While initial images of healthcare professionals’ lifestyles may feature luxury living and salaries in the six-figure range or higher, this is far from the case for a majority of workers. Seven million of them are low-wage earners, with a disproportionate number of people in this category being African American, Latinx, or Asian American/Pacific Islander. Also in this category are a large percentage of females.
This reality poses a challenge for healthcare employers, too. Low-wage jobs often have high turnover along with low compensation. This can ultimately lead to lower quality care, negative patient outcomes, and difficulty attracting top talent.
Worker-Owned Coops Offer a Solution
Healthcare and healthcare staffing cooperatives operate via a worker-owned versus outside investor model. This puts frontline professionals front and center when it comes to key business decisions and strategies – because, at the end of the day, it’s their company.
- Worker ownership incentivizes long-term investment in employees and quality of care. This results in higher wages, better benefits, and enhanced training opportunities, which, not surprisingly, tends to result in dramatic reductions in turnover.
- When a cooperative is profitable, workers share its profits. So rather than simply enacting mass layoffs or turning off the lights when times get tough, coops adapt in innovative ways that prioritize workforce stability. For instance, they may vote to reduce hours for employees across the board rather than lose jobs entirely.
This collective self-government can be a game changer for patients, caregivers, and employers alike. Because the more say people have in their work and how their business is run, the better the results for everyone involved.
By partnering with a healthcare staffing coop, you can enhance outcomes, positively impact your community, and bolster your employer brand reputation. The more traditional reliance on under-compensated workers not only reinforces racial and gender disparities but also undermines health, economic, and racial justice. The current typical organization of the healthcare workforce has white males disproportionately in higher-wage positions, with non-white females on the opposite end of the spectrum.
Make It Your Solution
Worker-owned healthcare staffing models were piloted in 2016. Five years later, AlliedUP was formed. We’re a staffing cooperative for allied health professionals, encompassing a wide variety of roles, from RNs, CNAs, and LVNs to lab assistants, therapists, technicians, and speech-language pathologists.
Our A list of pros can make all the difference in your healthcare facility, whether your staffing needs are direct hire, temporary, contract to hire, or managed solutions to solve team augmentation challenges. In California and across the U.S., let us be your source for the best allied-health practitioners you need to fill your most critical openings. Contact us today to learn more – and let’s be better together.
