The Three Types of Healthcare Workers: A New Framework for Staffing Success

There's a fundamental truth about healthcare staffing that most providers refuse to acknowledge: the workforce is not monolithic. At a recent conference with some of the largest healthcare operators in the country, I was struck by how many leaders still approach workforce management with a one-size-fits-all mentality. The same scheduling policies. The same engagement strategies. The same technology.

The results speak for themselves: understaffed units, excessive overtime costs, and turnover rates that would be considered catastrophic in any other industry. The national average RN turnover rate was 22.5% in 2022 and still hovered at 18.4% in 2023—an improvement from pandemic peaks but still financially and operationally unsustainable. Replacing just one bedside nurse costs an average of $56,300, and for an average hospital, annual RN turnover losses range from $4 to $6 million (NSI Nursing Solutions, 2024).

But the worst part? Most healthcare organizations are sitting on an untapped resource that could solve their staffing challenges overnight – their existing workforce. Research from Press Ganey (2023) found that only 69% of healthcare employees are engaged, leaving nearly one-third of the workforce disengaged. Low engagement contributes to burnout, and 52% of nurses have considered leaving their job due to insufficient staffing, poor workplace well-being, and an inability to provide quality care (JAMA, 2023).

Why Traditional Staffing Models Are Failing

For decades, healthcare has operated on a binary model: full-time employees and everyone else. You're either on the core team or you're an outsider, brought in when necessary but never fully embraced.

This approach made perfect sense in a world where labor was plentiful and healthcare workers had limited options. That world no longer exists.

Today, healthcare is squarely a supply-driven market. A nurse, medical assistant, or home health aide can walk into virtually any facility and be hired on the spot. The power dynamic has shifted completely, yet most organizations continue to operate as if nothing has changed.

The result? The average healthcare organization only engages about 30% of their workforce on any given day. Think about that – 70% of staff isn't being utilized effectively. They’re either overworked or underutilized, with very little middle ground. Meanwhile, high turnover is costing an estimated $9 billion annually, and physician burnout-linked turnover adds another $4 billion to the financial burden (HHS/ASPE Health Workforce Report, 2024).

The Three Types Framework

Through hundreds of conversations with healthcare workers and analyzing millions of scheduling interactions, we've identified that there are exactly three types of healthcare workers – each with fundamentally different needs, motivations, and work patterns:

1. Full-Time Regulars These workers want consistency above all else. They value predictable schedules, established routines, and clear expectations. They're your backbone – the people who show up reliably day after day, building deep institutional knowledge and continuity of care. What they need: Advanced schedule visibility, minimal last-minute changes, and recognition for their reliability and expertise.
2. Part-Time Regulars These workers want specific, limited hours on specific days. Their availability is constrained but reliable – they might be parents who can only work while children are in school, students with fixed class schedules, or workers with commitments to multiple facilities. What they need: Respect for their constraints, guaranteed hours within their availability, and flexibility when circumstances change.
3. Part-Time Irregulars These workers want maximum flexibility to pick up shifts that fit their changing schedule. They value control over when they work, the ability to increase or decrease hours based on personal needs, and frictionless processes for finding and claiming available shifts. What they need: Easy visibility into available opportunities, simple processes for claiming shifts, and freedom from pressure to commit to regular schedules.

The critical insight is that these groups aren't separated by job title, department, or experience level – they're defined by work style preferences. You likely have all three types in every role across your organization right now.

The Cost of Ignoring These Differences

When you treat all three groups the same way, you optimize for none of them:

• You frustrate Full-Time Regulars with constant schedule changes and last-minute requests
• You alienate Part-Time Regulars by scheduling them outside their availability windows
• You lose Part-Time Irregulars by making it too cumbersome to find and claim available shifts

One home health organization we worked with was experiencing 35% unfilled shifts despite having enough total staff on paper. The problem? They were managing their entire workforce through a single scheduling process that worked well for full-timers but completely failed their flexible workforce.

Scheduling Strategies and Their Impact on Retention & Satisfaction

One of the most powerful levers in workforce segmentation is scheduling. Research shows that schedule flexibility is a top priority for many clinicians: roughly 1 in 4 nurses say the ability to choose their shifts is a primary factor in job choice and satisfaction. Inadequate or inflexible scheduling was cited in surveys as a reason over half of nurses considered leaving their jobs during the pandemic (StatPearls, 2022).

Organizations implementing self-scheduling models have seen major retention benefits. For instance, a Texas hospital’s flexible scheduling pilot cut nurse turnover by 52% within five months, boosted job satisfaction by one-third, and improved shift fill rates (DNP Project Report, 2023). UC Davis Health, with a 92% nurse retention rate, credits tailored career development and segmented scheduling approaches as key to their success.

The Competitive Advantage of Workforce Segmentation

By implementing a segmented approach that addresses the needs of all three worker types, organizations can potentially double or triple their effective workforce without adding headcount. With the right strategies, we’ve seen organizations achieve 90%+ engagement across their workforce – an industry game-changer in today’s labor market.

Getting Started with Workforce Segmentation

If you're ready to move beyond the one-size-fits-all approach to healthcare staffing, here's how to begin:

1. Audit your current workforce composition What percentage of your staff falls into each of the three categories? You might be surprised by the distribution.
2. Evaluate your current engagement by segment How effectively are you utilizing each group? Where are the biggest gaps?
3. Identify technological and process barriers What's preventing full engagement of each segment? Is it communication methods? Scheduling processes? Incentive structures?
4. Implement segment-specific strategies Develop targeted approaches for each worker type, recognizing their unique needs and preferences.
5. Measure results by segment Track engagement, satisfaction, and productivity across segments to identify further opportunities.

The Future of Healthcare Workforce Management

The healthcare organizations that thrive in the coming decade won't be those with the biggest budgets or the most advanced clinical technology. They'll be those that master the art and science of workforce engagement.

By recognizing the fundamental diversity of healthcare workers – not just in demographics or clinical specialties, but in how they want to work – these organizations will unlock productivity and satisfaction levels that their competitors can only dream of.

The Three Types framework isn't just a useful mental model. It's a blueprint for transforming healthcare staffing from a perpetual crisis into a sustainable competitive advantage.

The question isn't whether your organization has all three types of workers. The question is whether you're ready to stop treating them all the same way.