Employee Retention Strategies for Healthcare Organizations
Healthcare organizations continue to face high turnover, burnout, staffing shortages, and rising labor costs. Learn how career development, education benefits, and internal mobility programs can help strengthen retention, support workforce development, and build a more resilient healthcare workforce.
Why Employee Retention Is One of Healthcare’s Biggest Challenges
Healthcare organizations aren’t just competing for talent—they’re working to keep the experienced employees they already have. Rising turnover, burnout, staffing shortages, and increased reliance on agency labor continue to create financial and operational pressure across the industry.
The impact reaches far beyond recruiting costs. Turnover affects continuity of care, employee engagement, workforce stability, productivity, and long-term organizational performance. While many of these challenges existed before the COVID-19 pandemic, the disruption it created exposed and amplified workforce vulnerabilities that healthcare organizations continue to address today.
As a result, many healthcare HR leaders are reevaluating how they attract, retain, and develop talent for the long term.
Why Turnover Often Concentrates in Frontline Healthcare Roles
Many healthcare retention challenges emerge among employees who are new to an organization or still building their careers. Certified nursing assistants, patient care technicians, entry-level nurses, and other frontline employees often seek opportunities for professional growth, education, and advancement but may not always see a clear path forward.
Employee Retention Challenges Often Emerge Early in Employment
22.7%
Nearly 30%
56.8%
These trends suggest that retention challenges often emerge early in an employee’s tenure, when career-development opportunities, educational support, and advancement pathways may have the greatest impact.
Healthcare Workforce Development Terms Explained
A clinical ladder program is a structured career-development framework that helps healthcare employees advance their skills, responsibilities, and compensation while remaining in clinical roles. Creating clear pathways for advancement based on education, certifications, and professional contributions, clinical ladders can support retention, workforce development, and employee engagement by giving staff a visible path for advancement without requiring them to leave direct patient care roles.
A CNA-to-RN program refers to an educational and career pathway that helps Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs) advance to Registered Nurse (RN) roles. Healthcare organizations often support these pathways through tuition assistance, tuition reimbursement, flexible scheduling, and other workforce development initiatives that help build internal talent pipelines and address nursing shortages.
Internal mobility is the movement of employees into new roles, departments, or career paths within the same organization. In healthcare, this may include advancement from CNA to LPN, RN to BSN, bedside nursing to leadership, or clinical roles to operational positions, helping organizations retain talent by creating opportunities for career growth.
Top of license refers to healthcare professionals working at the highest level of their education, training, and licensure. Helping employees develop new skills and credentials can expand their ability to practice at the top of their license while supporting career growth, workforce efficiency, patient care, and employee satisfaction.
[The program] makes our employees feel valued. It's a win-win situation. BenefitEd starts at recruitment events. We're able to get quality candidates on board. That decreases the cost for us. They stay with us because they know when they reach that six-month mark, they can join the program.
The Case for Education Benefits as a Retention Strategy
Healthcare organizations have long invested in recruiting talent. Increasingly, they’re also investing in helping employees build long-term careers within the organization.
Many healthcare employees are looking for more than a paycheck — they want a clear path for growth. Opportunities to earn additional credentials, advance through clinical ladder programs, move into specialized roles, or pursue leadership positions can influence whether employees build their careers within an organization or seek opportunities elsewhere.
Education benefits make it easier for employees to pursue nursing degrees, specialized certifications, leadership-development programs, and other educational opportunities that support career advancement. In turn, organizations can strengthen internal mobility and build talent from within.
Education Benefits Support Internal Mobility
Many healthcare career paths require additional education, certifications, or credentials. Programs that help employees pursue these opportunities can strengthen internal mobility by making career advancement more accessible.
For example, a healthcare employer may support a CNA pursuing nursing education, help an RN earn a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN), or provide opportunities for employees to move into leadership, management, or specialized clinical roles. When employees can see a future within the organization, they may be more likely to stay and grow their careers internally.
Education Benefits Can Strengthen Retention
Research suggests employees who participate in employer-sponsored education programs are more likely to remain with their employer and pursue advancement opportunities. For example, a Lumina and Accenture study of Cigna’s tuition reimbursement program found participants were 8% more likely to remain with the company, 10% more likely to be promoted, and 7.5% more likely to transfer internally than non-participants. The study also found that every dollar invested in the program generated an additional $1.29 in talent-management savings.3
Education benefits help employees invest in their future while demonstrating an employer’s commitment to long-term career growth.
This can be especially important in healthcare environments where turnover is highest among frontline and early-career employees. For example, hospital CNA turnover reached 32.5% in 2026, highlighting the importance of creating accessible pathways for employee growth and advancement.1
By creating visible career pathways and supporting continued learning, healthcare organizations can strengthen retention while building a more skilled workforce.
Education Benefits Help Create Workforce Pipelines
Education benefits can also support workforce development by helping employers build talent pipelines for high-demand roles. Career pathways such as CNA-to-RN, RN-to-BSN, leadership-development programs, and clinical ladder initiatives help organizations prepare employees for future opportunities while addressing evolving workforce needs.
Rather than relying exclusively on external hiring, healthcare organizations can develop talent from within — helping employees advance while strengthening workforce continuity and organizational knowledge.
Supporting Employees and Organizational Goals
Education benefits are not solely about funding education. When aligned with workforce priorities, they can help healthcare organizations support career advancement, improve retention, strengthen workforce development efforts, and create a more engaged employee population.
Having less stress financially helps me stay more focused on doing my job and giving my full attention to working with my members and being able to help them.
As healthcare leaders continue evaluating strategies to reduce turnover and build long-term workforce stability, education benefits have become an increasingly important part of the conversation.
Examples of Healthcare Career Pathways
Education benefits can support many common healthcare career paths, helping employees advance their skills while building long-term careers within the organization.
RN to BSN
Support registered nurses pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Nursing while continuing to work and advance their careers.
CNA to RN
Help frontline caregivers progress into nursing roles through education assistance, reimbursement, and career-development support.
Clinical to Leadership
Prepare clinicians for management, operations, and leadership positions through continuing education and professional development.
Healthcare Management and Administration
Support employees pursuing careers in healthcare operations, administration, compliance, and organizational leadership.
Advance Allied Health Careers
Support professionals pursuing certifications, training, and degree pathways in areas such as imaging, laboratory sciences, respiratory therapy, rehabilitation, and other clinical disciplines.
What Healthcare Organizations Should Look for in an Education Benefit Program
As healthcare organizations evaluate education benefits, the goal should be more than simply offering another employee perk. The most effective programs support workforce priorities such as retention, career development, employee engagement, and talent pipeline growth while remaining simple for employees and employers to use.
Not all education benefit programs are designed the same way. Healthcare employers often have unique workforce needs, including multiple employee populations, shift-based schedules, diverse career pathways, and stringent reporting and compliance requirements. As a result, choosing the right program requires looking beyond funding alone.
Support Career Pathways and Internal Mobility
Simplify Administration and Reporting
Offer Flexible Education Benefits
Navigate Policy and Compliance
Explore Education Benefits for Healthcare
Education benefits can help healthcare organizations reduce barriers to advancement, support career pathways, strengthen retention, and invest in workforce development. From tuition assistance and tuition reimbursement to student loan repayment and other financial wellness programs, different benefit approaches support different workforce goals.
Explore the education benefit options available to healthcare employers and determine which strategies align best with your workforce needs and organizational priorities.
Example: Increasing Full-Time Clinical Staffing
Thriveworks wanted to encourage more part-time clinical employees to transition to full-time roles while strengthening employee retention. After implementing a student loan repayment benefit through BenefitEd, employees quickly saw the value of the program.
We got feedback from our clinicians saying, 'This is a great benefit. OK, how do I become a full-time employee?’
After implementing a student loan repayment benefit through BenefitEd, Thriveworks saw clinician participation reach approximately 40% within six months, and turnover among participants was less than half that of non-participants during the program’s first year.
Frequently Asked Questions About Education Benefits for Healthcare Organizations
Ready to Explore Education Benefits for Healthcare?
Education benefits can help healthcare organizations strengthen retention, support career development, improve employee financial wellness, and build a more resilient workforce. Discover available solutions and determine which approaches best align with your workforce needs and organizational goals.