So, today was the third of four employee retention committee meetings for our umbrella corporation. Yep, I am the Heart Center Nursing representative. Huge issues...huge responsibility to speak for so many... major league stressful. Especially because there is so little faith in our leadership.

First meeting was about how our Corp makes/made HR decisions. Second was brainstorming and listing where we have issues. Third meeting was added so we could narrow 73 identified issues down to 10 (we narrowed to 14). Fourth will be fine tuning our position paper and deciding (if needed) on whether to narrow again from 14.

You see there are HUGE issues in healthcare admin now. Less and less reimbursement, diminishing HR pools for recruitment in key positions (nursing, pharmacy, etc), aging of the current workforce, significantly higher acuity and shorter patient stays. (So, if you know anyone in healthcare and have not done so, how bout tell them you appreciate them.)

Combine those factors with a merger three years ago of three separate hospitals into one. Financial and cultural losses and poor outcomes in attempts to truly merge.

Now we have "figured out" something has to be done to improve retention. (I resisted the impulse to add, "Stop pissing off the employees!") One of my most valued and valid points was that the business side of the corporation speaks in a language foreign to the caregiver side. Whatever we decide has to be translated and communicated in that language.

Got a nice compliment in that one of the HR VPs said he thought I should be in management as I had really good ideas and leadership qualities. (I did not say, "Well of course, I am after all a Pelican!") I told him I WAS in management, just not compensated for it in traditional ways!

Anyway for this XSFJ, it is really hard to try to champion justice to corporate leadership I do not trust. More of the internal conflicts in drives that I described two days ago. But today is an improvement...

I did not leave with a migraine, just a regular headache.

Longing for the weekend......