3 Keys to Hospice Social Worker Recruitment and Retention

Three important considerations can help hospices recruit and retain social workers: a respectful workplace culture, reasonable workloads and continuing education opportunities. Workforce shortages remain the industry’s most damaging headwind, and that includes social workers. The first key is “Ensure social workers have a voice” ,To keep social workers on staff, hospices should focus on creating a respectful workplace culture in which all members of the interdisciplinary team can feel heard. The second one is “Offer continuing education, career paths', The intensive will “go beyond the basics,” Leff said, including modules on communication with patients, families and colleagues; pain and symptom management, ethics and health equity, among others. And the third key is "Keep workloads manageable” ,When social workers have a large caseload of patients, it can contribute to burnout or dissatisfaction based on the limited time they are able to spend with each patient. This is something that institutions need to be working on and thinking about it.