Businesses should adopt workforce management best practices now, including employee engagement, in order to provide better support to workers.

Most industries encounter workforce management challenges including recruitment retention and engagement at one time or another, but the pandemic has brought these critical issues to the forefront. The health care industry, which over the past four months alone has grappled with filled ICUs, lack of personal protective equipment, sick colleagues and more during the unprecedented virus, faces a unique set of demands that make the challenges of employee retention and engagement much more consistent and pervasive.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, health care professionals experienced increasing levels of burnout. In fact, according to a 2018 study, more than half of all doctors and over 33% of all nurses were facing career fatigue. Today, several months into battling the coronavirus pandemic, stress, burnout and mental health concerns are much more intense and widespread within the industry, with impacts we haven't even begun to fully understand yet.