CUSTOMER STORY
How Ascension Leveraged Workforce Analytics to Save Millions on TA Costs Without Sacrificing Outcomes
Ascension utilized Visier's people analytics to achieve millions in savings by optimizing sign-on bonus strategies and significantly reducing contract labor costs. These data-driven insights also empowered them to retain nearly 1,000 more nurses year-over-year, improving workforce stability and transforming their HR function from a cost center into a credible strategic partner.
INDUSTRY
Healthcare
HEADQUARTERS
Saint Louis, Missouri
EMPLOYEES
139,000
Ascension is one of the nation’s leading non-profit and Catholic health systems, with a Mission of delivering compassionate, personalized care to all, with special attention to those most vulnerable. In FY2024, Ascension provided $2.1 billion in care of persons living in poverty and other community benefit programs. Across 16 states and the District of Columbia, Ascension’s network encompasses approximately 99,000 associates, 23,000 aligned providers, 94 wholly owned or consolidated hospitals, and ownership interests in 27 additional hospitals through partnerships. Ascension also operates 30 senior living facilities and a variety of other care sites offering a range of healthcare services.
With Visier’s people analytics solutions, Ascension:
Saved millions by optimizing sign-on bonus strategies and reducing contract labor costs
Retained nearly 1,000 more nurses year-over-year, improving workforce stability
Transformed the HR function from a cost center to a credible strategic partner
THE CHALLENGE
Outdated COVID-era talent acquisition strategies were costing the business millions
During the COVID era, healthcare organizations went to great lengths to hire nurses in any way they could. Ascension was no different, using large sign-on bonuses and relying on expensive contract labor to fulfill its mission of excellent patient care, even during times of crisis.
In the years since, Ascension suspected that a sustained overreliance on contract labor was impacting the morale of the permanent workforce, costing the organization millions in unrealized ROI, and ultimately affecting its mission to serve the community.
With registered nurses making up nearly half their staff and still in high demand, Ascension's Arielle Grupe and her team knew they needed a better way to hire and retain. Their goal was to secure top talent for quality patient care while using resources efficiently. To achieve this, they turned to Visier to identify and analyze the workforce metrics that would help them reduce contract labor and enhance the recruitment of registered nurses at the same time.
“Once leaders see how intuitive it is, their hesitation around data and technology dissipates. They realize it’s as simple as using their iPhone—they know where to click and what to look for. That comfort drives adoption, and adoption drives strategy. The easier the tool, the more empowered your leaders are to take action.”
Arielle Grupe
AVP of Workforce Insights and Planning, Ascension
A recipe for effective staffing: Layer workforce composition with productivity and volume trends
Workforce planning is about more than headcount—it's about ensuring we’re staffed appropriately and using our talent efficiently. We're integrating business metrics like volumes and discharges to align staffing with actual demand. By layering workforce composition with productivity and volume trends down to the department level, leaders can clearly see whether we're staffing effectively.
Having that all in one place is key for our leaders so they're not jumping from one dashboard to the other and trying to visually put insights together themselves. It's there in one place for them to spend more time understanding the data to drive impact.
Arielle Grupe
AVP of Workforce Insights and Planning, Ascension
THE SOLUTION
“Using Visier, we analyzed key workforce metrics to pinpoint areas for reducing contract labor and enhancing recruitment process efficiency.”
Focusing on registered nurse recruitment, Ascension reviewed its hiring processes with Visier to identify key metrics for evaluation. This analysis informed a focused three-month "sprint" during which they implemented significant process improvements like extending same-day offers to boost acceptance rates and, critically, shortening the average time between interview and offer.
“It's absolutely critical to reduce contract labor so that we can be sustainable and continue to serve individuals and communities,” explains Arielle, making the connection between workforce costs and patient outcomes. “Visier provides critical insights into where we may be leaving talent on the table.”
Without Visier, says Arielle, “we would not have been able to discover what we did. Visier allowed us to pull together multiple sources of data for analyzing” and ultimately improving their recruitment pipeline.
THE OUTCOME
“This change has saved the organization tens of millions of dollars without negatively impacting applications or hiring outcomes."
Arielle and her team discovered that unchecked sign-on bonuses were costing Ascension "tens of millions of dollars." Using Visier to analyze integrated ATS data on bonus trends, timing, and job families, they found—corroborated by their data science team—that these bonuses had surprisingly little impact on applications or hires, and only marginal retention benefits for specific groups. Armed with these powerful insights, Ascension confidently revamped its sign-on bonus policy, slashing millions in ineffective spending without negatively affecting recruitment outcomes—the result, says Arielle, is a “prime example of using TA data to challenge the status quo and drive smart, cost-effective decisions.”
Beyond the substantial cost savings, Visier directly empowered Ascension's nurse leaders and contributed to critical workforce stability. Nurse leaders reported Visier as helpful and user-friendly, particularly valuing its ability to drill down from market to department level for real-time headcount and trend data. In an environment already saturated with data, Visier’s clear, centralized metrics and built-in definitions made workforce insights accessible and actionable, driving strong adoption. This empowerment had a remarkable impact: Ascension successfully retained nearly 1,000 more nurses year-over-year, a welcome boost to their caregiving capacity.
Read more healthcare customer success stories
About Visier
Visier is the global leader in Workforce Intelligence that powers every people decision. Our award-winning, agentic AI technology surfaces the insights leaders need to plan, decide, and act with confidence in the moments that matter most. As the market leader in people analytics, workforce planning, organizational design, and manager effectiveness solutions, we fuel smarter decision-making for organizations across the globe. Our mission is to help businesses lead with insight at scale as they continuously transform. Founded in 2010 by the pioneers of business intelligence, we have over 65,000 customers in 75 countries—including enterprises like BASF, Panasonic, Domino’s Pizza, Experian, Amgen, eBay, and Ford Motor Company.
For more information, visit visier.com