The voice of caregivers:  What they want you to hear

By Milissa Eagle, MA, Director of Workforce Analytics, Press Ganey. 

Behind every data point is a person. A person who holds someone’s hand in the final moments of life. A person who soothes anxious patients and families. A person who celebrates good news with a patient. A person who cares—not because it’s easy, but because it’s who they are.  

Caregivers are the heart of the health system, carrying out their organization’s mission, vision, and values every day. Time and time again, data shows the connection between the employee engagement and the patient experience. The good news is that, nationally, employee engagement has rebounded after pandemic-era lows. We’ve identified three themes driving overall engagement: 

1. A deep commitment to safety culture 

2. Employee support and well-being 

3. Trust and alignment with senior leadership 

Using Press Ganey’s AI-powered comment analytics solution, Narrative HX, we analyzed more than 50,000 employee comments in 2025. From this perspective, we can see which topics align with the core drivers of engagement—and which ones fall outside those drivers but still play an important role in sustaining trust and the overall experience. 

In response to the question, “Please provide one suggestion on how to make this organization a better place to work,” six themes appeared most frequently. These comments go beyond survey scores and metrics, and reflect lived realities and experiences of today’s workforce—honest and vulnerable. Together, they highlight what truly shapes the Human Experience. 

1.  Compensation and benefits: “I need to feel valued” 

Nearly a quarter of all comments (24.9%) mention compensation and benefits, making it the most frequently voiced concern. While pay and benefits aren’t among the strongest statistical drivers of engagement, they matter deeply on a personal level—shaping employees’ ability to support themselves and their families. 

Caregivers describe giving everything to demanding roles while struggling to stay afloat financially. Some mention working multiple jobs; others describe seeing new hires start at higher wages than long-tenured employees. And many share concerns about having to use PTO just to be paid for holidays or struggling to afford insurance offered by their own employer. 

These aren’t just financial complaints. They are emotional. They reflect a deeper need: to feel valued. To know that their organization sees their effort, honors their labor, and supports their financial well-being.  

2. Leadership and management: “Lead with visibility and transparency” 

The second most common topic (19.3%) focuses on leadership and management practices. But caregivers don’t talk about “leadership” as a structure. They talk about relationships, trust, accountability, and communication. The quantitative data echoes this: Confidence in senior leadership is one of the strongest drivers of engagement. 

Employees say they want leaders at every level who are present on units, communicate openly, and act on concerns rather than letting them drift away unanswered. Many describe feeling dismissed or unheard when decisions seem disconnected from the realities of bedside work, or frustrated by inconsistent accountability that leaves teams feeling unsupported. 

In these stories, the common thread is a longing for leadership that feels human. A leader who listens. A leader who advocates. A leader who builds trust instead of eroding it. 

For caregivers already carrying emotional and physical strain, leadership doesn’t just set the tone—it shapes what it feels like to come to work every day.  

3. Staffing and workload: “We’re doing the work of many” 

Just behind leadership, 18.96% of comments mention staffing and workload—one of the most emotionally charged topics in the dataset. Like pay, staffing and workload aren’t key drivers of engagement. That said, perceptions of adequate staffing are closely tied to employees’ ability to decompress (i.e., being able to disconnect). So, we know that staffing levels do, in fact, impact the employee experience. 

These concerns are far from abstract. They are vivid, exhausted accounts of lives stretched thin. Caregivers who work entire shifts without breaks, manage dangerously high patient loads, and take on additional responsibilities day after day. The emotional toll of feeling that, despite their best efforts, it still may not be enough to keep patients safe.  

When caregivers write about staffing, what they’re really saying is: “We want to give excellent care, but we can’t do it safely without help.”  

4.  Organizational culture: “I want to feel like I belong” 

16.37% of comments highlight organizational culture—the shared values, beliefs, and day-to-day practices. This is the heart of engagement: feeling emotionally and personally connected to the organization. 

Caregivers shared moments when morale was low, recognition was scarce, and favoritism created quiet divisions within teams. They described losing traditions that once brought joy and connection. They voiced a desire to feel appreciated in the everyday work, not just during designated celebration weeks. 

What they’re really expressing is a longing for connection—for a culture where they feel seen, supported, and included. For many, culture isn’t something that comes from mission statements. It comes from the everyday experience of being treated as a whole person whose work and presence truly matter.  

5. Workplace environment: “Give us safe, functional places to care” 

9.05% of comments point to the physical and logistical aspects of the work environment—how their surroundings affect their ability to provide care.  

Across these reflections, caregivers shared concerns about outdated or malfunctioning equipment, physical spaces not designed for today’s patient volumes, and broader safety issues on units where security feels insufficient. Even parking and commuting come up often—daily stressors that accumulate before a shift begins. 

These comments reveal a reality every caregiver knows: The environment isn’t just a backdrop. It is a silent partner in every patient interaction. When it works, it supports. When it doesn’t, it adds weight to an already heavy load.  

6. Teamwork and collaboration: “My team is my lifeline” 

Finally, thoughts on teamwork and collaboration appear in 8.47% of comments. While this theme is least prominent in the six mentioned, it carries some of the strongest notes of hope.  

Many caregivers say their colleagues are why they’re able to keep going. They speak about teams that feel like family, about coworkers who anticipate needs before a word is spoken, about shared laughter that carries them through even the hardest days. 

Yet when collaboration—between departments, shifts, and disciplines—breaks down, the disappointment cuts deep. Because, for caregivers, teamwork isn’t a professional nice-to-have. It is the emotional anchor that keeps them steady when the waters get rough. 

Their stories show that when teamwork is strong, it becomes a source of resilience. When it falters, everything else becomes even harder to bear.  

Healthcare is human 

In the end, these comments remind us of something essential: Healthcare is, and always has been, profoundly human. The data gives us patterns, but the voices behind those patterns give us the real story. And these stories take us beyond engagement scores and workplace indicators to reveal the lived reality of people whose personal and professional worlds overlap in every shift. If we’re willing to hear them—truly hear them—they also give us a roadmap for both improving the work environment and honoring the humanity at the core of healthcare itself.