Clinical laboratories play a vital role in health care. But many labs across the country face serious problems when it comes to filling positions. A shortage of laboratory employees means lower throughput and a more stressful working environment. And outside of the lab, health care workers and patients suffer consequences too.
Position your lab for success by learning more about this problem. Read about common difficulties faced when staffing a CLIA lab.
A Shortage of Candidates
The demand for certified clinical lab staff, including medical laboratory technicians and histotechnologists, exceeds the current supply. And, to make a difficult situation more challenging, a substantial percentage of the clinical lab science workforce is slated to retire within the next decade. Fewer available candidates mean more competition between labs to attract skilled workers.
An Increased Reliance on Temporary Workers
Many labs are becoming increasingly reliant on temporary workers. The shortage of available candidates and employee turnover both lead to this issue. While temporary workers are an effective stopgap for seasonal vacancies, they are not an ideal solution for meeting a long-term need.
Hiring long-term employees helps maintain uniformity and build a positive workplace culture. Attract the right employees for your laboratory and create a welcoming environment to retain them.
Time-Consuming and Expensive Hiring Processes
Another common difficulty of staffing a CLIA lab is that the hiring and onboarding process can be expensive and time-consuming. Yet this is an important step in improving staffing conditions and establishing a healthy relationship with incoming workers. When a lab doesn’t have enough full-time, experienced staff members—either due to hiring shortages or high employee turnover—everyone has a higher workload and more stress.
Creating a thorough job description is one key to attracting the right candidates. And having effective and efficient training and onboarding processes is an investment in the present and future functioning of the lab.
Recruit qualified candidates with Lighthouse Lab Services. Our expertise in clinical lab staffing gives your business an edge in the highly competitive hiring market and allows you to quickly build out your team while reducing testing errors. Contact us today for free consultation to get started.
I feel one main problem with the turn out of Medical Technologist is that we are so underpaid for the work that we do. We are at least 70% of the contribution to the medical field for diagnosis of the ill that seek medical help. It appears to be about the dollar and how the upper echelons can save a dollar without realizing the stresses that we go through in the lab due to understaffing or even increased workload using the same number of staff as previously used. I see pay increases for so many others in the medical field but we are excluded.
In the facility that I work in they are now hiring Medical Assistants when a Medical Technologist leaves. I feel they have no idea of how significant we are as Medical Technologists that play a definite major role in testing that reveals the culprits for illness and healing for our patients.
So then how do I recruit someone to come and endure our profession?
Hi, Leatha, you highlight several good points about the current struggles our industry is facing with recruiting and retaining MTs. We recently conducted a wage and morale survey of medical lab professionals, and one of the biggest pieces of feedback we received is that MTs need to be better compensated and workplaces need to be better staffed. However, part of the issue is the overall lack of available MTs due to the number of dedicated degree and programs that have closed in recent years. As recruiters, we’re also constantly trying to educate employers and our clients about how they can improve their workplaces and compensation offerings to increase retention and overall employee happiness. In short, we feel your pain and hope this is an issue the entire medical lab community can pull together to help alleviate in the coming years!