How to make them stay: Novant tries more paid PTO - Modern Healthcare

Ivan Smith, shareholder in the firm's Labor & Employment section, was quoted in Modern Healthcare article, "How to make them stay: Novant tries more paid PTO."

"You have to begin engaging your workers, to make sure your supervisors know what the issues are, and you have to try to make them part of the solution, and not part of the problem," said Ivan D. Smith, labor and employment law attorney at Buchanan Ingersoll and Rooney. "Some of it's not only money, but it's trying to look at your staff and figuring out how to maximize your staffing and trying to alleviate the shortage as much as possible."

Not doing so can result in employees deciding to unionize, which Smith said can exacerbate tensions with workers.

"If there is a give and take, there's less likelihood that they [workers] believe they need a third party to come in, like a union," Smith said, who advises employers on how to mitigate unions from forming. "The more they [workers] feel a responsibility to the institution, the better chance you have in staving off unionization."