DATIS HR Cloud is an HR & Payroll software
company. Our fully unified solution is based
around Position Control and was built to
meet the unique, complex needs of the
nonprofit sector. With over 20 years of
experience with Health and Human Services
and nonprofit organizations, our software
has empowered hundreds of organizations
around the country to control their costs,
maximize their budgets, and better achieve
their mission.
We asked. Executives Answered.
DATIS surveyed over 425 executives in the Health and Human Services industry to build their
second annual State of Workforce Management report. The responses from participants from
hundreds of organizations helped identify top industry trends and strategies for success in this
ever-evolving industry.
RESPONDENT
DEMOGRAPHICS
The majority of respondents
represented nonprofit Health and
Human Services organizations,
with titles ranging from CEO to HR
and Finance executives.
TOP EXECUTIVE PRIORITIES
1. Increasing Employee Engagement and Satisfaction
2. Recruiting and Retaining Top Talent
3. Maintaining Regulatory Compliance
4. Encouraging Cross-Departmental Collaboration
5. Investing in Digital Tools and Strategies
6. Talent Management
7. Building a Diverse Workforce
DEEP DIVE: TOP 3 PRIORITIES
1. Employee Engagement & Satisfaction
2. Recruiting & Retention
3. Regulatory Compliance
EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT &
SATISFACTION
• Engaged employees are emotionally invested in their work and tend to stay
at their organizations longer
• The majority of executives understand the value of employee engagement,
and make a conscious effort to increase it
• Many executives don’t have an updated employee engagement plan
ONLY 34% OF ORGANIZATIONS HAVE AN
UPDATED EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT PLAN
RECRUITING & RETENTION
• Growth fueled by an increase in demand for services
• Organizations struggle to offer competitive salaries and benefits
• High turnover is forcing executives to constantly replace employees and rely
heavily on their recruiting strategies
53% of executives report that their
inability to offer competitive salary and
benefits is their biggest recruiting
challenge, while 33% blame a lack of
qualified applicants.
Only 22% of executives believe their
ability to attract top talent is ‘Excellent’
or ‘Very Good’
REGULATORY COMPLIANCE
• Regulatory compliance is crucial for Health and Human Services
organizations
• Today’s executives struggle to keep up with changing rules and regulations
that impact their organization
• Most organizations experienced compliance issues last year
MORE THAN ONE IN FOUR HUMAN
SERVICES EXECUTIVES STRUGGLE TO
KEEP UP WITH THE LATEST RULES AND
REGULATIONS
78% OF ORGANIZATIONS EXPERIENCED
COMPLIANCE ISSUES IN 2017
ONLY 19% OF EXECUTIVES ARE
SATISFIED WITH THE CURRENT DIGITAL
TOOLS IMPLEMENTED THROUGHOUT
THEIR ORGANZIATION
82% OF EXECUTIVES ARE INCREASING
THEIR INVESTMENT IN DIGITAL TOOLS
AND STRATEGIES IN 2018
TODAY’S HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES WORKFORCE IS MADE UP OF FIVE DISTINCT
GENERATIONS
66% OF ORGANIZATIONS CURRENTLY
STRUGGLE COMMUNICATING BETWEEN
DEPARTMENTS
44% OF ORGANIZATIONS RELY ON 3+
INTERNAL SYSTEMS TO HANDLE THEIR
INTERNAL PROCESSES
LOOKING AHEAD
• With high turnover and recruiting struggles, organizations will need to
formulate strong recruiting strategies to build their workforces
• With higher workforce management budgets, executives must invest in tools
and systems that work specifically for their organization
• As maintaining regulatory compliance continues to be a big priority for Health
and Human Services executives, they’ll need to be smarter about staying on
top of changing rules and regulations.
METHODOLOGY AND
DISCLAIMER
DATIS fielded a national online survey throughout December 2017. The
responses were sourced via email invitations, blog promotion, and social
sharing. A limited number of small incentives were offered to qualified
respondents in the form of gift cards. Qualified participants included executive
leaders of mid-market organizations.
Welcome to our Lunch and Learn. I hope all of you are enjoying the conference so far and I appreciate you taking time to enjoy lunch with us and learn about DATIS and our recently released 2018 State of Workforce Management report. Throughout this presentation we’ll be analyzing some of the reports key statistics, and discussing ways in which you improve your organization in 2018 to better prepare your workforce for today’s challenges. But first, I’d like quickly talk about DATIS and what we do.
So very briefly, DATIS is an HR and Payroll software that’s built a solution specifically for Health and Human Services organizations. Some of our clients are actually in this room right now. Using position control as its foundation, our software helps these organizations control their costs, maximize their budgets, and manage their workforce. If you have any questions about our software, please don’t hesitate to talk to myself or another member of the DATIS team.
In December of 2017, we surveyed over 400 executives from the Health and Human Services industry regarding their priorities, goals, and challenges for 2018. We touched on topics like recruiting, employee engagement, compliance, and more.
Most respondents represented executives in the nonprofit Health and Human Services industry. Respondents held titles such as CEO, CFO and HR executive.
More than half of respondents described their current business stage as “rapid” or “steady” growth. This shows that the majority of these organizations are experiencing growth. In fact, only 2% of respondents reported being in a decline stage.
To begin the survey, we asked respondents to identify their top priorities for the year ahead. We provided them with a list of seven priorities to choose from, which we handpicked based on our research, expert opinions, and industry trends.
Here were how executives responded. Increasing employee engagement, recruiting and retaining top talent, and maintaining regulatory compliance were the top three priorities selected by executives.
We will be diving deeper into these top three priorities throughout this presentation. I found it interesting that these results changed from our 2017 trend report, with Regulatory Compliance becoming a greater priority in 2018, replacing the Drive Towards Digital.
We’ll start off by talking about Employee Engagement, which is the top priority for executives Health and Human Services industry. Employee Engagement is the trending topic---especially in the Health and Human Services industry where we deal with such a high turnover rate. All of us in this room want an engaged workforce. When employees are engaged, they work harder, they’re happier, and they stay at their organization longer. While many of us are making conscious efforts to increase engagement, our research shows that many Health and Human Services executives lack an updated employee engagement plan.
Like I just mentioned. 91% of executives believe their organization is making a conscious effort to engage employees. According to Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), “Not only does engagement have the potential to significantly affect employee retention, productivity, and loyalty, but it is also a key link to customer satisfaction, company reputation and overall stakeholder value. Increasingly, organizations are turning to HR to set the agenda for employee engagement and commitment in order to establish a competitive advantage”.
A further 94% believe their workforce is actively emotionally invested in their work. Emotional investment is a key component of employee engagement, and it’s a good sign that so many executives believe this is the case with their employees. It goes to show that your staff is in this industry for the right reasons and are focused on your mission and providing quality care to your communities.
With all that said, only 34% of these organizations have updated employee engagement plans. 37% of organizations don’t have an employee engagement plan all together. In 2018, it’s important for Health and Human Services executives to formulate plans and strategies to increase engagement to ensure that efforts are not misguided. A successful employee engagement plan:
-Sets a clear, compelling direction that empowers each employee.
-Promotes open and honest communication.
-Maintains a focus on career growth and development.
-Recognizes and rewards high performance.
-Provides employee benefits that demonstrate a strong commitment to employee well-being
The second biggest priority for Health and Human services executives in 2018 is recruiting and retention. With the aging population, the opioid crisis, and mental health gaining social, cultural, and political attention, organizations are experiencing a big increase in demand for their services. To combat this and maintain high quality care, executives are strengthening their workforce through recruiting. Unfortunately, many of these organizations experience unique recruiting issues, and their high turnover rates are forcing them to replace employees and rely on outdated recruiting strategies.
Our 2018 State of Workforce Management report found that almost 90% of organizations are likely to increase their headcount in 2018.
This is a great plan, but unfortunately, executives don’t rate their organization’s ability to attract talent very highly. Only 22% believe their organization does a ‘Excellent’ or ‘Very Good’ job at attracting talent. In fact, more executives believe their organization does a ‘Poor’ job than ‘Excellent.’ When asked about their recruiting strategies, more than half pointed towards their inability to offer competitive salaries and benefits, while a third blamed a lack of qualified applicants. With these statistics in mind, executives are having to find innovative ways to persuade applicants to join their organization.
On top of these challenges, organizations are also facing high turnover rates. As we know, the Health and Human Services industry has been plagues with high turnover for quite some time. Our survey found that 42% organizations within the industry are experiencing a turnover of over 20%.
The last priority we will dive into before discussing other key findings is regulatory compliance. Changes in rules and regulations impacting Health and Human Services organizations keep executives on their toes, and they contribute to their constantly changing landscape. We found, as you'll soon see, that many executives are really struggling in this area.
Keeping up with policy changes is crucial for everyone in this room. Unfortunately, more than one in four of respondents are struggling to keep up with these changes. Even more alarmingly, 78% of Health and Human Services executives experienced compliance issues in 2017.
With ¾ of organizations experiencing compliance issue last year, it is concerning that the vast majority of executives still believe they have adequate tools in place to ensure compliance. This shows that either their tools aren’t as effective as they think they are, or they’re simply unaware of more efficient tools out there.
Now that we’ve gotten a better look at the top three priorities for 2018, let’s take a look at some of the other significant findings from the survey.
Throughout the survey, we touched on technology and digital tools, such as software and web-based services. Alarmingly, we found that only 19% are currently satisfied with the tools embedded throughout their organization. This is likely why 82% of executives plan to increase their investment in digital tools and strategies in 2018. As executives look for tools that will satisfy their needs, it’s crucial to find vendors that truly understand those needs.
We then took at look at the generational landscape of the Health and Human Services industry. The focus in recent years has been on millennials and their impact on the organization. We found that today’s Health and Human Services workforce is made up of five distinct generations. Executives will have to adjust their workforce management strategies in order to motivate, incentive, and get the most out of each generation.
Lastly, we found that most organizations are experiencing trouble communicating internally. 2/3rds of respondents admitted struggling to communicate between departments. This is likely due to the amount of systems these organizations have implemented. Almost half of Health and Human Services organizations have 3 or more systems to handle their internal processes. For organizations to truly experience seamless, uninterrupted internal communication, they’ll need to invest in a unified system that puts all departments, data, and employees on an equal playing field.
Looking forward into 2018, with recruiting and turnover struggles, organizations will have to reevaluate their strategies to improve their quality of applicants and employee retention rates. As executives plan to increase their investments across the board when it comes to workforce management, they’ll need to collaborate and discover vendors that understand their needs and challenges. As compliance to be a top priority for executives, they’ll need to do a better job at staying on top of changing regulations impacting their organizations. Investing in software that automates compliance and manages credentials will be important for executives struggling with this issue.