| Course | PU550 Public Health Leadership and Administration |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 5 |
| Paper type | Workforce development plan |
| Length | About 1,040 words, 6 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | Master of Public Health (MPH) |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for PU550 Unit 5
One Nurse in Four Leaves Every Year for a Hospital Paying Eighteen Percent More: A Unit 5 Workforce Development Plan That Builds Training Around the People a Composite District Can Keep
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
PU550: Public Health Leadership and Administration
Unit 5 Workforce Development Plan
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The Aldermere Valley district, its turnover rates and its dollar figures are composite; the competency framework and the research cited are real.
The Problem in Numbers
Nursing turnover ran 24 percent last year across 34 public health nurse positions, against 11 percent for the district's other 114 staff. Exit interviews name pay first and immediate supervision second. The regional hospital system's posted scale for a comparable registered nurse is 18 percent above the district's midpoint. Average time to fill a nurse vacancy is 94 days, and the cost of a vacancy in lost service plus recruitment is estimated at 21,000 dollars. Thirty-one percent of the district's workforce is eligible to retire within five years, which is close to the national pattern for local agencies and means the losses ahead are not only the voluntary ones (Leider et al., 2018).
What This Plan Will Not Try to Do
It will not close an 18 percent pay gap, because the district cannot. It will not train toward roles the district does not have. And it will not count attendance at a webinar as development. Saying this in the first page keeps the rest of the plan from becoming the usual list of free online courses.
Priority One: Keep the Middle
The staff the district can hold are not the new graduates, who use the agency as a first job, and not the nurses two years from a hospital offer. They are the 41 employees with between four and fifteen years of service across all divisions, who stay for the work, the schedule and the pension. The plan concentrates its money there, on the theory that development spending should follow retention probability rather than need alone.
1. A supervisory certificate for the 14 supervisors promoted without management training, two days of instruction plus four coaching sessions, delivered regionally. Cost 26,000 dollars for all 22 supervisors.
2. Epidemiology and data skills for six staff, aimed at the gap the vacant epidemiologist post exposed. Cost 19,000 dollars, using a university extension program rather than a conference.
3. A paid preparation stipend for the four staff who sit certification examinations in environmental health and health education. Cost 9,000 dollars.
Development money spent on somebody with one foot out the door buys the next employer a better candidate.
Priority Two: Make the First Year Survivable
The new graduates will leave, but they leave faster when nobody prepares them. The plan sets a 90-day structured onboarding for every new hire: a named preceptor with protected time, a written checklist of the ten tasks the role actually requires, and a 30-, 60- and 90-day conversation with the supervisor. The point is not to retain everybody. It is to get useful work from year one and to protect the preceptor's own caseload by funding the released time rather than assuming it.
Priority Three: Competency Rather Than Course Hours
The framework used here is the Council on Linkages set of core competencies for the public health workforce, with every position assigned a tier and each tier assessed once a year. The assessment is used for two purposes only: to plan the next year's training and to identify the staff ready for the deputy and supervisory posts the organizational assessment recommended creating. It is deliberately not part of performance evaluation, because a self-assessment that affects a raise stops being honest. Three capability areas were weakest district-wide in the baseline: policy development, financial planning and community partnership, which matches what national workforce surveys find local agency staff report (Bogaert et al., 2019).
Priority Four: The Pay Gap, Addressed Honestly
The plan cannot close the gap and can do three things about it. First, benchmark the epidemiologist and two environmental health positions against the regional market rather than the internal scale, since those are the roles where the district competes directly and loses. Second, document the vacancy cost of 21,000 dollars per nurse post so the board sees turnover as a budget line rather than a human resources statistic. Third, use the non-pay advantages the district actually has, which are schedule predictability, no night rotation and a defined benefit pension, and state them in recruitment material instead of competing on salary language the district cannot back.
Budget and Schedule
Total new spending 54,000 dollars in year one, 38,000 ongoing, funded by one held vacancy and 12,000 dollars of unspent grant training funds that currently lapse each year. Supervisory certificate in quarter one. Onboarding redesign in quarter one, before the spring hiring cycle. Competency baseline in quarter two. Certification stipends at examination dates. Market benchmarking goes to the board with the budget.
Measures
1. Nursing turnover, quarterly, with a target of 18 percent by year two.
2. Time to fill, with a target of 70 days.
3. Proportion of new hires completing the 90-day onboarding, target 100 percent.
4. Supervisors holding the certificate, target 22 of 22 within eighteen months.
5. Self-assessed competency in the three weak areas, re-measured annually.
Each measure has an owner and a reporting date, and the plan states which of them will be reported to the board, which is the first three.
What Will Make This Fail
Three risks, named rather than assumed away. Supervisory training that is delivered once and never reinforced will show nothing in the retention figures, which is why coaching sessions are funded rather than optional. The competency assessment will be quietly imported into performance review by a well-meaning supervisor, and the plan therefore says in writing that it may not be. And the 12,000 dollars of lapsing grant training money is only available while the grants last, which is a reminder that a development plan built on categorical funds has the same expiry dates as the programs it serves, and that strengthening agency capacity through workforce spending is an argument the district will have to keep making to its own board (Mays & Smith, 2011).
References
Bogaert, K., Castrucci, B. C., Gould, E., Sellers, K., Leider, J. P., Whang, C., & Whitten, V. (2019). The Public Health Workforce Interests and Needs Survey (PH WINS 2017): An expanded perspective on the state health agency workforce. Journal of Public Health Management and Practice, 25, S16-S25. https://doi.org/10.1097/PHH.0000000000000932
Leider, J. P., Coronado, F., Beck, A. J., & Harper, E. (2018). Reconciling supply and demand for state and local public health staff in an era of retiring baby boomers. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 54(3), 334-340. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2017.10.026
Mays, G. P., & Smith, S. A. (2011). Evidence links increases in public health spending to declines in preventable deaths. Health Affairs, 30(8), 1585-1593. https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2011.0196
What the PU550 Unit 5 assignment asks for
Unit 5 usually asks for a workforce development plan with training, retention and measures. Begin with the retention numbers, because development spending that follows need alone trains people who leave. State what the plan will not attempt, such as closing a market pay gap, so the rest of it stays credible. Organize priorities around groups of staff rather than around courses, and say which group each dollar is aimed at. Use a recognized competency framework and keep its assessment out of performance evaluation, since a self-assessment that affects a raise stops being honest. Address pay honestly, including benchmarking for the roles that compete directly with local employers. Give every measure an owner, a target and a date, and name what would make the plan fail.
How the PU 550 Unit 5 example is put together
The plan on this page opens with turnover, time to fill and vacancy cost, and a margin note explains why the retention arithmetic comes before any training. A section states plainly what the plan will not try to do. Four priorities follow: keeping mid-career staff, with three costed training lines; making the first 90 days survivable with funded preceptor time; organizing development against a competency framework kept out of evaluation; and three honest responses to the pay gap. A highlighted line observes that training somebody with one foot out the door benefits the next employer, and a second margin note explains spending differently on staff the agency expects to keep. Budget, schedule and five measures with owners follow, and a third note introduces three named failure risks.
Where the points sit in the PU550 Unit 5 rubric
Purdue Global rubrics for a workforce plan reward targeting and realism. Most of the points go to a plan whose spending is justified by retention and capability data rather than by a list of available courses. Credit goes to stating the limits of what the agency can do about pay, and to the three practical responses that remain. Use of a competency framework earns marks, and keeping its assessment separate from performance review earns more, because rubrics reward understanding why the separation matters. Measures are scored on owners, targets and dates, and a plan with twelve objectives and no numbers will lose against one with five that are specific. Naming the failure risks is credited rather than treated as pessimism.
PU550 Unit 5 help from the desk
The usual weakness is a training list dressed as a plan, with no retention data and no targeting. Start from turnover and work outward. The second error is promising to close a pay gap the agency cannot close, which costs the plan its credibility on the first page. Third, do not fold the competency self-assessment into performance evaluation, however convenient it looks, because the data will immediately stop being truthful. Watch the funding source too: a development plan built on lapsing grant money expires with the grant. And budget preceptor time rather than assuming it, since unfunded released time is taken from caseload and quietly abandoned. We can write this plan for your own agency figures inside two days.
Get a PU550 Unit 5 example written to your instructions
Describe the staff of the agency your PU550 plan covers, attach any competency or survey results, and add the Unit 5 prompt and rubric. The workforce plan returns as a free first custom sample in 24-48h, with each training line answering a named gap at a stated cost and retention given its own section. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
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PU550 Unit 5 questions, answered
Where can I find a free PU550 Unit 5 sample paper?
The full workforce development plan, with its budget, schedule and five measures, is open here.
Why target training at mid-career staff?
Because they are the group the agency can realistically keep, so the development spending stays inside the organization.
Can a plan admit it cannot fix pay?
It should. Saying so up front and naming the three things the district can do is stronger than promising a raise it cannot fund.
Should competency assessments feed performance reviews?
No. Once a self-assessment affects a raise it stops being honest, and the plan loses the data it depends on.
How long is a workforce development plan?
Five to six pages, covering the problem, priorities, budget, schedule, measures and risks.