Stoughton Health believes strongly in investing in its people as we are a business of “people taking care of people.” As such, multiple strategies have been deployed to provide innovative investments in recruitment and retention.
Our workforce staffing models look significantly different now than pre-COVID due to the implementation of remote work and hybrid work schedules. At the beginning of the pandemic, we had to adapt quickly and shifted a number of our employees to a remote or hybrid work schedule. We now have 10 to 15% of our workforce working remote or a hybrid schedule. We have found that this has greatly supported our employees in achieving work/life balance.
Throughout the pandemic, the demands on our leadership team increased significantly. Our administrative team recognized this and needed to respond in a way that supported their own well-being and work/life balance. To support their work/life balance, we implemented flexible scheduling. Members of the leadership team can opt in to this work model where they work eight 9-hour shifts, one 8-hour shift and a “flex day,” or day off in a single pay period. This strategy has proven to be a job satisfier for our leadership team.
This year, we added a new role to Stoughton Health: Director of Engagement and Experience. This is a unique role, and in simplest terms, puts our people before our profits. We’ve shifted our staff engagement efforts to focus more on the individual. We believe that in order to meet our mission of providing "quality care and exceptional, personalized service,” we must first care for our individual well-being. Individual well-being is influenced by many external factors. Here at Stoughton Health, we adapted the Social Determinants of Health framework from the World Health Organization to measure our individual employees’ well-being. Social Determinants of Health are the conditions in the environment we’re surrounded by that affect our well-being and quality of life. We’ve adapted the framework to apply to the conditions within our control at Stoughton Health. Based on the data collected, our next steps are to identify and implement initiatives and programs to target our areas of opportunity. Our goal with this model is to make Stoughton Health a place that not only says we care about our employees’ well-being, but shows that we care through investments in programs and initiatives that support individual well-being.