The ‘Indeed Nurse’ talks about what healthcare workers are seeking

Indeed, the company known for helping people find new jobs, has taken a growing interest in healthcare, as Travis Moore can attest.

Travis Moore of Indeed says healthcare workers are concerned about salary and benefits as they seek new jobs. But they also are focused on work-life balance, flexible scheduling, and working at organizations with appropriate staffing.

Moore is director of Indeed’s healthcare category, but he’s probably better known as the “Indeed Nurse.” He joined Indeed nearly two years ago, and he says the company is focused on connecting more with healthcare workers and employers.

“It's an area that Indeed is really doubling down and investing in our healthcare workers right now as well,” Moore tells Chief Healthcare Executive®. “So it was part of that big draw, to really bring my expertise, both as a registered nurse working at the bedside, as a manager, a hiring manager working on that side.”

As part of that focus, Indeed is aiming to give workers looking for new roles more tools in finding the right position in the healthcare industry.

“We're looking at ways that we can help job seekers envision themselves in healthcare roles, give them information to be able to do things like negotiate their salary, or understand what other options are out there,” he says.

Moore spoke with Chief Healthcare Executive® in a recent interview to talk about the changes in the healthcare industry. Healthcare workers are looking at employers closely and aren’t budging on some priorities. Conversely, healthcare organizations are employing different strategies to recruit workers, and Moore says that’s by necessity.

With many hospitals and providers still dealing with staffing shortages, Moore says job seekers have the advantage, and they know it.

“When you look at any kind of supply and demand market, where there's limited supply and high demand, the power is resting on the side of the supply,” Moore says. “So in this case, there's way more jobs than we have job seekers to fill these roles. So therefore, the job seekers are the ones that have more of an opportunity to be able to pick and choose these opportunities.”

• Read more: Hospital workers and well-being: ‘It’s a problem in our industry and it’s ours to fix’

Vetting employers

Indeed recently released a report, “The Pulse of Healthcare 2024,” which included survey responses of healthcare workers and job seekers.

Three-quarters of those surveyed said they intend to remain in the healthcare industry, with only 9% saying they felt dissatisfied with the industry. Only about 3% indicated they definitely wanted to leave the healthcare industry. Moore described that sentiment as the most positive finding from the survey.

“It was quite disturbing, when we saw those reports a couple years ago, they were saying that healthcare workers were leaving in droves. And now they're coming back,” he says.

Even though many want to stay in healthcare, a significant number of workers are battling burnout. About one-third of respondents of Indeed’s survey say they are suffering at least one symptom of burnout.

• Read more: Physician burnout rate drops, but it’s still ‘unacceptably high’

“The biggest one was feeling exhausted, or having energy depletion … and then feeling that increased distance, mental distance from their job, feeling cynical or negative towards their job, and then just feeling like they're not able to perform at the level that they want to,” Moore says.

Moore says healthcare workers, especially nurses, will leave jobs and look for positions where they can work to their capabilities and keep patients safe.

“What I hear from a lot of nurses is, ‘I'm just not able to be the nurse that I want to be, I'm not able to deliver the kind of care that I want to be able to deliver,’” Moore says. “And it's a big thing, when nurses specifically and other healthcare workers are looking for their next job, because that's the kind of environment they're trying to get out of,” he adds. “They don't want to be burned out anymore. They want to care for their patients, they want to be in an environment where they have enough staffing, but they're paid adequately.”

Workers who are looking to leave a stressful work environment are being very careful in assessing the work culture of other employers as they look for new positions.

As Moore says, “They're going to be really vetting these new employers to really understand, what are you guys doing differently? What are your staffing ratios looking like? What are your mental health benefits? How do you have access to them? How do you create a flexible working environment?”

Employers are underestimating the importance of appropriate staffing to workers and job seekers, Moore says. The Indeed survey found half of workers (50%) said appropriate staffing was an important factor in their job search, compared to 20% of employers.

• Read more: Reducing burnout: Focus on fixing the workplace, not the worker

What workers want

Healthcare workers cite compensation as their top consideration in seeking new positions. Seven of 10 respondents (70%) in Indeed’s survey said salary ranked as the most important factor in their job search.

Organizations need to offer compensation packages that are in line with competitors in their market.

“That's going to be kind of a non-starter if you're paying below market value for these healthcare workers,” Moore says.

Healthcare professionals are also very focused on having some work-life balance, Moore says.

“When we asked job seekers what was most important when they consider their next role, outside of benefits and salary, flexibility, and that work-life balance piece continues to come in,” Moore says.

“Healthcare workers are kind of flipping the narrative a little bit,” he says. “We're no longer trying to fit our life around work. And we're really trying to figure out how we can fit work into our everyday life.”

More healthcare organizations are recognizing the importance of work-life balance to their staff, but there continues to be a significant gap in perceptions among employers and workers. Nearly half of employers (48%) said work-life balance was an important factor in job searches, but more than three out of four workers (78%) said it was a high priority.

What employers are doing

Healthcare organizations are employing different strategies to attract workers, Moore says.

More hospitals and health systems are offering more flexibility in scheduling, he says. Some organizations are offering shorter shifts - four hours and even two hours - to help cover shifts, he says.

“To be honest, every employer that I talked to, is just like, ‘What can we do to be more flexible? How can we really focus on keeping our talent, taking care of our teams?’”

More health systems are utilizing tech-enabled scheduling systems to allow staff to look at available shifts, pick up shifts or trade shifts with other workers, he says.

Some healthcare organizations are also much more open to allowing employees to work remotely. More job seekers are asking about remote work, and healthcare organizations are increasingly receptive, he says.

More generally, Moore says that employers are trying to find ways to be creative and adjusting jobs to fit the needs of their workers.

“I think that is a much different way of thinking than we had several years ago in healthcare where it was like, ‘This is the job. These are the boundaries,’” Moore says. “Everything was much more cut and dry, black and white. And I think, gosh, the pandemic pulled healthcare way into the future when it comes to tech enablement and different ways of thinking.”