The healthcare industry is constantly transforming. These past few years, the pace and impact of change has increased exponentially. In order to craft a comprehensive compensation program for healthcare workers it is important to first understand the main challenges that the industry is currently facing. From labor shortages and staff burnout to data security threats and advancing medical technologies now is the time to ensure you are getting pay right with healthcare workers.

Building a unified, competitive compensation program to attract and retain talent is key to adapting to the current challenges. Compensation optimization not only differentiates you from other healthcare organizations but can also help prioritize investments, ensuring you keep your most critical talent roles filled.

Five steps to optimize compensation programs for healthcare

Are you ready to step above the competition with a compensation program that keeps your talent pool filled? Here are five steps to get you started.

Step 1: Conduct a comprehensive review

Before you can move forward, you must understand where you are. A comprehensive review of your current compensation programs, structures, and policies helps you understand what is working and where there is room for improvement. It will help you identify inconsistencies or inefficiencies from outdated compensation practices or perhaps previous merger and acquisition activity that was never fully integrated and optimized.

Step 2: Unify your systems

Once you have a full understanding of your compensation program, you can address inconsistencies and issues. Seek to standardize your organization's job codes, job descriptions, pay structures, and pay policies. Employ the latest technology solutions to streamline processes, ensure accuracy, and provide efficient support and information to employees and leaders.

Creating a job architecture will help you organize and define jobs within your organization. It will help to standardize titles, provide role clarification for accurate market benchmarking, and highlight clear career paths for your employees, motivating them to remain within the company.

Step 3: Perform a market analysis

Your market analysis goal is to understand how your pay program compares in the marketplace where you compete for talent from the perspective of base pay, incentives, and additional clinical pay practices.

Dive into data based on your organization’s different locations, the varying roles within your organization, and clinical pay practices utilized at your organization.

By segmenting your workforce and appropriately interpreting market data based on your compensation philosophy, you can prioritize the segments that are most important to your organization’s success or the groups that are hardest to fill and retain.

Step 4: Communicate transparently

Communicate any changes as you turn those market insights into new pay systems. Transparency builds trust with your current employees, encouraging them to remain loyal to the organization. It also attracts new talent by demonstrating that you offer a competitive rewards package.

As you communicate the impact, explain the reasoning behind the changes to help your employees support the transition. An employee portal can connect employees with all their pay information. The portal can contain resources for learning about rewards, understanding how pay is determined, and identifying potential career paths for employees looking to grow.

Step 5: Continually monitor and evaluate

It is important to continuously review and monitor compensation, employee listening, and turnover analytics. They keep you market competitive, help you identify your strengths and opportunities, and inform you of what your employees need in order to stay engaged and motivated.

In addition to studying third-party research, regularly send out employee engagement surveys and host focus groups to connect with your employees and learn what they need. Understand drivers of turnover and how you can mitigate your employee’s pain points to improve retention.

Ensure your future success

Don’t leave your future up to chance. Use data and market analytics to understand where your investments will have the most significant impact. Our data and healthcare compensation consulting services can help you attract and retain top talent by aligning your compensation strategies within your organization and to peers within your industry.

Discover healthcare compensation solutions to prepare you for the future.

Learn more by emailing Mercer or calling us at 1-855-286-5302.

About the Authors

Aaron Moore, Partner

Aaron is a Partner in Mercer’s Career business, based in Boston. He specializes in executive and broad workforce compensation and is a member of Mercer’s Health Care Industry Vertical Team. Aaron has been with Mercer for 16 years.

Megan McKinnon, Senior Principal

Megan is a Senior Principal with Mercer’s Atlanta Career team. She advises clients on a variety of talent and rewards topics. Megan joined Mercer with over 20 years of HR executive experience primarily in large healthcare systems.