PEO
Gen Z Healthcare Workers Want Careers, Not Just Jobs, and Many Are Willing to Leave to Find Them
By Anthony Beck, . Insurance Wire.
The reputation of Gen Z workers as frequent job hoppers may have less to do with loyalty and more to do with whether they see a future with their current employer.
Survey data reported by HRO Today shows that 70% of Gen Z healthcare workers plan to explore a new job within the next year. At the same time, 65% expect to stay with one employer for five years or longer, while 95% said long-term job security is important to them.
The numbers point to a clear tension: Gen Z workers appear to value stability, but they are also willing to move when they do not see a path forward.
Career development stood out as a major factor. According to the survey, 89% of Gen Z respondents said clear opportunities for advancement are important when evaluating a job, while 86% view education and skill development as a path to professional growth.
Adele Webb, a healthcare workforce advisor for Workforce Edge, told HRO Today that younger healthcare workers are willing to leave when employers do not support their career trajectory. She also pointed to learning and advancement opportunities as an important part of retaining this generation of workers.
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What This Means for PEO Clients
For employers using a Professional Employer Organization, the distinction between the PEO's role and the employer's role is important.
A PEO can provide much of the infrastructure surrounding the workforce, including payroll, benefits administration, HR support, compliance resources and other employment-related services. But the client employer still controls the employee's actual career experience, including management, training, advancement opportunities, compensation decisions and the day-to-day workplace.
That means a strong PEO relationship alone will not solve a retention problem caused by employees feeling they have nowhere to go within the company.
For healthcare employers in particular, turnover can create costs well beyond recruiting and onboarding. Losing experienced employees can also affect staffing levels, productivity and continuity of operations.
The survey does not establish whether healthcare employers are failing to provide advancement opportunities or whether those opportunities already exist but are not being clearly communicated to younger employees.
Those are two very different problems.
If advancement opportunities do not exist, employers may need to consider more structured training, education or internal career paths. If those opportunities already exist, the issue may be communication and visibility rather than the programs themselves.
The findings should also be viewed within the context of healthcare. Licensing requirements, ongoing labor shortages and the ability of many healthcare professionals to move between employers can give workers more mobility than employees in other industries. The results should not automatically be assumed to apply equally to industries such as manufacturing, construction or logistics.
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What to Watch
Career development may become a larger part of the PEO value proposition, particularly in industries struggling with employee retention.
Tuition assistance, professional credentialing, learning platforms and other workforce-development tools have traditionally sat outside the core PEO offering of payroll, benefits, HR and workers' compensation. As employers place more emphasis on retention, PEOs may have an opportunity to make these resources a more visible part of their service model.
For healthcare employers, the survey points to a practical issue: younger workers may want long-term employment, but they also want to understand what opportunities exist for them to advance within the organization.
Source: https://www.hrotoday.com/news/ticker/combating-gen-zs-job-hopping/
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