Nurse and physician workplace engagement seeing signs of recovery—while key roles like managers still struggle.

07 March 2024

Press Ganey, the leader in helping healthcare providers and health plans transform the Human Experience, today published new data on key workforce measures on engagement, retention, and staff turnover, painting a mixed picture for clinical and non-clinical staff at hospitals and other health provider venues.

The “Employee Experience in Healthcare 2024” report depicts findings from analyzing 2.2 million employee responses—including 345,000 registered nurses, 131,000 physicians and providers—from annual, pulse, and lifecycle surveys from the previous calendar year. Employee engagement is a critical measure for organizations as it impacts almost every facet of operations from safety, health outcomes, staff retention and financial sustainability. Key findings include:

• Nationally, employee engagement is on the way up for the first time since the pandemic, rising from 4.02 to 4.04 (out of 5). Employee engagementis a measure related to an employee’s connection to and satisfaction with the workplace, intent to stay, and a likelihood to recommend their employer. Nearly half of all healthcare roles improved on engagement last year, with physicians, registered nurses, security, licensed technical and skilled maintenance roles showing gains.
• Clinical RN metrics are cause for cautious optimism. Nurses are the backbone of healthcare, yet data consistently highlights the challenges they face in the workplace—a fact that hasn’t changed in the past year. However, engagement among this group is now rising, up +0.04 to 3.89—proving that, when organizations focus on critical groups and prioritize strategies that address their needs, positive change can happen.  
• High turnover continues, with 1-in 5 healthcare employees leaving within a 12-month period. Newer employees are more at risk, with data showing turnover jumping to 1-in-4 among those in their first two years with an organization. Mirroring this broader trend, 19% of RNs who were at an organization in 2022 also left in 2023—rising to 25% for other nursing roles.  
• One-third of the workforce are still not engaged, leading to continued retention risk. Disengaged employees are 2x as likely to leave as their highly engaged peers. Turnover from non-engaged employees can cost an average organization around $25 million per year.
• Leader disengagement is an organization’s Achilles’ heel, with engagement of people managers on the decline since 2020—dropping 3.7% over the past three years (from 4.38 to 4.22). Despite a rebound in other roles, this is one of the few positions that continue to trend down.

A positive employee experience is directly tied to the rest of an organization’s results, including safety, patient experience, and health outcomes. Organizations with an integrated strategy of continuously listening to their workforce, with the ability to turn insights into action, will perform better in nearly every facet of healthcare delivery.

Jessica Dudley, MD.
Press Ganey’s Chief Clinical Officer

Press Ganey has the largest integrated dataset covering employee, patient, and member experience, along with clinical and safety measures. The insights gathered for this workforce report cover over 400 health systems in 15,200 locations across the United States.

To learn more about these findings and more insights, download Press Ganey’s report: “Employee Experience in Healthcare 2024”