The winter months are infamous for their strain on health systems. Not only is it the height of cold and flu season, but weather-related injuries increase and many chronic conditions flare up. What’s more, holiday PTO often exacerbates the stresses of already short-staffed teams. It’s little wonder that the holidays are known for heightened employee turnover.

But if you’re starting to see early signs of churn, that doesn’t mean you’re too late to fix things. In fact, addressing the root causes of seasonal turnover not only helps you keep people on board, but it strengthens your workforce both for the holidays and the new year.

Key Takeaways

• Seasonal turnover isn’t caused by the holidays alone. Rather, it exposes deeper cultural and leadership issues within your health system. Addressing the root causes, not the symptoms, is the only way to strengthen retention over the long term.
• High-retention health systems focus on accountable leadership and ongoing employee engagement. These actions build trust, reduce burnout, and support a more resilient workforce during high-stress seasons.
• Expanding and stabilizing your workforce is essential to prevent overload and burnout. Strategic staffing support helps maintain safe ratios, protect patient care quality, and ease the burden on internal teams.

What Causes Seasonal Employee Turnover in Health Systems?

There’s no one cause for seasonal employee turnover in health systems. But most of the time, seasonal stressors exacerbate problems that already existed. For example, overworked staff that’s putting in significant overtime will lose even more morale when they’re told they can’t take time off over the holidays.

Whether in a health system or any kind of organization, burnout and churn don’t happen overnight. They’re the result of numerous problems that have gone unaddressed and have ballooned from small issues into major problems.

In fact, data from HSD Metrics shows that among 12 measured, controllable turnover causes, the top five reflect deeper problems in the workforce:

• Poor supervision and management, which makes healthcare workers feel unsupported in their day-to-day
• Unreasonable schedules and overtime hours that prompt workers to look for jobs that support better work-life balance
• Excessive job demands and high workloads, especially when workers feel like bogged down with admin tasks that take them away from patient care
• Lack of opportunity for advancement, especially when it comes to comp increases that reflect the labor required to do the job
• Not feeling recognized, appreciated, and respected both by leaders and their fellow workers

At its core, employee turnover (seasonal or otherwise) isn’t just a resignation problem. It’s a deeper cultural problem. Addressing root causes not only staves off resignations, but can also improve the working environment of your health system and, in turn, quality of care.

What High-Retention Health Systems Do Differently

Depending on which survey you read, most health systems lose between 10% and 20% of their workforce each year; for CNAs in New York, that number sits as high as 42%. Given that the majority of states are or soon will be experiencing a healthcare worker shortage, that churn has serious consequences for health systems: specifically, reducing ratios and hurting quality of care.

Fortunately, there are health systems out there (including ones we’ve worked with) that are doing things differently and building stronger, high-retention workforces. Here are some steps they’re taking to make it happen.

1. Start with an internal leadership audit

When employees start leaving en masse, it’s easy to point fingers and play the blame game: complaining about how people “couldn’t tough it out” or “left us all in a lurch.” We’re all guilty of this, because it’s easier to blame others than to look in the mirror and ask: Am I the problem?

Of course, it’s possible that a recent resignee was a bad fit or inconsiderate in how and when they left. But before making that assumption, leaders should first look at themselves and see how they may have contributed to recent resignations (remember: the number one reason people leave is due to poor leadership).

Although it can be uncomfortable, leaders should ask themselves:

• Have I clearly communicated expectations, goals, and roles to my team?
• Did I provide adequate support, resources, and training for employees to succeed?
• Was my leadership style conducive to fostering trust, collaboration, and engagement?
• Did I create or contribute to any avoidable stressors, such as micromanagement, unclear priorities, or inconsistent policies?
• How well did I facilitate work-life balance and accommodate employee needs?
• What changes can I make immediately to improve morale and retention going forward?

Note: We’ve put together a workforce retention checklist to help spot some of the red flags associated with pending resignations. Use it to figure out where your leadership style may be falling short.

2. Conduct proactive stay interviews

Stay interviews are one of those tactics that employers pull out when it’s obvious the relationship has gone off the rails. In a sense, it’s like going to marriage counseling when you’re on the verge of divorce: it can’t hurt, but it would’ve been better to start months or years earlier.

Using stay interviews as a routine and proactive employee engagement tool can be a great way to take stock of how your team is feeling at any given time. They can also provide insight into how your leadership is being received.

However, for stay interviews to function effectively, you have to foster a culture of psychological safety. People need to feel comfortable expressing opinions that may differ from your own. Otherwise, you’ll get skewed feedback that obscures the deeper problems in your health system’s culture.

If you’re not sure what to ask during these conversations, download our stay interview template for a starting point.

3. Tighten your onboarding process

When healthcare employees start resigning, the natural place to focus your energy on keeping those on the verge of leaving from taking that final step. However, most health system turnover happens among new hires, specifically those who have a tenure of less than one year. In fact, among RNs, turnover among first-year hires is more than double the average rate.

If you can help employees stay beyond one year, you dramatically improve their chances of staying with the organization. It seems counterintuitive, but focusing on onboarding, training, and integrating new employees into your culture can be a better way to keep people from leaving.

4. Expand your workforce

One of the core reasons why healthcare employees end up turning over is simple overwork. Numerous overtime shifts have a compounding effect on energy and morale, and one day the employee just decides they’ve had enough and moves on.

The solution to this problem is straightforward: expand your workforce.

Of course, simple problems are often the hardest to solve. The healthcare labor market in the Hudson Valley market is tight enough. Finding talent is a chore, and often just one more admin task on a to-do list that keeps expanding no matter what you do.

That’s where Ethan Allen Workforce Solutions can help. We strengthen healthcare workforces from every angle: filling critical staffing gaps, improving retention, and supporting compliance in a high-risk, high-demand environment.

If you’re ready to reduce burnout, stabilize staffing, and build a workforce that thrives long after the holiday rush, we’re here to help. Contact us today  to talk through your workforce challenges and explore a customized solution built for your health system.