New Study Finds Which Hospital Employees Are Most Satisfied With Their Jobs

March 15, 2011 - PRLog -- Chicago, IL – March 15, 2011 – HR Solutions, Inc. released the results today of a new study identifying the hospital employees who exhibit the highest and lowest Overall Job Satisfaction.  The highest-scoring department is Senior Management (i.e., Chief Executive Officer, Vice President and Director) who are nearly 26 percentage points more satisfied with their job than employees in the lowest-scoring department, Critical Intensive Care.  

The chart below depicts the five highest-scoring hospital departments.  

Hospital Department [Overall Job Satisfaction Percent Favorable Norm]
Senior Management (CEO, VP, Director) [87]
Hospice [84]
Human Resources [81]
Clinical Professional (Physical Therapist, Social Worker, etc.) [78]
Security [77]

In contrast, the chart below displays the five lowest-scoring hospital departments.

Hospital Department Overall Job Satisfaction Percent Favorable Norm
Medical-Surgical [67]
Food & Nutrition [65]
Neonatal Intensive Care Unit [65]
Medical-Surgical & Critical Care ED [64]
Critical Intensive Care [62]

The highest-scoring departments include employees who typically perform administrative functions as well as staff who have direct contact with patients.  Hospital employees within these high-scoring departments consider their organization to be a good place to work and would proudly recommend it to a friend or relative.  When HR Solutions last conducted the study in 2005, Hospice was not among the high-scoring departments.   Senior Management, Human Resources, IT, Finance Accounting, and CCU – CSI CU Cardiology were the highest-scoring departments in 2005.

Most departments that scored the lowest on the Overall Job Satisfaction dimension include employees who work long hours, perform risky procedures, and spend the majority of their workday caring for patients in critical condition.  As a result, such exhaustion, stress and emotional trauma can be factors that negatively affect job satisfaction.  Employees in the three lowest-scoring departments (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Medical-Surgical & Critical Care ED, and Critical Intensive Care) never see a direct reward for their time and effort because their patients either die or get transferred to another unit.

“Regardless of department, each hospital employee plays a critical role in ensuring the overall patient experience is a positive one,” said Chris Dustin, Executive Vice President of Consulting at HR Solutions.  “Hospitals should be regularly monitoring Overall Job Satisfaction/Employee Engagement levels to uncover the lowest-scoring departments and implement action plans that will increase Satisfaction/Engagement within those departments.”      

The study analyzed multi-year data from HR Solutions’ Healthcare Normative Database, which includes survey responses from more than 540,000 employees at over 525 organizations.

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About HR Solutions, Inc.
HR Solutions is a Chicago-based International Human Capital Management Consulting Firm specializing in Physician Engagement, Employee Engagement and Exit Survey design, implementation, analysis and results. For more information, please visit http://www.hrsolutionsinc.com.

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