The beginning of 2026 presents healthcare employers with both significant challenges and valuable opportunities to strengthen their organisations. With burnout, vacancies, and administrative burden remaining top concerns for healthcare leaders, now is the time for strategic preparation. A recent Harris Poll revealed that 55% of healthcare employees intend to search for, interview for, or switch jobs this year, underscoring the urgent need for proactive workforce strategies. By focusing on workforce planning, recruitment efficiency, employee retention, onboarding excellence, and compliance readiness, healthcare employers can position themselves for sustained success throughout the year.
Strategic Workforce Planning Essentials
Workforce planning has become a core executive function for modern healthcare employers, as forward-thinking organisations align staffing models, technology investments, and care-delivery innovations around long-term strategy rather than short-term fixes. The healthcare employer must now approach workforce planning with the same rigour applied to financial and operational planning.
Healthcare employers should assess patient volumes and acuity trends by analysing which departments are seeing consistent surges, as higher-acuity patients often require more specialised staff. Demand for care continues to grow faster than the available workforce, especially in healthcare support roles that keep daily operations running smoothly. This data-driven approach allows the healthcare employer to anticipate staffing needs rather than react to shortages.
The healthcare employer should implement AI-powered demand forecasting to predict patient volumes by analysing historical trends and real-time inputs. Organisations should establish robust data governance frameworks, standardising data inputs, regularly validating model outputs, and involving cross-functional teams to interpret forecasts in the context of operational realities.
Beyond demand forecasting, healthcare employers must review retirement risk, turnover patterns, and hard-to-fill roles 12 to 24 months in advance to help identify vulnerabilities early, giving leaders time to explore options such as cross-training, flexible staffing, or phased hiring. Monitoring turnover rates by department and age demographics helps forecast retirement waves, allowing the healthcare employer to develop succession plans and knowledge transfer programmes before critical expertise leaves the organisation.
Accelerating Recruitment and Reducing Time-To-Hire
Time-to-hire has emerged as a critical metric for the healthcare employer seeking a competitive advantage. A study found that 2024 saw the lowest average time to fill a position in five years at 37 days, yet 57% of healthcare hiring leaders still reported increases in time-to-hire, highlighting persistent inefficiencies. For the healthcare employer, every day a position remains unfilled translates to increased burden on existing staff, potential burnout, and compromised patient care quality.
Healthcare organisations integrating AI-powered recruitment tools report faster time-to-hire metrics and improved candidate quality, with 78% of healthcare organisations now using these technologies. The healthcare employer should prioritise investment in modern applicant tracking systems and AI-powered recruitment tools that streamline the entire hiring process, posting jobs across hundreds of job boards simultaneously and identifying top performers quickly.
Speed matters significantly in today’s competitive market. A lack of qualified candidates topped the list of challenges at 47%, followed closely by untrained or underprepared interviewers at 44% and frequent interview cancellations at 41%. The healthcare employer must establish rapid response protocols that acknowledge applications immediately and move qualified candidates through the interview process swiftly. Organisations that can make offers within days rather than weeks capture the best talent before competitors do.
The healthcare employer should streamline the hiring process by reducing the time to hire, keeping candidates fully informed throughout the process, and using skills-based assessments to screen out unqualified applicants. Removing unnecessary steps, optimising mobile application experiences, and streamlining interview rounds all contribute to faster, more efficient hiring.
Building Effective Retention Strategies
Employee retention has become increasingly critical as 55% of healthcare employees said they intend to search for, interview for, or switch jobs this year, with 84% reporting feeling underappreciated by their current employer. This revolving door of talent costs the healthcare employer significantly in both financial resources and organisational stability.
The turnover rate for healthcare professionals rose to 45% and is expected to remain at similar levels, with costs ranging from significant recruitment expenses to lost productivity and decreased team morale. Considering the average turnover rate amongst registered nurses in hospitals is 16.4% and the average annual salary is $80,010, an organisation employing 25 RNs would spend more than a quarter of a million dollars annually on turnover alone.
The healthcare employer must implement comprehensive retention strategies that address root causes of turnover. Workers report being short-staffed 43% of the time, and 80% of healthcare workers say existing wellbeing solutions are ineffective, often because staffing constraints prevent participation or programmes don’t address the root causes of burnout. Creating a culture of respect, collaboration, and support helps healthcare professionals feel valued and engaged in their work, whilst offering fair wages, comprehensive healthcare coverage, and other incentives attracts and retains top talent.
More than 60% of healthcare workers said they would be more likely to stay with their current employer if tuition assistance or educational support were available, with Gen Z and Millennials most likely to express interest in leaving their current jobs but also most likely to stay if provided with opportunities for continuing education, skill development, and career advancement. The healthcare employer that provides these benefits positions itself as an employer of choice in an increasingly competitive market.
Transforming Onboarding Programmes
Exceptional onboarding represents a critical investment for the healthcare employer seeking to improve retention from day one. Research shows that individuals who do not go through a formalised onboarding process leave their jobs at an 80 per cent rate, whilst those who go through a full and engaged onboarding process reduce this to less than 8 per cent. This dramatic difference demonstrates the substantial impact of structured onboarding on workforce stability.
The healthcare employer should view onboarding as a comprehensive 90-day journey rather than a single-day orientation. Effective clinical orientation typically spans 90 days, with intensive activity in the first 30 days, allowing for proper skill development, compliance training, and cultural integration whilst ensuring patient safety. This extended timeline gives new hires adequate opportunity to develop competence and confidence in their roles.
Technology plays an essential role in modern onboarding for the healthcare employer, as healthcare-specific learning management systems enable organisations to provide training before the first day, reducing anxiety and accelerating productivity. Some organisations offer virtual new hire orientation where employees complete training and policy acknowledgements from home, making the healthcare employer’s onboarding process smoother and more efficient.
The healthcare employer should also focus on cultural integration and connection-building during onboarding. The five Cs of onboarding include culture, connection, clarification, compliance, and confidence. Each element contributes to helping new employees feel welcomed, understand their roles, build relationships with colleagues, meet regulatory requirements, and develop confidence in their abilities.
Maintaining Compliance and Training Excellence
Regulatory compliance remains non-negotiable for the healthcare employer, and comprehensive training programmes form the backbone of any effective compliance strategy. The Office of Inspector General has significantly expanded its expectations for healthcare compliance training programmes, moving beyond simple annual training requirements. The healthcare employer must now implement more sophisticated, ongoing education that addresses multiple regulatory domains simultaneously.
HIPAA training requirements mandate that covered entities train all members of their workforce on policies and procedures as necessary and appropriate for members to carry out their functions. For the healthcare employer, this means providing comprehensive HIPAA training to new employees within a reasonable timeframe and ensuring all staff receive updates when material changes occur to policies, procedures, or regulations. Best practise involves providing annual HIPAA training to maintain awareness and prevent compliance shortcuts.
The healthcare employer must also address emerging compliance challenges, particularly around technology. New criteria for prosecutors include determining whether organisations are identifying, assessing, and managing risks associated with emerging technology, specifically including AI. 60% of healthcare organisations already use AI, mostly in support roles like clinical note-taking, automated charting, and patient education to help reduce administrative burden. This requires the healthcare employer to conduct risk assessments regarding technology use and take appropriate steps to mitigate associated risks.
Beyond HIPAA, the healthcare employer should implement comprehensive training covering multiple regulatory areas, including OSHA requirements, fraud and abuse laws, the False Claims Act, anti-kickback statutes, and cybersecurity protocols. Effective compliance training programmes move beyond passive learning experiences through interactive courses that engage employees with real-world scenarios, case studies, and practical applications to ensure better knowledge retention and behavioural change.
As healthcare employers navigate 2026, success depends on strategic action across multiple domains. By implementing robust workforce planning processes, accelerating recruitment timelines, strengthening retention initiatives, enhancing onboarding experiences, and maintaining rigorous compliance training, the healthcare employer positions itself for sustainable success. These interconnected strategies work together to create an organisation where talent is attracted, developed, and retained, ultimately benefiting patients, staff, and the entire healthcare system. The healthcare employer that commits to excellence in these areas will find itself well-equipped to navigate the challenges and seize the opportunities that lie ahead this year.
