(P-MG-1) Development of A Career Progression Framework for a Donor Screening Laboratory

Background/Case Studies: Our lab performs high-throughput donor screening testing for a wide array of customers, including whole blood, source plasma and specialty plasma collectors. We test over 7 million samples annually, producing 50 million test reports. Retaining knowledgeable, technically skilled laboratory personnel in this high-throughput production laboratory environment is difficult. To help us improve retention rates, increase internal promotion, encourage the development of knowledge and skills, and align compensation to skill development we developed and implemented a career progression framework.

Study

Design/Methods: We developed a career progression framework which consists of four levels of technologists, ranked 1-4 with Technologist 1 being an entry level position and Technologist 4 being a lab management support position. Each level corresponds with an appropriate increase in responsibilities and wages. Behavioral and proficiency evaluations must be successfully completed for personnel to move to the next level. Personnel at the Technologist 1 level perform pre- and post-analytical processing and have competencies in 3 testing benches. Personnel at the Technologist 2 level are competent in three more benches and have additional lab responsibilities. At the Technologist 3 level personnel are competent in all testing benches, assess competencies and provide advanced lab support. Personnel at the technologist 4 level provide lab management support and precept new hires. A training plan was developed for each level which describes the specific responsibilities and requirements that must be successfully completed before moving to the next level. The plan also includes the training cycle with the specific time requirements for the training plan.

Results/Findings: The career progression framework encouraged development of knowledge and skills through consistent performance evaluation, progression and aligned compensation to specific skill development. The career progression framework has been associated with an improvement with retention of personnel. The current annualized turnover rate for 2023 for the laboratory is 7% compared to 28% in 2022. We also saw a 6% increase in cross training when comparing training pre-implementation (May 2022) compared to post-implementation (May 2023). Since implementation of the career progression framework, we have promoted 3 staff members to the Technologist 2 position, and we will evaluate 3 more staff members for promotion to Technologist 2 in August of 2023.

Conclusions: The development and implementation of a career progression framework has enabled us to improve the culture of the laboratory by helping to decrease the turnover rate in the laboratory by 21%. The career development framework has helped in increasing cross training of lab personnel by 6% and has enabled internal promotion.

Importance of research: We developed and implemented a unique career progression framework in order to develop internal staff and help decrease employee turnover. I have never seen a 4 tiered plan specific for laboratory staff before. We also linked advancement within the laboratory to specific behavioral and proficiency evaluations. The behavioral evaluation is a unique in-house developed tool targeted to promote the appropriate bahaviours needed of laboratory staff in a high volume production laboratory.