Three Ways Your Parking Provider Can Enhance Employee Retention in Healthcare
April 22, 2021
Employee retention in the healthcare industry has been an ongoing topic of conversation for years. But let’s face it: We still don’t know the key to solving this problem because there’s no one-size-fits-all solution.
To reduce burnout, improve employee morale, and decrease turnover rates, no aspect of the employee experience can be overlooked. Considering that the 2021 Nursing Solutions, Inc. (NSI) Retention Report says the average hospital has turned over 89% of its workforce since 2015, there’s no time to lose.
High turnover rates are likely costing your hospital millions of dollars each year and the average three-month hiring period results in understaffed teams that put the patient experience at risk.
With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, these circumstances became even more glaring. The influx of patients and extra work hours increased the chance of your staff quickly barreling toward burnout.
We know you’ve contemplated and implemented initiatives to counteract the seemingly unending challenges to employee retention in healthcare. But one key area of the employee experience could be getting overlooked – parking management.
In this post, we’ll share three ways the right parking provider can help you improve employee retention at your healthcare facility.
Why is Parking Management Important for Employee Retention?
Parking management is important for employee retention in healthcare because your staff’s workday begins and ends with their transportation experience. Streamlining and simplifying their arrival and departure, as well as their commute from the parking garage to the hospital building, can significantly contribute to their satisfaction or frustration with the workday.
After all, you don’t want your employees’ days to get off to a bad start before they even step foot in the building.
And, considering that NSI’s report found that issues with commutes fell within the top 10 reasons why employees resign, you want to do your part to improve their experience. You may not have control over the morning traffic jam, but you can ease their experience once they reach the premises.
But that requires selecting a parking provider with the ability to provide wide-ranging services to round out the employee experience, both in the garage and in the building.
Three Ways Your Parking Provider Can Improve Employee Retention
Implement License Plate Recognition (LPR) Technology
The right technology within your parking operation can make all the difference for employees who utilize these services day in and day out.
Consider what your average employee’s parking experience looks like:
- Do they stall at the gate to get or submit a ticket?
- Do they pay monthly or annually for a hang tag or parking sticker?
While these things may seem inconsequential, the time and effort they require of your employees can add up.
With License Plate Recognition (LPR) technology, you can remove the hassle. Streamlining and simplifying the entry and exit processes, it minimizes dwell time at gates and gets your employees in and out of your facility as quickly and effortlessly as possible.
Less dwell time also means you’re helping to reduce emissions, contributing to fuel-efficient commutes and fewer gas station trips for your employees.
In addition to the employee-facing benefits, LPR provides you with vital traffic data that can inform your strategies going forward. Gaining insight into employee arrival and departure trends and traffic patterns can help in the process of setting schedules for employees, giving you the opportunity to cut down on traffic in your garage at peak times and positively impact your employees’ experiences.
LPR also removes concern about where employees park. It helps ensure they stay in their designated areas and don’t take up valuable patient spots. By guaranteeing patients can easily park and enter your facility, you’re contributing to overall patient satisfaction with their experience.
Provide Premier Shuttle Services
Considering the influence employees’ commutes can have on their overall career satisfaction, you stand to benefit from simplifying their arrival and departure even further.
When calculating their commute times, your staff must take into account the time it takes them to get into your parking facility, locate a spot, and make their way into the building. This can prove stressful and unpredictable, leading to potential dissatisfaction.
With a parking provider that employs shuttles on your campus, you can help ease the morning commute for your employees, eliminating their hunt for a parking space and providing them with door-to-door service.
While keeping them out of the elements, you’re also providing them with valuable time to decompress before and after work – a luxury they otherwise wouldn’t have. Investing in the employee experience like this shows your staff that you care about their well being and are eager to support them in the life-saving work they do.
Propark Mobility recognizes this and strives to elevate your employees’ shuttle commutes with the latest strategies and technology.
To start, we develop an efficient and reliable transportation program for you by analyzing your market, available routes at your facility, and your riders’ habits. By identifying peak demand windows, we create the best schedule for your location.
Additionally, our shuttles are outfitted with GPS to ensure drivers use the quickest routes and keep the commute as short as possible. Equipping the shuttles with WiFi, we also create a comfortable environment for your staff, giving them the ability to either multitask or decompress along the ride.
Learn more about Propark’s shuttle services.
Outsource Roles Like Patient Sitters
When selecting a vendor, it’s also important to consider the support services they can provide outside of your lot or garage.
For example, staff from this third-party company can take on roles that would otherwise fall on your busy staff, like a patient sitter.
By relieving your healthcare employees of this particular job, a provider like Propark can reduce the workload for your nursing and security staff, freeing them up to focus on their areas of expertise.
Since appropriate staffing is linked to the overall health of the work environment – impacting everything from nurse performance and retention to patient outcomes – this can prove integral to your operation.
The nursing vacancy rate remains concerning at 9.0% and COVID-19 added further strain to the healthcare workforce, greatly impacting the nurse-to-patient ratio. Outsourcing positions like patient sitters keeps nurses free to dedicate their time where it’s needed most – the patients. Not to mention, relieving your staff of this responsibility also means you can remove the position from your payroll, ultimately decreasing hiring costs for the hospital.
When strategizing solutions for the employee retention crisis in the healthcare industry, consider the role parking management plays in your staff’s day-to-day lives. With changes like the implementation of License Plate Recognition, well-equipped shuttle services, and outsourced positions extending beyond the garage, such as patient sitters, your parking provider can make a marked impact on employee retention rates.
To learn more about Propark’s parking management services within the healthcare industry, fill out the form below.