New Report Highlights Startling Disconnect Between Care Staff And Admin

The people make the place. While often said, it’s especially true for care organizations like home health, home care and hospice agencies, where care staff and administrators work day in and day out to deliver the best quality care and experiences for patients and residents alike. 

While both driven by a shared goal, new research from Viventium, the industry-leading provider of payroll, HR and compliance software purpose-built for health care, reveals a surprising disconnect in how each group views key workforce challenges — especially when it comes to retention, motivation, and trust. 

The 2025 Healthcare Workforce Management showcases the ways in which perspective diverges between care staff and administrators. These gaps notably affect day-to-day operations, but their effect is also felt farther downstream: on care team retention, overall attrition and even on the overall care experience.

To help address these gaps, the report dives into seven macro trends shaping the industry’s future, the big challenges impacting workforce management, and shares surprising and instructive insights from an independent survey of nearly 650 health care professionals — including 505 administrators and 141 care staff — from across organizations of all sizes, some with fewer than 200 employees to others with more than 5,000.

Ultimately, it lays out the innovative ways in which leading organizations are restoring trust and fostering resilient teams to reimagine care delivery from the inside out — and shares a vision for the future of home-based care. Read on for a sneak peek at some of the most interesting takeaways. 

To download and read the 2025 Healthcare Workforce Management Report, scroll to the end of this article.

What drives retention: The unrealized importance of pay

For many care staff, their compensation is not just an important reason why they remain with their employer — it is their primary reason. An overwhelming majority of care staff select “higher pay” as the top motivating factor for retention.

That should not be altogether surprising. Nearly 70% of care staff report living paycheck to paycheck, which motivates them to seek better earning opportunities.

The importance of pay is only made clearer when you consider that among care staff:

• 82% are their household’s primary income earner
• 79% have an annual household income of less than $100,000
• 68% would switch organizations for more pay
• 67% would leave the industry for more pay

Notably, feelings around career motivation diverge by persona. When asked “what motivates staff retention,” administrators had a very different answer: they were most likely to answer “professional development.” Today, less than one in five administrators are currently increasing pay, while 36% report being ‘very likely’ to do so in the near-term. 

This perception gap likely exacerbates the industry’s current staffing challenges. Despite the clear value pay has for care staff, administrators do not seem to recognize its outsized impact on retention.

Further fueling this issue is a surprising lack of confidence in payroll accuracy. While even minor payroll errors can irreparably erode employee trust and confidence, 81% of administrators report feeling very or extremely confident that their payroll is calculated correctly.

Yet, the report revealed that they are more error-prone than their optimism belies: 80% of administrators make at least one payroll error each month. And, they are more forgiving of these errors than their employees are. While 80% of care staff would lose trust in their employer after three errors, 10% of administrators think it would take 6+ errors per year before their team lost trust.

Left unchecked, this will continue to fuel cycles of turnover and attrition. Nearly one in four care staff do not believe their pay is calculated correctly today — and more than half say they would consider seeking another job if they experienced recurrent errors. This is a hint for administrators looking for an easy morale booster: improve your payroll processes and improve your loyalty and retention. 

7 Macro Trends Impacting the Home Care Landscape

Another section of the report covers seven macro trends shaping the industry today. These forces help underscore the challenges providers across home-, facility- and community-based care settings are navigating, and help shine a light on ways to embrace the future with confidence. 

1. The workforce shortage is mounting. Staffing is not a new challenge for home-based care, but it has grown more acute. The labor challenge has intensified in recent years, driven by a smaller working population, a shrinking pipeline of new caregivers and rising competition from other industries.

1. Margins are shrinking. At the same time, providers are feeling financial strain from both sides: rising operational costs and tightening reimbursement models. From inflation and wage hikes to increased regulatory demands, expenses are mounting — all while payers and policymakers push to control spending.

1. Care at home is a new imperative. Demand for care at home isn’t slowing. Consumer preference, payer support and technology innovation are fueling the shift.

1. Medicare Advantage is gaining dominance. More than half of all Medicare beneficiaries are now enrolled in Medicare Advantage (MA), a shift that is changing everything from care coordination and referral patterns to reimbursement models and more.

1. Technology fragmentation is costly. Many providers rely on patchwork of standalone systems. From EHRs and AMS platforms to CRM, patient portals, payroll and HR solutions, organizations are left with disjointed information silos that hinder workflows, force staff to manually transfer data increasing likelihood of error and complicate decision-making.

1. A flurry of M&A is transforming the industry. To remain viable in an increasingly competitive environment, many smaller, independent providers are being pushed into mergers, acquisitions and consolidations. This wave of market reconsolidation is reshaping the industry, as larger organizations and private equity firms continue to absorb smaller entities, creating bigger, more centralized networks.

1. Consumer-driven care is shifting focus. Patients, residents and their families are taking a more active role in health care decisions, expecting greater transparency, flexibility and quality of care. Providers must prioritize patient satisfaction and family engagement to remain competitive. 

Toward a new day for workforce management

Time and again, hidden disconnects between the way care staff and administrators view their jobs, the industry and the best way to operate perpetuate misunderstandings. These gaps impact burnout, job satisfaction, and workplace morale.

But they don’t have to. 

While these forces may feel overwhelming, the data reveals a hopeful truth: the future of health care is already taking shape. This transformation is happening from the inside-out, driven by people who are committed to solving avoidable challenges so they can refocus on what matters most: delivering exceptional care.

And while caregivers and administrators may often view the industry’s challenges through different lenses, new solutions offer a way to bridge these gaps and nurture their workplace culture. From reflection to insight and action, the report offers a sustainable — and actionable — framework for people and processes.

By investing in a people-first strategy, the industry can move forward with intention, helping to align perspectives, empower administrators to lead with clarity and care staff to deliver with confidence. 

This Views article is sponsored by Viventium, who is working toward a new day in health care, with resilient, robust and empowered care teams that can get them there. To download “The 2025 Healthcare Workforce Management Report” in full, click here.

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