New Member Highlight – Pave It, Inc.
Pave It, Inc. offers Asphalt Paving, Asphalt Stamping, Concrete, Concrete Stamping, Retaining Walls, Landscape Curbing, Preventative Maintenance, Patch Paving, Sealcoating and that is just the shortlist. But the long of it is if you don’t see what you’re looking for, just ask. Chances are, if it’s about paving, they are able to do it.
2023 Third Quarter Compliance Digest
Source: My Benefit Advisor
Download My Benefit Advisor's 2023 Third Quarter Compliance Digest, featuring all of the released compliance bulletins for July through September. This document is a valuable resource, putting all of the latest health care reform news and updates in one location. Click here to download the 2023 Third Quarter Compliance Digest.
If you missed our Second Quarter email, click here to download the 2023 Second Quarter Compliance Digest.
Ready or Not, Year-End is Approaching: Ways to Reduce Your Tax Bill
Source: Lindsay Young, McKonly & Asbury
It is not too late to find some simple ways to reduce your tax bill for this
year. Tax deductions (or “tax write-offs”) offset your taxable income, thereby allowing you to pay a smaller tax bill. Therefore, it’s important to make sure that you are both claiming all tax deductions available to your small business and claiming them accurately.
Items to Consider as Year End Approaches
Advertising and promotion – Want to send a holiday card or sponsor an upcoming client’s event? Deduct these items as marketing and advertising expense.
- Business meals – If you provided your employees with a holiday party, this social event is 100% deductible. However, lunch brought in, office snacks, team training or other meals with employees or clients, are only 50% deductible.
- Business insurance – Have you reviewed your insurance policies to make sure you are adequately covered for emergencies? Are there additional insurances you should consider? A common missing insurance is protecting yourself against possible cyberattacks.
- Business use of your car – Have you discussed with your accountant the best method to record vehicle expenses? There are two methods available: either the standard mileage rate or the actual expense method. Are you tracking mileage correctly? Apps, such as Mile IQ, can help simplify and increase accuracy of mileage tracking.
- Depreciation – Did you purchase any new furniture or equipment? Assets purchased over $2,500 should be capitalized and depreciated over the asset’s useful life, while items under $2,500 may be recorded as a direct expense.
- Education – Are there available learning opportunities at an upcoming seminar or workshop to improve skills and help your bottom line? Consider registering your team today for these continuing educational courses and include this a business expense deduction.
- Gifts – Thinking about giving a gift to your employees during the holiday season? You can deduct no more than $25 of the cost of business gifts that you give directly or indirectly to each person during your tax year. Incidental costs such as engraving, packing, or shipping aren’t included in the $25 limit if they don’t add substantial value to the gift. Any item that could be considered a gift or entertainment is generally considered entertainment and cannot be deducted.
- Home office – Conducting work from your home office? Depending on your situation, a dedicated office space in your home that’s used solely for business may qualify you to deduct certain home office expenses on your personal income tax return.
- Interest – If you are making loan payments, make sure you’re allocating the applicable interest paid to the profit and loss statement as interest expense.
- Legal and professional fees – Yes, those accountant fees are deductible, along with applicable bookkeeping or services provided by lawyers.
- Merchant service charges and bank fees – You can deduct merchant fees paid to a third-party like PayPal or Stripe. Are you coding these correctly in the accounting software to ensure that you are appropriately representing your gross sales and recognizing your merchant fees?
- Rent expense – Rent paid for traditional office space, along with equipment rentals, are both deductible expenses.
- Salaries and benefits – Review year-to-date payroll expenses to ensure that you have accurately reflected gross to net payroll, employer taxes paid, and benefits.
- Taxes and licenses – Payments for state licensing or business privilege taxes should be recognized as an expense. Most payments for personal taxes should be coded as an owner’s draw (not expensed).
Telephone, internet, and utilities – Review your business usages annually to deduct any business portion of applicable phone, internet, and utility related expenses. - Travel expenses – Business travel is a deductible expense. Maintaining copies of applicable business receipts while traveling is important. Documentation, including travel and event details, ensures creditability in an audit.
- Personally paid business expenses – Did you pay any business expenses with personal funds? If so, those can be deducted as business expenses. Work with your accountant to record these. Make sure you have all associated receipts to support the expenses.
The IRS has specific criteria regarding many of the tax deductions listed above. Many of the deductions listed may or may not be available to your business. Best practice is to consult with your tax advisor or CPA before claiming a deduction on your tax return.
Have a financial check-up soon, so YOU ARE READY FOR YEAR-END!
If you would like to talk to one of our professionals on this topic or any other business-related topic, please do not hesitate to contact a member of our Advisory and Business Consulting team, such as Lindsay Young.
Business Matters Hits Newsstands
Thanks again to our partner The Press Enterprise, the newest edition of Business Matters has officially hit newsstands (today)! Inside the edition, you'll see a recap of the last quarter's member news highlights, ribbon cuttings, events, and more. You'll also learn about upcoming programs and events, and business news that will impact your business in the coming months. Special thanks to Special Editions Editor Shawn Stair for another wonderful publication.
Would you like copies of Business Matters for your waiting room or lobby, or to share with your friends? Stop by the Chamber or request copies by calling (570) 784-2522.
Governor Shapiro Unveils Economic Development Strategy
Source: PA Chamber of Business and Industry
PA Chamber President & CEO Luke Bernstein joined Governor Josh Shapiro and York County Economic Alliance President & CEO Kevin Schreiber at a press conference at Penn Air in York last week in which the governor announced that his administration will formalize an ambitious economic development strategy for Pennsylvania – the first time such a plan will have been proposed statewide in nearly two decades.
Standing alongside Penn Air CEO Seth Bray, Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) Secretary Rick Siger, and Pennsylvania’s Chief Transformation Officer Ben Kirshner, Gov. Shapiro called the plan a “new, forward-looking strategy to ensure Pennsylvania becomes a national leader in innovation, job creation, and economic development.
The themes emphasized by the Governor align closely with many of the pro-business reforms long championed by the PA Chamber. As the Statewide Voice of Business, our organization has advocated for a statewide economic development strategy, and we are pleased that Gov. Shapiro and his administration have answered that call to make Pennsylvania more competitive.
At the forefront of this strategy is a commitment to simplicity and efficiency in state operations. The first step of this plan, Shapiro said, will be “simplifying the landscape of available programs and incentives available through DCED and growing a smaller set of essential tools that will be the most useful.”
Earlier this year, an official review by the Shapiro administration identified more than 2,400 state licenses, permits, and certifications that fall under the governor’s jurisdiction.
The creation of the Office of Transformation and Opportunity marked a pivotal step toward streamlining these processes, so much so that the PA Chamber made codifying the governor’s executive order one of the pillars of our comprehensive permitting reform framework.
In his address, Shapiro noted the office’s efforts will be another key part of this broader strategy, focused on making it easier for businesses to relocate or expand into Pennsylvania.
The governor also announced the launch of a new pilot program to support the redevelopment of business spaces across the Commonwealth. The Pennsylvania Strategic Investments to Enhance Sites Program (PA SITES) will provide at least $10 million in grant funding to assess existing sites across the Commonwealth and prepare them for remediation.
Additional areas of focus outlined by the governor include providing targeted support to some of Pennsylvania’s fastest-growing industrial sectors (such as life sciences, agribusiness, manufacturing, technology and robotics, and energy) and fostering small business growth.
The plan itself will be created following a series of listening sessions with business and economic development leaders which DCED plans to host across the state in the coming weeks. The administration conducted similar meetings over the summer.
The PA Chamber welcomes this collaborative approach to economic development, and we look forward to working closely with Gov. Shapiro and his administration to enact meaningful reforms that will help make Pennsylvania the most competitive state in the nation for business.
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Founded in 1916, the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry is the state's largest broad-based business association, with its membership comprising businesses of all sizes and across all industry sectors. The PA Chamber is The Statewide Voice of BusinessTM.
Why Understanding Workplace Personality Boosts Company Culture
• Workplace personalities can be broken down into 4 distinct types: Go-Getters, Loyalists, Career Builders, and Lifers.
• Go-Getters are motivated by challenge and opportunity; Employers should provide them with chances to take on challenges and learn new skills.
• Loyalists place value on stability and predictability; Employers should focus on providing clear paths for advancement.
• Career Builders are always looking for new opportunities; Employers need to offer challenging work assignments as well as career growth within the company.
• For Lifers, employers need to provide stable, long-term positions that make them feel connected to the company mission and build meaningful relationships.
• No two people are wired the same way, so understanding what motivates employees benefits both workers and employers alike.
~ 625 words/ 3 min. read
What’s motivating your employees? It turns out that workers want a lot more than a paycheck and job flexibility. In fact, some of what they want is rooted in personality and workplace psychology.
Workplace personalities can be broken down into four distinct types of workers. Understanding the different types of workers and what motivates them can lead to greater job satisfaction and a better fit between employer and employee.
4 Types of Workplace Personalities
Go-Getters
Go-getters make up the smallest group of workers, but they are also the most likely to be satisfied with their jobs. This group is motivated by challenge and opportunity; they want to continuously improve their skills and grow within their companies. For employers, this means providing go-getters with opportunities to take on challenges and learn new skills.
Many go-getters are also what Psychology Today contributor Melody Wilding, a professor of Human Behavior, refers to as a “sensitive striver.” While this type gives 100% to their job, they also process information and emotions on a deep level. This combination is part of what makes them top talent, but it can also lead to burnout. Managers attuned to the stress of high achievers can help them translate their effort into success rather than self-sabotage.
Loyalists
Loyalists are devoted to their employers and place a high value on stability. They are motivated by predictability and routine and prefer to stick with what they know. In the present economy, employers would be unwise to rely too much on loyalists to stick around if the work environment is poor or pay is not competitive. Still, understanding what motivates loyalists can help companies serve this personality type better.
Employers can improve worker satisfaction for this group when they focus on stability and predictability in their jobs. Additionally, loyalists are often looking for opportunities to move up within their companies, so employers should provide clear paths for advancement.
Career Builders
Career builders are similar to go-getters in that they are motivated by challenge and opportunity. However, unlike go-getters who are looking to grow within their current companies, career builders are always on the lookout for new opportunities—even if that means changing jobs.
For employers, this means offering career builders challenging work assignments as well as opportunities for growth within the company. According to Forbes’ contributor and workplace consultant Heidi Lynn Kurter, the Great Resignation could have been avoided by tending to the needs of career builders.
What motivates them? Here’s what Kurter says tops the list: compensation and pay transparency, job flexibility, a positive work culture, and inclusive policies ranging from dealing with loss to infertility.
Lifers
Lifers make up the largest group of workers and are defined by their loyalty to their companies. Like loyalists, lifers place a high value on stability and predictability. However, unlike loyalists who are interested in moving up within their companies, lifers are content with remaining in their current positions for the long haul.
For employers, this means offering lifers stable, long-term positions. Staying with a company for your whole career isn’t as common as it once was, and employers shouldn’t take this type for granted. It’s important that employers recognize that lifers also have external opportunities and are choosing to stay with the company at many different points along the course of their career. Make sure lifers feel connected to the company mission and provide them with opportunities to build meaningful relationships with coworkers and superiors.
No Such Thing as an Average Employee
Above all else, it's important to remember that not every person is wired the same. Understanding what motivates employees benefits everyone. It helps workers find meaning in what they do, and it helps employers invest wisely in hiring and retaining employees who can contribute to a strong company culture.
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The Columbia Montour Chamber of Commerce is a private non-profit organization that aims to support the growth and development of local businesses and our regional economy. We strive to create content that not only educates but also fosters a sense of connection and collaboration among our readers. Join us as we explore topics such as economic development, networking opportunities, upcoming events, and success stories from our vibrant community. Our resources provide insights, advice, and news that are relevant to business owners, entrepreneurs, and community members alike.
Member News – October 4, 2023
PA Chamber Announces "Best of Fall" Competition - Bloomsburg Fair is nominated
First-round voting is open now through October 6th for the first annual Pennsylvania "Best of Fall competition. The 32 Best of Fall nominees included in this year’s tournament will face off in a single-elimination bracket format with winners chosen through public voting on the PA Chamber’s X page and, for the final 24 hours of voting only, the PA Chamber’s Instagram page. The Bloomsburg Fair is among the nominees! Learn more about this competition and VOTE!
IMC hosting webinar October 17th
The IMC will be hosting a 55-minute webinar called Meeting the HR Challenge October 17th. This webinar will help identify and invigorate a new or refreshed awareness of several important elements of meeting today’s HR challenges, especially those directly connected with workforce trends. Learn more and register here.
The Exchange Calls for Entries
The Exchange calls for entries for their October 16th show "Food for Thought" and their annual "Cash & Carry" will celebrate 10 years this November. Learn more on how to enter your artwork.
North Shore Railroad Company & Affiliates Newsletter out now
Take a look at the third quarter newsletter from The North Shore Railroad Company & Affiliates.
MARC posts an invitation to Bid for 2024 Lawn Care
Sealed bids for lawn care at the various properties managed by the Montour Area Recreation Commission (MARC) will be received by MARC at any time until 6:59pm on Monday, October 23, 2023. Get the invitation to bid packet here.
Tina Welch presenting at SBDC workshop
Tina Welch of Welch Performance Consulting is presenting at the Bucknell SBDC's October 18th "I'm Ready to Hire! What do I do now?" workshop. This IN PERSON event will explore: Your shift from technical expert to leader, manager, motivator, how to hire for both culture & competence,
the role of change management including role clarity, process, and communication, and employment Law 101 elements that can help you hire smart and stay out of trouble -common first-time employer myths & mistakes will be addressed. Sign up today!
Covered Bridge Festival happening October 5 - 8
The 41st Annual Covered Bridge & Arts Festival will have something for everyone! The Festival is one of the largest craft festivals on the East Coast, and four-day annual attendance is typically near 150,000 visitors. Learn more.
Senator Lynda Schlegel Culver opens satellite office
Senator Lynda Schlegel Culver opens satellite officeOn Sept. 27 Senator Lynda Schlegel Culver opened a satellite office at the Salem Township Municipal Building, 38 Bombay Lane, Berwick. The office’s operating hours are on Mondays and Wednesdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
BTE Fall Theatre School Workshops
Mythology-loving kids and teens are encouraged to sign up for the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble’s Fall Theatre School: Greek Mythology Mayhem! Learn more about ages and class dates.
Bloomsburg Children's Museum October Events
Two special events are happening at the Bloomsburg Children's Museum in October. Mom & Son Dinosaur Brunch and Harry Potter Day. Learn more.
PA Build My Future day Happening October 12th
PA Build My Future gives students the opportunity to have a day to work in the construction and design industry through an interactive showcase. This program is for students entering grades 10-12. Learn more and register.
Apollo Point Hosting Dogtoberfest
October 13 - October 15 the first ever Dogtoberfest benefit will be held at Apollo Point. Learn more!
Luschas, Naparsteck & Crane Welcome new Associate
Luschas, Naparsteck & Crane welcomed Kyle Cosoleto-Miller as their new associate. Attorney Cosoleto-Miller graduated from Bloomsburg University (now Commonwealth University of Bloomsburg) and the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. He is a native of Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. His practice areas include estate administration, civil litigation, personal injury, real estate, and estate planning.
The Women's Center hosting Domestic Violence Awareness Month Survivor Series
Every1KnowsSome1 recognizes how domestic violence not only effects an indiviudal but an entire community. On October 17 there will be a discussion on ways the community can work together to end domestic violence while hearing survivor stories from Crystal Silva and Jenny Rose. Register today.
Affordable Care Act Refresher - Employer Responsibilities Webinar to be held October 18th
Join the My Benefit Advisor compliance team for a review of ACA rules and regulations as well as best practices. They will provide key information for our broker partners to share with their Applicable Large Employers (ALEs), employers close to the 50-life threshold, and level/self-funded groups under 50. Click here to register.
Thrivent hosting fellow Chamber Member Cardinal Estate Planning for a workshop
Join Thrivent Financial and Cardinal Estate Planning for an informational estate planning workshop focused on estate planning on October 26th. Learn more about this workshop.
Bloomsburg YMCA looking for Trunks
Bloomsburg YMCA is searching for families, businesses, and organizations to participate in Trunk or Treat! See more details.
Celebration Villa Hosting Fall Festival
October 25th Celebration Villa of Berwick will be hosting a Fall Festival. This event is open to the public! There will be several activities to do such as: pumpkin painting, spooky cookie decorating, a walk through the haunted courtyard, trick or treating, and more!
Penn College Hosting Attack Surface Management Summit
Join Pennsylvania College of Technology and IBM Security for a half-day knowledge sharing summit on Attack Surface Management, Threat Intelligence, and in-demand Career Skills by leading organizations. Registration deadline is October 31st.
Halloween Events
- Ken Pollock Ford hosting Trunk or Treat on October 23rd 5:00 pm to 7:00pm
- Danville Halloween October 26th beginning at 7:00 pm.
- Town of Bloomsburg Trick or Treat night October 31st, 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm.
Commonwealth University of PA - Bloomsburg hosting public lecture series starting November 1
Please join us at the Commonwealth University of PA, Bloomsburg campus on the following dates for a public economic lecture series. These events will be live-streamed please visit their website for more information.
Luzerne County Community College hosting Fall Career Fair
LCCC will be hosting a fall Trades & Technology Career Fair in November and is looking for businesses to participate. Learn more and register today!
New Member Highlight – Life Remembered
Life Remembered founded by George Stoecklein, Sr. in the 1950s, Life Remembered, formerly CMS East, is one of the largest privately-owned cemetery organizations in the country. Locally they operate Elan Memorial Park a full-service cemetery dedicated to providing solutions for your family’s burial needs – no matter whether you prefer cremation, above-ground, or in-ground burial.
How Big Brands Turn Customer Review into Sales
Source: US Chamber of Commerce
Backpack maker JanSport, underwear brand MeUndies, and La Colombe Coffee Roasters are among the companies tapping tech tools to optimize consumer review content to deliver results.
By: Mark Hamstra , Contributor
Why it matters:
- 98% of consumers read online reviews at least occasionally when browsing online, according to BrightLocal.
- Consumer interaction with online reviews is up 50% since before the pandemic, according to PowerReviews, as consumers adopted more digital shopping habits.
- In turn, brands such as JanSport, MeUndies, and La Colombe Coffee Roasters are weaving positive customer reviews into their marketing messages; offering product samples to solicit reviews; and even leveraging employee reviews to stoke brand equity and drive business.
Product sampling, question-and-answer polls, and more sophisticated analytics have become key tools businesses use to optimize the marketing power of customer reviews.
Major brands such as backpack maker JanSport, underwear brand MeUndies, and La Colombe Coffee Roasters are using these tactics and others to turn their customer reviews into a more powerful form of user-generated content.
A recent survey from BrightLocal found that 43% of consumers said they regularly read online reviews when browsing online for local businesses, for example. That’s up from 19% in 2019 and 26% in 2020. Almost all consumers surveyed — 98% — said they read online reviews at least occasionally.
Research from PowerReviews, meanwhile, shows that consumer interaction with online reviews — including actions such as searching, filtering, and clicking to expand and read an entire review — spiked 89% higher at the start of the pandemic, but has since stabilized, with growth still strong at 50% over pre-pandemic levels.
Meanwhile, the top five factors that improve shopper confidence online all revolve around reviews, according to the Bazaarvoice Shopper Experience Index. These include, in order, the average star rating; the number of reviews; details in reviews that resonate with shoppers’ needs; how recently reviews were written; and the presence of lengthy, detailed reviews.
“The fact that we conduct research online makes it even more important, because we don’t touch and feel [the product], said Zarina Lam Stanford, Chief Marketing Officer at Bazaarvoice, which offers solutions around user-generated content, including reviews. “We read what other people have to say in the reviews or the commentary. The power of word of mouth is paramount.”
JanSport’s product samplings and video tutorials fuel winning customer review campaign
When backpack maker JanSport launched its new Adaptive Collection specially designed for individuals who are mobility challenged earlier this year, it leveraged customer reviews driven by product sampling in order to drive sales. The line included both the Adaptive Backpack and an Adaptive Cross-Body Bag, both of which included specific functionalities such as adjustable loops and anchor straps for securing the backpack to a wheelchair.
The company has long incorporated user-generated content into its marketing efforts, but this campaign called for feedback from a unique customer niche. Working with PowerReviews, JanSport said it wanted to make sure it got the product in front of the right audience.
In November 2022, the brand launched a sampling campaign — providing products to users and soliciting their reviews — and paired it with an online video tutorial, according to a PowerReviews case study.
The effort garnered a 90.2% review completion rate — above the industry average of 85% for such campaigns, according to PowerReviews — and a 4.7-star average rating.
As a result of the campaign’s success, JanSport said it was considering using similar product sampling for all of its new product launches.
Andrew Smith, Vice President of Marketing at PowerReviews, said product sampling is especially effective for new product launches, so that brands can gather reviews from a select group of consumers before the products actually become broadly available to the public. While the consumers who receive advance samples are not required to submit reviews, they generally feel compelled to do so, he said.
“Product sampling is a really good solution for new products,” said Smith. “It’s like the chicken or the egg scenario. What comes first? The reviews or the product? With product sampling, you kind of have the best of both worlds.”
MeUndies leverages reviews from customers and employees to earn consumer trust
Prompting customer reviews by offering incentives — known as inorganic reviews — is another strategy that brands are using to ensure they have a high volume of user-generated content.
MeUndies, which offered a subscription service in which customers receive new underwear each month, took several steps to bolster its product reviews when it introduced a total of 68 new items in 2021, after several years of minimal new-product launches.
The brand began using tools from Bazaarvoice to solicit customer reviews, and also added a “Write a Review” button on its website. It also launched multiple sweepstakes offering customers a chance to win in exchange for reviewing products in certain key categories.
In addition, MeUndies also started collecting reviews from staff members. The company labels its staff reviews with custom badges, so that shoppers can see that a staff member left the review. Customer reviews that were incentivized are also labeled with a special badge, as are reviews left by customers who actually bought the product, which verifies the authenticity of the review.
“Most of our customers read reviews before purchasing, and they expect our reviews to be extensive, cover every detail of the product, and to be recent,” the company said in a Bazaarvoice case study.
Reviews from employees are especially valuable, according to MeUndies, because customers have confidence that the reviewer is knowledgeable about all aspects of the product and service.
Since making the changes to the way it gathers reviews in 2021, MeUndies said it has recorded a 218% increase in approved reviews submitted through email.
Another aspect of MeUndies’ review process is its ability to respond to negative reviews. It works with Bazaarvoice to moderate its reviews and respond online to negative reviews. This gives the company not only an opportunity to provide a more positive experience for the customer, but it also allows other customers to see that the brand is seeking to provide good customer service.
Smith of PowerReviews said his company also moderates reviews to weed out profanity and other inappropriate activity, but he said negative reviews can actually help bolster the credibility of the review content overall.
“If the review is legitimately about the product and is negative, we are big believers that that should absolutely be displayed on the front page,” he said. “We've done a lot of research on this, and what we find is consumers get suspicious if everything is completely positive.”
People like to see a range of about 4.5 to 4.9 stars in a review he said, noting that having all five-star reviews is generally not perceived a genuine.
La Colombe taps analytics to weave key words from five-star reviews into marketing content
Brands are also getting better at incorporating review content into their marketing efforts. Coffee roaster and café operator La Colombe Coffee Roasters, for example, appreciates the positive reviews it receives so much that it has featured them as integral elements of its marketing.
When the company was planning a summer tour to promote its Draft Lattes, for example, it noticed that one reviewer said the mouthfeel was “like being on a cloud.” It designed the webpage for the campaign to feature the review, front and center, the company said in a PowerReviews case study.
The company also uses review content in paid ads and in email campaigns. Emails with content from reviews get more traction that emails that lack review content, La Colombe said.
La Colombe uses tools from PowerReviews to analyze five-star reviews and identify words that are used in multiple reviews so that it can key in on these terms that it knows will resonate with consumers, the company said.
The company has also used a sentiment analytics tool, which leverages natural language processing to read all reviews, and then assign a sentiment score to each product. It then compares these sentiments with those associated with competitors’ products.
Going forward, Smith of PowerReviews said he expects that reviews will become more personalized for individual consumers.
“In the future, brands may be displaying reviews based on certain algorithms around how a consumer has interacted with their site,” he said. “I haven’t really seen it happen yet, but if there’s 1,000 reviews, there’s no way a customer is going to read them all. Using automation to sort them in a way that’s going to resonate with the consumer is where I see the industry going and how I think reviews can become even more impactful than they are already.”
CO— aims to bring you inspiration from leading respected experts. However, before making any business decision, you should consult a professional who can advise you based on your individual situation.
Government Mandate Not the Solution for a Workforce Shortage
by Chris Berleth, President, Columbia Montour Chamber of Commerce
The "Patient Safety Act" stifles innovation and takes leadership decisions out of the hands of local experts.
Recently, the PA House of Representatives passed House Bill 106, the "Patient Safety Act", which mandates nursing ratios as a measure to address the nursing shortage and quality of care concerns. After conversations with local healthcare leaders, the Chamber is concerned about the impact of unintended consequences that such mandates pose for our communities.
Columbia and Montour Counties are fortunate to have some of the best healthcare resources in the world. Even so, the nationwide nursing shortage (The Bureau of Labor & Statistics Employment projects that nursing is one of the fastest-growing occupations and despite its 7% growth, will still be 1.1 million jobs short of avoiding a full-blown crisis) is exacerbated by the state of Pennsylvania's workforce woes and an aging population who need more healthcare resources. There's no denying that we need more nurses - but a government mandate forcing hospitals to comply with a nursing ratio does more harm than good - it's the equivalent of applying a band-aid to a wound that requires surgical precision. Worse yet, there's no evidence that such a mandate can meet its objectives in improving care - the only state with such a law is California, which passed it two decades ago, and the verdict is still out on whether it's worked.
Here in central Pennsylvania, local healthcare leaders tell us that across campuses in our region, there's a 37% nursing vacancy rate. This huge gap has prompted local leaders to double down on innovative new ways to care for patients and recruit and retain employees. In a recent public update, leadership at Geisinger has shared that some of the approaches that they've taken include the development of new care teams, leveraging the licenses and skillsets of existing staff, embracing new technologies that support nursing efficiencies, and the removal of barriers in the talent pipeline that lead to hiring bottlenecks. One such bottleneck being addressed is the relationship between local educational resources, which have responded whole-heartedly to addressing the issue, and have expanded programs (Luzerne County Community College) and accepted more students than ever (Commonwealth University- Bloomsburg) into nursing programs. They're doing what every business in Pennsylvania needs to do to succeed - assessing the situation on the ground, local leaders are assessing resources and making creative changes - and it's taking time, but it's working.
Many of these improvements are at risk with the final passage of the Patient Safety Act, which locks in an RN-exclusive model of patient care (which contrasts with piloted new care teams that rely on fewer nurses for work that need not necessarily be done by RNs). For an industry that relies heavily on the power of inspections, reviews, third-party assessments, and patient and employee feedback to determine success, the Chamber cannot support a bill that takes a step backward by removing flexible decision-making from the leadership who knows how to best care for patients. This is especially true when that bill also threatens to force those leaders into offering fewer beds and less access as an unintended consequence of compliance. Let's let local leaders lead, and let's foster a multipronged approach to come at this crisis from every angle, rather than a mandate that serves as a shortcut.
Read our letter to Senator Kim Ward, encouraging the Senate to vote "no" on ratifying H.B. 106.