For nearly a decade, I stood in front of healthcare classrooms and, later, helped build the programs behind them, first as a professor, then as an administrator leading healthcare education programs in the academic sector. Over that time, I watched something shift. Not the material we taught, but how students engaged with it.
Early on, students largely accepted what was placed in front of them: master this skill, memorize this protocol, pass this exam and the rest would follow. Over the years, that gave way to a different kind of learner, one who wanted to understand why. Why does this competency matter to patient outcomes? Why is this the right sequence of coursework for the career I’m building? Students weren’t disengaging from rigor. They were asking for the purpose behind it.
That same expectation for clarity of purpose is showing up in the workforce today. Employees, especially those newer to their careers, aren’t only asking what a role requires of them. They want to know how the role, and the organization behind it, will continue to invest in their growth, not as a benefit tacked onto the job description, but as a real part of what the work is for.
Traditionally, building a healthcare career meant putting your head down, paying your dues, doing the work and trusting that time and effort would carry you forward. For Gen Z, however, building a career around that looks different. Having spent over 15 years working with emerging healthcare professionals, I’ve come to believe that’s not a flaw in this generation, but a signal for the rest of us.
New research commissioned by Strategic Education, Inc., and its subsidiary Workforce Edge, my employer, confirms what many healthcare leaders are already feeling: the industry is struggling to retain talent, especially among the next generation of workers. The 2026 Healthcare Workforce Barometer finds that 59% of healthcare workers are looking to leave, with 70% of Gen Z healthcare workers saying they will look for a new role in the next year.
This comes as the U.S. is projected to face a shortage of nearly 500,000 critical healthcare workers by 2038, with one in three nurses already over the age of 50 as of the end of 2023. We are facing a generational handoff, with an incoming generation that isn’t afraid to walk out the door.
This should alarm healthcare leaders. But before we write off Gen Z as less loyal or less committed to the profession, the data asks us to look closer. The real story isn’t that Gen Z won’t stay, it’s that they may not have been given a reason to.
Meeting Gen Z’s needs
Despite their high job mobility, Gen Z healthcare workers do want to put down roots. 65% of Gen Z workers claim they expect to stay with one employer for five or more years, and 95% value long-term job stability. What sets them apart is what they expect in exchange for that loyalty: 89% say that clear opportunities for advancement are important to them in their jobs, which is well over the 77% of older generation workers who say the same. And 86% of Gen Z workers think that education and skill-building are the path to getting there.
In other words, Gen Z isn’t rejecting commitment, they’re negotiating for it. Employers who take this seriously, building visible, achievable paths for advancement rather than treating jobs as static, will be far more likely to keep this generation past the one-year mark.
Linking workforce education directly to advancement
Despite widespread value in advancement, only 26% of healthcare workers have a great deal of trust that their employer will support their long-term career growth. Employers are not blind to this. Nearly half of employers point to a lack of opportunities for advancement, professional development or education as the main reasons employees leave.
Employees want growth, and employers know the absence of growth is driving attrition, yet the investment gap persists. 75% of healthcare workers say they’re interested in continuing their education through degree programs, certifications or skills-based learning, and 81% would welcome an employer-sponsored education benefits program. Still, less than half of employers have built a comprehensive workforce education program.
Employees have told us what they want, and employers have told us it works. What’s missing is the link between the two, and the clear communication to go with it. A workforce education strategy that is explicitly tied to advancement, not offered as a disconnected perk, is one of the most direct levers employers have for retention.
Lean into human edge over AI
The healthcare industry faces unique opportunities when it comes to grappling with AI disruption. Two-thirds of healthcare workers believe they are less at risk of AI replacing their jobs than workers in other industries, and employers appear to be recalibrating their own expectations of AI as well. The share of healthcare employers who see AI skills as critical to staying competitive dropped from 89% last year to 79% this year.
This is not a retreat from technology, but an acknowledgement that healthcare, at its core, is a human profession. Patients need judgement, empathy and presence that no algorithm can replicate, and the workforce seems to understand that. Employers should treat this sense of insulation as a recruitment asset, not just as a data point. It should represent a promise to the incoming generation that entering healthcare means investing in irreplaceable human skills, not competing with AI for a job.
A generational opportunity
Younger workers have told us what will make them stay. They want real, visible investment in their growth, job security and education opportunities directly tied to their advancement.
As seasoned healthcare workers near retirement and healthcare workforce shortages intensify, investing in the education of Gen Z workers is no longer optional, it’s a strategic necessity. Building a workforce education strategy is the best way for employers to stabilize the workforce and secure the future of patient care. The workforce that will care for us tomorrow is asking for our investment today.
[Matt Connell, Ed.D, is a healthcare education and workforce development strategist. He currently serves as Principal, Healthcare Education Solutions at Workforce Edge.]
