Low and inside: reducing staff turnover
May 2019—When Monica Rocheford and colleagues at Allina Health Laboratory first began digging into rising turnover rates at various locales within the system, the effort carried a whiff of concern, if not urgency. One hospital site had jumped from a 10.8 percent turnover rate in 2016 to 44.9 percent two years later. At another site, turnover reached 49 percent in 2018, from 24 percent the year before. The culprit appeared to be a three-letter word: pay. “That was the main reason they were giving us for their resignation,” says Rocheford, system director, laboratory operations, recalling the exit interviews with departing staff. So in 2018, Allina, with nearly 1,000 lab employees (spread across 12 hospitals, a core lab, and roughly 60 clinics in Minnesota and western Wisconsin), awarded a technical increase across the board.