Future-Proofing Physician Leaders

Proactive strategies to recruit, retain and develop future healthcare professionals.

Physician turnover rates saw a significant increase during the onset of COVID-19. According to a survey by CHG Health conducted between 2020 and 2022, 8 percent of physicians reported retiring, while 3 percent chose to leave clinical practice. However, a striking 43 percent of physicians made career moves within the field during this period. These shifts have had a profound impact on healthcare organizations, particularly with physician leaders also exiting, leaving substantial gaps that are challenging to fill in today’s competitive landscape.

To navigate these challenges successfully, organizations must proactively plan and implement robust recruitment strategies and leadership development programs, embracing the “grow your own” concept. It’s crucial to prepare now, especially with Generation Z physicians poised to become the next generation of leaders in health care.

Recruiting Gen Z physicians and preparing them to lead comes down to three basic areas of your recruitment and retention programs.

Before we break it down, let us understand what Gen Zers are all about.

According to Roberta Katz, a senior research scholar at Stanford’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, “Gen Z are not coddled, but are highly collaborative, self-reliant and pragmatic. Members of Generation Z, the first generation never to know the world without the internet, value diversity and finding their own unique identities, says Katz. This group — also known as Gen Z, iGen or postmillennial — is a highly collaborative cohort that cares deeply about others and has a pragmatic attitude about how to address a set of inherited issues like climate change.”

Strong Employer Brand

The first step in attracting Gen Z physicians is to develop a strong employer brand that resonates to their core. Use it to create your recruitment marketing collaterals and include the supporting detail to demonstrate this isn’t just a marketing campaign but part of the organizational culture.

Tech Savvy and Cutting-Edge Technology

• What does your organization have going on that can demonstrate this?
• How can you tie these endeavors back to better patient care and improved access?

Collaborative Environment

• Have you had any recent collaborations between departments you can point to?
• Any collaborations outside your organization on either the national, regional or community level?

Gen Z Embraces Change

• What can you point to that demonstrates an ongoing commitment to process improvement and look for better ways to get things done?

Wellness and Work-Life Balance

There’s been a lot of talk about burnout in health care in the news media as well as social media. How can you demonstrate your organization’s concern and commitment to physician well-being and wellness (and for all employees)?

• Do you have a Chief Wellness Officer? If so, what has been the result of their work?
• How can you show potential candidates that work-life balance is important to the organization?
• Does your organization effectively use locum tenens (temporary) physicians to fill in gaps left by departing doctors, instead of demanding those left behind suck it up and pick up the extra load? If so, how do you show it?

Diversity and Inclusion

• How can you demonstrate your organization is committed to a culturally diverse environment?
• What percentage of your physician staff is diverse?
• What percentage of your physician leaders are women?

Physician Retention

Retaining physician staff and leaders is an important part of attracting Gen Z physicians to your organization. They want to know they are not going to end up where there’s a revolving door of physicians coming and going. They want to know your organization truly values them, their contribution and what they do for patients. How do you prove to them it isn’t just lip service?

• Do you have a physician retention plan?
• If so, were physicians included in the design and implementation?
• What is your physician turnover rate, and how does it compare to the national average?
• What has the historical data shown for turnover trends?
• What can you point to that shows a keen interest in keeping your physicians happy and engaged?
• Have you measured physician satisfaction? How often?
• What do you do with less than stellar results?
• Gen Z physicians want to be part of the solution. They want a voice (pretty much all physicians want this).
• How do you show physician candidates you include physicians in uncovering obstacles and challenges along with participating in the fixes?
• What forums do you have in place for physicians to utilize to be heard? Town Hall meetings?

Planned Advancement

Gen Z physicians are known for being motivated by organizations that foster professional growth. Not all professional growth means leadership. It may mean they want to be involved in the development of new medical advancements, therapies, services and research activities such as outcomes research or clinical trials. You can create some great questions around this subject and even talk through during the interview process. Be prepared though to answer these questions:

• What’s your organization’s philosophy about internal leadership candidates?
• Is the interview process for leadership positions different for internal candidates?” If so, in what way?
• What percentage of leadership openings are filled with internal candidates?

When it comes to the above or the possibility of leadership, Gen Z physicians want to know what the process is and what goals they must meet to be promoted. They want concrete answers, which are often difficult to map and for which it is even more difficult to guarantee the desired outcome. That said, it is important to lay out a road map of their journey to leadership. The first thing I would want to know is who on staff is driven to lead and have it on their goal list. There are certain people who you will be able to point to. There are others who don’t make it that evident. So, ask. Have your department leaders ask at their next one-on-one about their possible desire to lead. Not everyone wants to lead. Not everyone that wants to lead wants to be a health system CEO. For the ones who indicate they have an interest in leading, the questions should start flowing:

• What type of leadership role do you see yourself in?
• What is your end goal?
• What’s the time frame you give yourself to get there?
• How are you preparing yourself to meet your goal? Have you created or planned road
  map of how to accomplish this?
• What resources does your organization have in place to help aspiring leaders gain the skillsets needed to be successful
  • Leadership training?
  • Tuition assistance for earning a master’s degree in healthcare leadership
  • Mentorship program?
  • Committee engagement? Or even chairing a committee?

No matter what type of advancement each person is interested in, there should be a plan. If you don’t have one, discuss individually how you can help obtain their goals and then create a specific plan with them, including time frames.

To be successful in attracting, retaining and advancing Gen Z physicians, it comes down to these three things:

1. Create a strong employment brand that hits home when they read your recruitment collaterals.
2. Reinforce the employment brand during the interview process by having the interviewers be ready with similar messaging and ways to demonstrate to candidates it’s real and not just a marketing slogan.
3. Create an active retention program and don’t keep it a secret. Listen to what your physicians are saying. Address concerns and do not sweep them under the rug. No one wants to be asked their opinion to just be ignored. It does more harm than good. You are better off not asking.

Although exit interviews, to me, are akin to an autopsy, they are invaluable in determining common threads and trends needing to be addressed. If there are things driving your physicians away, they need to be addressed and improvements need to be made.

Leadership development with a programmatic approach will be a retention tool and help your organization by creating and cultivating the most effective leadership team available. You will also help your future self by creating a succession plan to reduce the holes when leaders depart your organization.

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This article originally appeared in the Fall 2024 issue of In the Lead magazine, from Stillman School of Business’s Department of Management and the Buccino Leadership Institute. The bi-annual magazine focuses on sharing leadership perspectives from the field, with content that is curated from leaders across industries.

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