70% of Engagement Comes Down to One Thing. Your Boss.

Featuring Burl Stamp, FACHE, President, Stamp and Chase | Author, Becoming a Better Boss

Before we get started, sit with this number: 70%. That is how much of employee engagement is determined not by your comp structure, your benefits package, or your culture initiative. It comes down to one thing. The person they report to.

Bo sits down with Burl Stamp, former hospital CEO, fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives, and author of the most timely leadership book in healthcare this year. Burl has spent more than two decades studying what separates the leaders people want to follow from the ones they simply tolerate.

🧠 The Middle Manager Crisis Has a Second 70% Nobody Quotes
Gallup's landmark research showed that 70% of employee engagement is determined by the manager. The second stat from that same study almost never gets cited: 70% of middle managers said they felt ill-prepared for the challenges they face. That was before the pandemic, in 2018. Today, with span of control reaching 60, 80, and even 100 direct reports in some nursing roles, the white flag is going up.

📋 The TEAM Framework: Four Levers That Actually Work
Burl's framework built from the research: Teach, Empower, Align, Mentor. His top three practical tactics for any middle manager starting today: listen more than you speak in every team interaction, give small doses of immediate feedback consistently rather than saving it for annual reviews, and take care of yourself, because staff can tell when their manager is running on empty and when they are genuinely present.

🔍 Where Leadership Development Fails
Organizations spend enormous energy on learning objectives and workshop design. Then the workshop ends. Burl's direct assessment: worry more about what happens after the workshop than before it. If behaviors are not changing and turnover is not moving, the workshop score does not matter.

📖 Resources

Becoming a Better Boss by Burl Stamp: https://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Better-Boss-leader-tolerate/dp/1971718149/

Connect with Burl: https://www.linkedin.com/in/burlstamp | stampandchase.com

Great leaders are, first and foremost, self-reflective. They are always asking how they lead and how they can lead better.

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AP3 Sponsor Read

This episode is brought to you by AP3 — the ASHHRA Preferred Partner Program.

Healthcare HR leaders are navigating rising costs, workforce shortages, and an overwhelming vendor landscape. AP3 cuts through the noise.

Managed in collaboration with Lockton and backed by ASHHRA, AP3 is a governed ecosystem of vetted, healthcare-aligned solution providers across talent acquisition, benefits administration, workforce compliance, financial wellness, and employee engagement. Every partner is rigorously vetted. Every relationship is governed. Every solution is built for healthcare.

No directories. No bidding wars. Just trusted partners proven to perform.

Visit AP3.info to learn more and get connected with a partner.

Take2 Sponsor Read

This episode is brought to you by Take2 — a proud AP3 partner and the AI recruiting platform built specifically for healthcare.

Hiring in healthcare is harder than ever — high-volume openings, hard-to-fill clinical roles, and recruiting teams stretched thin. Take2 changes that.

Take2's AI agents automate the work that slows recruiters down — sourcing candidates, running outreach, screening and vetting applicants, scheduling interviews, and verifying licenses and certifications. It works around the clock, syncs directly into your ATS, and gives your recruiters hours back every week so they can focus on the people, not the process. From CNAs and EVS to RNs, APPs, and physicians, Take2 helps you hire faster across every role.

Vetted through AP3. Built for healthcare. Proven to perform.

Visit take2.ai/ashhra to learn more and get started.

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Why Healthcare HR Tech Fails: It's Never the Software

Featuring Stephanie Wright, Founder, Wright Talent Advisory

Only 43% of HR professionals say their HR technology is effective. Fewer than half. These are organizations that ran vendor selection, sat through demos, built a business case, got budget approved, signed a contract, and went live. Then more than half of them looked at what they bought and said it was not working.

Luke sits down with Stephanie Wright, a healthcare TA implementation specialist who has worked across Workday, Phenom, and other major platforms at health systems including Carilion Clinic. She launched Wright Talent Advisory in Dallas to do full-time what most HR leaders only do once in a career.

🗺️ Process Before Config. But You Can't Fully Avoid the Overlap.
Stephanie's honest answer: organizations that do requirements work ahead of time still end up in design conversations where the configurator is explaining the system in technical jargon while the client tries to map it to their current workflow in real time. The process work helps. It does not eliminate the messy middle. Plan for both.

🔥 The Real Reason Implementations Underdeliver
It is not technical blockers. It is change management treated as a checklist item rather than a work stream. A 30-minute Teams call and a PDF is not change management. Your project team members are your champions, if you actually organize and amplify them. Most organizations do not.

🧪 UAT Gets Compressed. That Is Where Things Break.
User acceptance testing is almost always squeezed because design ran long and executives want to hit the go-live date. Stephanie's fix: get hiring managers into the sandbox early, run them through edge cases, and treat testing as a change management moment, not a technical exercise.

📋 Before You Sign Anything
Know your internal resource gaps before a vendor ever walks in. Assume the projected timeline is optimistic by at least 25%. Ask the vendor what they will need from your team and where they see gaps. That conversation rarely happens, and it costs organizations every time.

Connect with Stephanie: wrighttalentadvisory.com or LinkedIn.

Enjoying the show? Subscribe to The ASHHRA Podcast on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode.

AP3 Sponsor Read

This episode is brought to you by AP3 — the ASHHRA Preferred Partner Program.

Healthcare HR leaders are navigating rising costs, workforce shortages, and an overwhelming vendor landscape. AP3 cuts through the noise.

Managed in collaboration with Lockton and backed by ASHHRA, AP3 is a governed ecosystem of vetted, healthcare-aligned solution providers across talent acquisition, benefits administration, workforce compliance, financial wellness, and employee engagement. Every partner is rigorously vetted. Every relationship is governed. Every solution is built for healthcare.

No directories. No bidding wars. Just trusted partners proven to perform.

Visit AP3.info to learn more and get connected with a partner.

Take2 Sponsor Read

This episode is brought to you by Take2 — a proud AP3 partner and the AI recruiting platform built specifically for healthcare.

Hiring in healthcare is harder than ever — high-volume openings, hard-to-fill clinical roles, and recruiting teams stretched thin. Take2 changes that.

Take2's AI agents automate the work that slows recruiters down — sourcing candidates, running outreach, screening and vetting applicants, scheduling interviews, and verifying licenses and certifications. It works around the clock, syncs directly into your ATS, and gives your recruiters hours back every week so they can focus on the people, not the process. From CNAs and EVS to RNs, APPs, and physicians, Take2 helps you hire faster across every role.

Vetted through AP3. Built for healthcare. Proven to perform.

Visit take2.ai/ashhra to learn more and get started.

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96% of Applicants Fall Into the Abyss. Take2 AI Is Pulling Them Back Out.

Featuring Yaniv Shimoni, Co-Founder, Take2 AI | ASHHRA Podcast Sponsor

The average hospital has 43 unfilled nursing positions. It takes up to 102 days to recruit an experienced RN. And your recruiting team is talking to three to four percent of the people who apply. The other 96%? They fall into the abyss. Yaniv Shimoni built a company to fix that — and healthcare was not the plan. The CHROs made it one.

Bo sits down with Yaniv, co-founder of Take2 AI and Stanford GSB alum, to unpack what agentic AI actually means for healthcare talent acquisition and how health systems like CommonSpirit, Temple Health, and the VA are already using it.

🤖 Chatbot vs. Generative AI vs. Agentic AI — Know the Difference
60% of TA leaders can't explain it. Here is the short version: chatbots follow a script. Generative AI creates recommendations — but a human executes. Agentic AI executes on your behalf, end-to-end, while you sleep. Take2's system of agents — AI sourcer, AI interviewer, license verifier, reference checker, and onboarder — integrates bidirectionally with your existing ATS. The ATS stays the system of record. The agents amplify the team around it.

⚡ Five Seconds to First Touch
When a candidate applies, Take2's agent texts them within five seconds — dynamic phone screen, license verification, and calendar scheduling — 24/7. Physicians, NPs, MAs, CNAs. No variance in completion rates between them. 78% of candidates in a University of Chicago study preferred talking to an AI interviewer because of flexibility — nights, weekends, and on their schedule.

🔐 On Candidate Fraud
The fraud is real regardless of whether you adopt AI. What Take2 does: phone number verification, license checks against state boards, background check integration, and real-time photo matching across interview stages. The fight evolves constantly — but doing nothing is not a defense.

🔎 The Right Question Before You Buy Anything
What is the pain I am trying to solve? Time to fill? Capacity? Budget? Define the problem first. Then ask: Is it truly autonomous? Is it trained for healthcare roles? Does it integrate with my ATS? Is it compliant?

Learn more at take2.ai

Enjoying the show? Subscribe to The ASHHRA Podcast on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode.

AP3 Sponsor Read

This episode is brought to you by AP3 — the ASHHRA Preferred Partner Program.

Healthcare HR leaders are navigating rising costs, workforce shortages, and an overwhelming vendor landscape. AP3 cuts through the noise.

Managed in collaboration with Lockton and backed by ASHHRA, AP3 is a governed ecosystem of vetted, healthcare-aligned solution providers across talent acquisition, benefits administration, workforce compliance, financial wellness, and employee engagement. Every partner is rigorously vetted. Every relationship is governed. Every solution is built for healthcare.

No directories. No bidding wars. Just trusted partners proven to perform.

Visit AP3.info to learn more and get connected with a partner.

Take2 Sponsor Read

This episode is brought to you by Take2 — a proud AP3 partner and the AI recruiting platform built specifically for healthcare.

Hiring in healthcare is harder than ever — high-volume openings, hard-to-fill clinical roles, and recruiting teams stretched thin. Take2 changes that.

Take2's AI agents automate the work that slows recruiters down — sourcing candidates, running outreach, screening and vetting applicants, scheduling interviews, and verifying licenses and certifications. It works around the clock, syncs directly into your ATS, and gives your recruiters hours back every week so they can focus on the people, not the process. From CNAs and EVS to RNs, APPs, and physicians, Take2 helps you hire faster across every role.

Vetted through AP3. Built for healthcare. Proven to perform.

Visit take2.ai/ashhra to learn more and get started.

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Four Years Left: The 2030 Staffing Cliff, APRN Expansion & Why 76% of Leaders Can't Execute

August 24th, 2026. Bo Brabo, Luke Carignan, and ASHHRA Executive Director Jeremy Sadlier. Four years to 2030. Three stories. One question underneath all of them: what are you actually doing about it?

📉 The Shortage Isn't Leaving — Here's the Timeline
AMN Healthcare's white paper layered five years of search data against BLS and CDC projections and landed where every independent source has: sustained staffing pressure through at least 2030 across nursing, allied health, physicians, and advanced practitioners. HRSA projects demand for 3.4 million RN equivalents against supply of just over 3 million. Three forces drive this and none resolve on their own — aging patient population, a boomer and early Gen X clinical workforce retiring simultaneously, and a pipeline that cannot outrun the retention leak.
Action: The organizations that come out ahead are making investments now that feel inconvenient — extended orientation, APRN integration, AI-enabled recruiting. If it feels optional today, that is the warning sign.

🩺 27 States Plus DC Now Grant NPs Full Practice Authority
Indiana became the latest, explicitly citing rural physician shortages. Wisconsin's law covering CNPs, CNSs, CNMs, and CRNAs takes effect next month. The NP workforce projects from 157,000 FTEs in 2016 to nearly 400,000 by 2030. Seven states have joined the APRN compact for cross-state practice on a single license.
Action: Don't wait for your state's law to change. Build the care models, onboarding pathways, and integration structures now. Organizations that wait will be 18 months behind when the law does change.

🤖 The Execution Gap Is the Real AI Problem
Incredible Health's executive report: 67% of leaders name retention their top concern. 76% say their organizations cannot implement AI at the required speed. 70% of frontline clinicians aren't using AI daily — while 80% want more training. Only 16% of healthcare recruiters use AI in their own work, managing 70 open roles with capacity to talk to just 10% of applicants. One in three healthcare employers is facing a nursing retirement cliff within five years — at the exact moment the 2030 shortage intensifies.
Action: Pick one thing from this episode — AI in recruiting, APRN integration, orientation length, or nursing succession planning. Just one. Figure out who owns it. If nobody does, that's your answer.

Enjoying the show? Subscribe to The ASHHRA Podcast on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode.

AP3 Sponsor Read

This episode is brought to you by AP3 — the ASHHRA Preferred Partner Program.

Healthcare HR leaders are navigating rising costs, workforce shortages, and an overwhelming vendor landscape. AP3 cuts through the noise.

Managed in collaboration with Lockton and backed by ASHHRA, AP3 is a governed ecosystem of vetted, healthcare-aligned solution providers across talent acquisition, benefits administration, workforce compliance, financial wellness, and employee engagement. Every partner is rigorously vetted. Every relationship is governed. Every solution is built for healthcare.

No directories. No bidding wars. Just trusted partners proven to perform.

Visit AP3.info to learn more and get connected with a partner.

Take2 Sponsor Read

This episode is brought to you by Take2 — a proud AP3 partner and the AI recruiting platform built specifically for healthcare.

Hiring in healthcare is harder than ever — high-volume openings, hard-to-fill clinical roles, and recruiting teams stretched thin. Take2 changes that.

Take2's AI agents automate the work that slows recruiters down — sourcing candidates, running outreach, screening and vetting applicants, scheduling interviews, and verifying licenses and certifications. It works around the clock, syncs directly into your ATS, and gives your recruiters hours back every week so they can focus on the people, not the process. From CNAs and EVS to RNs, APPs, and physicians, Take2 helps you hire faster across every role.

Vetted through AP3. Built for healthcare. Proven to perform.

Visit take2.ai/ashhra to learn more and get started.

Support the show

Leadership Is a Verb, Not a Title — and New Hope Treatment Centers Is Proving It

Featuring Tabitha Bramblett, Chief People Officer, New Hope Treatment Centers

Most organizations promote their best performer into a leadership role and then wonder why everything falls apart. Tabitha decided to build the program that changes that — and she did it at a 500-person behavioral health organization serving kids and teens across four states.

Luke and Bo sit down with Tabitha to talk about what leadership development actually looks like when you build it from scratch, why culture isn't a values poster, and what compassion has to do with your bottom line.

🏗️ Building Leaders Before They Have the Title
New Hope launched a formal emerging leaders program in partnership with CoEffX — an application and nomination process that gives aspiring leaders a chance to learn what leadership is and isn't before they're ever promoted. Graduates move into structured leadership cohorts with peer surveys built in. The result: people who don't actually want to lead opt out early, before a mismatched promotion creates a broken team and a gilded cage no one asked for.
Action: If you have no program at all, Tabitha's first two steps — hire a learning and development coordinator and find a program partner — are the place to start. You don't have to build it from scratch. CoEffX (coeff-ex.com) is worth a look.

❤️ Compassion as an Operational Strategy
New Hope built its entire culture framework — EPIC values: Excellence, Professionalism, Integrity, Compassion — around a single question: what if we started every interaction, with residents and teammates alike, with compassion? They operationalized it with loving-kindness meditations at shift start and major meetings. Their CEO modeled it personally during Tabitha's health challenges.
Tabitha's direct line: turnover, vacancy rates, and time-to-fill are all downstream of how people feel about each other at work.

🎯 The Recruiting Insight No One Talks About
Tabitha still reads resumes intentionally — not because AI can't filter, but because people are more than buzzwords on a page. The interview isn't a checklist. It's a conversation. And the question isn't whether the candidate can do the job — it's whether they share the vision.

Enjoying the show? Subscribe to The ASHHRA Podcast on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode.

AP3 Sponsor Read

This episode is brought to you by AP3 — the ASHHRA Preferred Partner Program.

Healthcare HR leaders are navigating rising costs, workforce shortages, and an overwhelming vendor landscape. AP3 cuts through the noise.

Managed in collaboration with Lockton and backed by ASHHRA, AP3 is a governed ecosystem of vetted, healthcare-aligned solution providers across talent acquisition, benefits administration, workforce compliance, financial wellness, and employee engagement. Every partner is rigorously vetted. Every relationship is governed. Every solution is built for healthcare.

No directories. No bidding wars. Just trusted partners proven to perform.

Visit AP3.info to learn more and get connected with a partner.

Take2 Sponsor Read

This episode is brought to you by Take2 — a proud AP3 partner and the AI recruiting platform built specifically for healthcare.

Hiring in healthcare is harder than ever — high-volume openings, hard-to-fill clinical roles, and recruiting teams stretched thin. Take2 changes that.

Take2's AI agents automate the work that slows recruiters down — sourcing candidates, running outreach, screening and vetting applicants, scheduling interviews, and verifying licenses and certifications. It works around the clock, syncs directly into your ATS, and gives your recruiters hours back every week so they can focus on the people, not the process. From CNAs and EVS to RNs, APPs, and physicians, Take2 helps you hire faster across every role.

Vetted through AP3. Built for healthcare. Proven to perform.

Visit take2.ai/ashhra to learn more and get started.

Support the show

You Can't Hire Your Way Out of This — St. Elizabeth Healthcare Proves It

Featuring Brittany Sorrell, Director of Workforce Development, St. Elizabeth Healthcare

700,000 open healthcare jobs every month. 306,000 unemployed healthcare workers to fill them. The math does not work. Brittany Sorrell has spent three years building the model that actually does — and it starts in high school.

Luke sits down with Brittany, a former bedside nurse and nursing faculty member turned workforce development director, to talk about what it looks like when a health system stops trying to recruit its way to stability and starts building a workforce from the ground up.

🏫 K–12 Is the Real Recruiting Pipeline
St. Elizabeth's workforce development strategy starts well before a candidate ever submits an application. Community partnerships, on-site exploration programs, and simulation center experiences give high school students a chance to discover careers they didn't know existed — radiation therapy being a standout example. Students leave asking to shadow. That's the pipeline. Organizations that wait until job posting miss the moment entirely.

🎓 Funding Faculty to Fill the Classroom
Brittany's most creative move: St. Elizabeth covers the salary gap for nurses who want to teach at partner universities — paying their clinical rate so the university can afford to keep them on faculty. The result: larger graduating cohorts, stronger institutional relationships, and graduates who already know St. Elizabeth before they apply. Two-year programs, funded by the Kentucky Work Ready Scholarship, are producing work-ready graduates at no cost to the student.

🌱 The 30-Month Problem — and What St. Elizabeth Is Doing About It
Gen Z nurses are outperforming every prior generation in retention through the first 24 months — then leaving at a higher rate than anyone else at month 30. Brittany's read: they're not leaving, they're growing. They hit proficiency, get the three-year itch, and start pursuing advanced roles. The organizations winning at this mark are identifying those nurses early, creating internal progression opportunities, and engaging them before the door opens.

🔎 Where to Start If Workforce Development Just Landed on Your Desk
Assess before you diagnose. Talk to your academic partners. Find out what they actually need — it may not be scholarships. Close the gap between what you assume and what you learn.

Enjoying the show? Subscribe to The ASHHRA Podcast on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode.

OUR SPONSORS

AP3 Sponsor Read

This episode is brought to you by AP3 — the ASHHRA Preferred Partner Program.

Healthcare HR leaders are navigating rising costs, workforce shortages, and an overwhelming vendor landscape. AP3 cuts through the noise.

Managed in collaboration with Lockton and backed by ASHHRA, AP3 is a governed ecosystem of vetted, healthcare-aligned solution providers across talent acquisition, benefits administration, workforce compliance, financial wellness, and employee engagement. Every partner is rigorously vetted. Every relationship is governed. Every solution is built for healthcare.

No directories. No bidding wars. Just trusted partners proven to perform.

Visit AP3.info to learn more and get connected with a partner.

Take2 Sponsor Read

This episode is brought to you by Take2 — a proud AP3 partner and the AI recruiting platform built specifically for healthcare.

Hiring in healthcare is harder than ever — high-volume openings, hard-to-fill clinical roles, and recruiting teams stretched thin. Take2 changes that.

Take2's AI agents automate the work that slows recruiters down — sourcing candidates, running outreach, screening and vetting applicants, scheduling interviews, and verifying licenses and certifications. It works around the clock, syncs directly into your ATS, and gives your recruiters hours back every week so they can focus on the people, not the process. From CNAs and EVS to RNs, APPs, and physicians, Take2 helps you hire faster across every role.

Vetted through AP3. Built for healthcare. Proven to perform.

Visit take2.ai/ashhra to learn more and get started.

Support the show