing
- Are not looped in regularly to strategic initiatives
- Have other primary job responsibilities (i.e. hiring is not their main job)
- Could be new to their own jobs
I have interviewed many caregivers who have shared the story that they interviewed, worked, and left a job without ever having any meaningful conversations with their Executive Director. This is mind blowing and yet somehow feels like the standard fare.
How many managers have the same experience with their regional team? How many regional leaders have the same experience with their executive team?
...and how aggravating it is to talk to executive leaders in the industry to get their opinions about turnover and get a basic response like "nobody wants to work anymore" or "once there's immigration policies to help" or "ours isn't as bad as there's."
Turnover isn't a problem in senior living. It is a lagging indicator of the problems within senior living.
If your favorite football team had different players every 4-5 games, would you say "gosh, nobody wants to play football anymore"??? Or would you be looking toward the owner's box with some tough questions? Please counter the above points one by one if you have done studies on turnover rates. Thanks, Chris Johnson, PhD, Texas State Dementia & Aging Studies program.