The Next Generation of SPD Leadership: Building the Workforce of the Future

A Profession Many People Discover by Accident

Sterile processing departments (SPD) have spent years trying to solve a persistent workforce problem. Leaders recruit for open positions, accelerate hiring, adjust orientation, and search for ways to reduce turnover. These efforts matter, but they often begin after the profession has already missed an earlier opportunity: many potential employees never considered sterile processing because they did not know it existed.

Even among those who enter the field, discovery does not always become commitment. A person may accept an SPD position without understanding the profession’s impact on patients, the expertise required to perform the work, or the opportunities that may follow. Recruitment may bring someone through the door, but it does not automatically give that person a reason to build a career.

Seven emerging sterile processing leaders from health systems across the United States described the workforce challenge from different points along the journey. Some entered the profession intentionally. Others found it through an externship, a temporary assignment, a recommendation, or an unexpected opportunity. Their stories show how much talent sterile processing has gained by chance—and how much it may still be missing (Figure 1).

The leaders are (Figure 1) Brandy Bowser, CRCST with Kaiser Permanente;

Mamadou Cissé, CST, HSR, with Hospital for Special Surgery; Bobbie Gaskins with the Cleveland Clinic; MK Parrott with Ascension; Felicia Sheriff, CHL, CIS, CSPDT, with Harris Health; Eduardo Velazquez. CHL, CRCST, CFER, CSPDT, with UCHealth; and Michele Webb with Cooper University Hospital.

Their organizations and career journeys differ, but they return to the same concern: attracting people is only the beginning. The professionals have to help them understand the work, develop professionally, and see more than one path forward after they arrive.

Recruitment and retention meet at a more basic question: Are departments simply filling jobs, or are they building careers?

When employees can see purpose in their work, develop expertise, contribute ideas, form professional connections, and imagine a future for themselves, staying becomes more than just enduring the next shift. It becomes a decision to continue growing within a profession.

The future workforce challenge is not simply attracting people into SPD. It is helping them see a reason to stay.

We Cannot Recruit from a Profession Nobody Knows Exists

Sterile processing cannot recruit people who never encounter the profession. Yet for many of these leaders, SPD entered their lives through chance rather than through a visible health care career pathway. A recommendation, externship, temporary assignment, or unexpected opportunity introduced them to work they had not previously known existed. Their stories reveal how much talent the profession has gained almost accidentally and raise the question of how much talent it may be missing.

Mamadou Cissé sees visibility as the beginning of a longer workforce runway. Future professionals should not have to wait until someone happens to mention sterile processing or until a vacancy appears. They need early exposure to the field, a clear understanding of entry requirements, and a realistic view of where the work can lead. Awareness creates the first point of access, but a sustainable pipeline must also make the subsequent steps visible.

That need becomes clear in Brandy Bowser’s experience. An externship and a temporary materials management assignment introduced her to central processing, but education and certification did not immediately translate into employment. For four years, she encountered a familiar contradiction: employers wanted experienced technicians, but she needed a first employer willing to help her become one. Her persistence eventually opened the door, but a workforce strategy cannot depend on every qualified candidate enduring years of rejection.

The visibility problem, therefore, extends beyond simply telling people that sterile processing exists. Prospective professionals need meaningful ways to enter it. Partnerships among schools, workforce programs, and health care organizations can connect education with supervised experience, helping learners develop practical skills while giving employers an opportunity to recognize potential that may not yet appear on a résumé.

Felicia Sheriff is working even farther upstream. Through community outreach, including“Girls in the Industry,” she introduces young people to sterile processing before they have committed to another career path. Her work treats awareness not as a promotion, but as early workforce development. Students routinely encounter nursing, respiratory therapy, radiology, and surgical technology as they explore health care careers. Sterile processing should be visible among those possibilities, particularly for people drawn to patient safety, technology, technical expertise, and work that supports the surgical system.

Cissé’s concept of a runway continues after entry. Prospective technicians should be able to see prerequisites, certification expectations, and opportunities for supervised experience. Once hired, they should understand how continuing education, professional involvement, technical specialization, improvement work, and leadership experience can expand their options. A strong pipeline does not end when a position is filled. It connects discovery with access and access with a visible future.

The profession will always benefit from people who unexpectedly find sterile processing. It should not, however, rely on chance as its primary recruitment strategy. Building the future workforce requires making the profession visible early, creating credible entry points, and showing people that the first SPD role can be the beginning of a career rather than simply the opening that happened to be available.

Stop Hiring Employees. Start Developing Professionals.

Hiring fills an immediate vacancy. Developing a professional requires a long-term view. It means preparing someone not only to complete today’s assignments, but also to build the technical expertise, judgment, confidence, and broader capabilities needed to contribute at a higher level over time.

Bobbie Gaskins captures that distinction directly: departments should not stop at orienting people to sterile processing; they should develop people with initiative. Orientation, competency verification, and required annual education remain essential. They establish the foundation for safe performance. But if development ends there, employees may learn to perform a role without ever seeing how it can grow into a career.

A true development system connects onboarding with what comes next. Certification milestones, technical specialty pathways, improvement assignments, leadership preparation, and regular career conversations help employees understand how their capabilities can expand. Exposure to quality, education, data, technology, and perioperative operations allows them to discover strengths and interests before they are expected to compete for a new position.

MK Parrott sees a particular need to develop the professional skills that become important as responsibility increases. Technicians and emerging leaders may eventually be asked to analyze data, lead projects, prepare presentations, justify resources, or explain SPD’s value to people outside the department. Too often, those expectations appear suddenly with a promotion. Parrott argues that communication, data analysis, presentation skills, and organizational awareness should be developed earlier, while employees still have opportunities to practice with guidance and feedback.

Felicia Sheriff brings development into the earliest stage of employment. Her weekly orientation check-ins give new technicians a consistent place to ask questions, surface concerns, and connect day-to-day training with longer-term growth. She also works with recruitment partners so they understand the department and the capabilities the work requires directly. Together,thesepracticescreatecontinuityfrom selectionthroughonboardingandearlydevelopmentratherthantreatingeachasaseparateprocess.

Developing professionals does not require every employee to follow the same path or aspire to management. It requires leaders to recognize that people are more likely to invest in a profession when the professionals invest in them. Employees should be able to see what they can learn, how they can contribute, and which opportunities may become available as their experience grows.

Orientation gets people started. Development helps them see who they can become.

The Missing Career Ladder

Professional development loses credibility when employees are encouraged to grow but cannot see where that growth can lead. Sterile processing has traditionally offered a familiar path: technician, lead technician, supervisor, and manager. That progression remains important, but it assumes that advancement must eventually move away from technical practice and into formal management.

Felicia Sheriff sees the limitation of that model among technicians who earn multiple certifications, deepen their expertise, and take on greater responsibility without wanting to supervise a team. Their ambition is not absent; it is simply directed toward mastery rather than management. They still want meaningful work, recognition, increased responsibility, and compensation that reflects their contribution. When those opportunities are unavailable, highly capable professionals may conclude that growth requires leaving the department.

Mamadou Cissé describes the alternative as a visible career runway. Employees should be able to understand how entry-level requirements connect with certification, continuing education, professional involvement, technical specialization, and leadership opportunities. The pathway does not need to be identical for everyone, but the possibilities should be clear enough that employees can make intentional choices about what to pursue next.

Bobbie Gaskins applies that idea to the employee entering decontamination. That first assignment should not feel like the entire future of the job. With the right development and experience, it may lead to certification, advanced technical practice, education, quality, instrumentation, or leadership. Making those possibilities visible helps employees understand that expertise is built step by step and that an entry-level role can be the beginning of a substantial career.

MK Parrott widens the view even further. Sterile processing can prepare people not only for advancement within the department, but also for opportunities across health care. The profession develops knowledge and capabilities that can translate into technology, data analysis, regulatory readiness, project management, operations, consulting, supply chain, and health care administration. Those transitions do not necessarily represent a loss of sterile processing. They can extend the profession’s understanding and influence into other parts of the health care system.

Building broader pathways does not require every organization to create a new title for every interest. It does require a more flexible understanding of advancement. Stretch assignments, specialty responsibilities, improvement projects, mentoring roles, committee participation, certification support, and exposure to adjacent functions can help employees build a professional portfolio even when an immediate promotion is unavailable.

A credible career model therefore looks less like a ladder and more like a network. Some professionals will move into management. Others will deepen their technical expertise, become educators or quality specialists, help implement technology, lead improvement work, or carry their SPD experience into another area of health care. The goal isn’t to direct everyone toward the same destination. It is to ensure talented people can see more than one path forward.

A career path should not be a ladder with one destination. It should be a network of possiblities.

Learning Must Move Into the Work

Sterile processing education often occurs in separate stages. Students learn foundational concepts in a classroom, new employees practice under a preceptor, and experienced technicians complete required modules or annual competencies. Each stage has value, but problems arise when learning remains separate from the conditions in which people are expected to apply it.

Michele Webb describes workforce preparation as a readiness continuum rather than a single educational event. It begins with qualified instructors who can connect current standards and technical knowledge with the realities of hospital sterile processing. From there, learners must move from understanding concepts to practicing under supervision and demonstrating competency in the work environment. Completing a program may establish an educational foundation, but it does not automatically mean someone is prepared for production pace, varied instrumentation, competing priorities, documentation requirements, and interdisciplinary communication.

Meaningful externships help close that distance. They allow students to experience the department’s rhythms and expectations while support is still available. Brandy Bowser’s experience illustrates why those opportunities matter. Her externship and temporary assignment introduced her to central processing, yet she still struggled to obtain the experience employers expected. Schools, workforce programs, and health care organizations share responsibility for creating supervised entry points where learners can build practical capability, and employers can recognize potential that may not yet be visible on a résumé.

Once employees enter the department, learning cannot depend entirely on one-to-one precepting or online modules completed away from the work. Bobbie Gaskins challenges both extremes. “See one, do one” can lead to inconsistent instruction, while assigning a series of modules may document completion without demonstrating whether the employee can apply the information under real operating conditions. Neither approach is sufficient on its own.

Her question shifts the focus from delivering education to designing work that supports learning: How can guidance be available at the moment it is needed? Standard work, visual aids, manufacturers’ instructions for use, quality checkpoints, competency validation, and decision support should be accessible within the technician’s workflow. Employees should not have to rely on memory, search through a binder, or wait until the next scheduled education session to find information that affects the work in front of them.

Embedded learning also makes quality events more useful. An audit finding, process deviation, equipment alert, or recurring question can identify where the workflow or education needs reinforcement. Instead of treating learning only as remediation after an error, leaders can use information from the work to anticipate where additional explanation, practice, or support is needed.

Industry partners also have a role in this model. Organizations that create instruments, equipment, tracking systems, inspection technology, and educational resources influence how easily technicians can locate and apply reliable guidance. The most useful tools do more than store information. They bring the right information closer to the decision, helping employees connect standards with the task they are performing.

Learning moves into the work when employees can find guidance at the point of decision-making. Classroom instruction builds the foundation. Externshipsaddcontext,preceptorsguidepractice,andworkflowtools reinforcethestandard.Development then continues on the floor rather than stopping when orientation ends.

Education should not be an event that happens before the work. It should be part of how the work is designed.

Mentorship Cannot Depend on Luck

Mentorship often appeared at a turning point. Someone recognized potential, created an opportunity, offered honest feedback, or helped an emerging professional imagine a future that was not yet obvious. Those relationships changed careers. The workforce challenge is that access to them often depends on timing, visibility, or luck.

Informal mentorship will always matter, but it tends to reach employees who are comfortable asking for help, naturally connect with influential leaders, or have already attracted attention. Others may be equally capable but less visible. When development depends primarily on personal chemistry or chance encounters, some employees receive guidance, advocacy, and opportunity while others are left to navigate the profession alone.

A more intentional approach begins with prepared mentors, defined check-in points, and clear expectations for both technical learning and professional development. Felicia Sheriff’s weekly orientation conversations offer one practical model. New technicians receive consistent access to questions, guidance, and early course correction rather than waiting until a problem becomes visible. The structure does not replace the relationship; it creates the conditions for one to develop.

Eduardo Velazquez extends mentorship beyond technical instruction. Formal coaching helped him understand his working style, adapt this approach to others, and build professional visibility through networks and industry participation. His experience shows that emerging leaders need more than guidance on how to perform the work. They also need opportunities to strengthen communication, self-awareness, professional relationships, and the ability to lead across different personalities and settings.

Mentorship also includes opening doors. Introducing an employee to an educator, inviting someone into an improvement project, recommending a professional association, or encouraging a technician to pursue certification can expand what that person believes is possible. Sponsorship goes one step further by leveraging credibility and influence to help someone gain access to an opportunity they might not have reached on their own.

Mentorship should remain personal, not become another checklist. A more intentional approach simply makes teaching, challenge, encouragement, introductions, and advocacy available beyond the fortunate few. It becomes a workforce strategy when access to growth is consistent enough to reach potential that might otherwise remain unseen.

What the Next Generation Is Looking For

People are more likely to build lasting careers when the work offers more than an available position. Compensation, scheduling, staffing, and working conditions remain fundamental. Employees also want to know whether the profession offers meaning, development, influence, connection, and a future. Five conditions surfaced repeatedly in the interviews: purpose, mastery, voice, belonging, and opportunity (Figure 2).

Each condition answers a different question an employee may be asking: Does this work matter?CanI becomebetteratit?Will anyone listen to what I see? Do I belong here? Is there somewhere for me to go next? A department does not need to answer every question in the same way for every person, but employees notice when most of the answers are unclear.

None of the leaders described emerging professionals as seeking lower standards or less accountability. Instead, they described people who want expectations to be accompanied by meaningful development, reliable support, and a clearer understanding of how their work and careers can progress. Many are not simply asking whether a job is available. They are asking whether the organization will help them become better at it and whether that investment can lead to a sustainable future.

The second issue cannot compensate for inadequate staffing, unmanageable workloads, unsafe environments, or noncompetitive pay. Brandy Bowser is direct about what happens when increasing complexity and production demands are placed onto too few people: burnout follows. Recognition, mentoring, and career development lose credibility when the daily work remains chronically unsustainable.

Retention therefore depends on both the future employees can imagine and the present they are being asked to endure. Departments must create opportunities to learn, contribute, connect, and advance while also providing the staffing, resources, supervision, and working conditions required to perform highly technical work safely. A visible career path gives people reasons to stay, but the day-to-day experience determines whether staying feels possible.

A Different Definition of Retention

Retention usually means keeping good employees in the department, and that remains important. Sterile processing needs experienced professionals, stable teams, and people who carry knowledge forward. When employees leave because they are burned out, unsupported, or unable to see a future, leaders should pay attention.

MK Parrott offers another way to think about employees who leave. Sometimes people move on because sterile processing prepared them for a new opportunity. They may enter quality, education, technology, supply chain, perioperative operations, or another area of health care. That does not necessarily mean the department failed to retain them. It may mean the department helped them grow.

The difference is why the person left. Losing someone because the work became unsustainable is not the same as watching someone advance because of the experience and skills gained in SPD. One points to a problem that needs to be addressed. The other reflects professional development.

Those former employees may also become some of sterile processing’s strongest advocates. They understand the work, the pressure, and the effect SPD has on patient care. When they move into other roles, they carry that understanding with them.

Retention still matters, but staying should not be the only measure of success. Strong departments give people reasons to remain while also preparing them for opportunities that may eventually take them somewhere else. The goal is not to hold people in place. It is to help them build a career.

Where Leaders Can Begin

The workforce challenges facing sterile processing will not be solved by a single new program. Progress often begins with smaller changes that make entry, learning, and advancement easier to see. Leaders can start by looking at the employee experience from recruitment through long-term development:

• Make entry requirements, certification expectations, and career pathways visible during recruitment and orientation.
• Bring recruiters and talent partners into the departments so they understand the work and can identify stronger candidates.
• Build partnerships with schools and workforce programs, including externships that provide meaningful supervised experience.
• Pair new employees with prepared mentors and schedule regular check-ins throughout orientation.
• Create technical advancement options for employees who want to deepen their expertise without moving into management.
• Prepare employees for leadership before they enter formal supervisory roles.
• Place standards, education, and real-time guidance where employees can access them during work.
• Give employees opportunities to lead improvement projects, contribute ideas, and develop broader professional skills.
• Track development measures alongside vacancies, turnover, and staffing levels.

Leaders do not need to address every area at once. A practical first step is to identify where employees are most likely to lose momentum and begin there, for example, entering the profession, completing orientation, gaining experience, or finding the next opportunity.

What Success Looks Like

Vacancy rates, turnover, staffing levels, and time to fill positions remain important measures. They show whether a department can meet its immediate workforce needs. They do not, however, show whether employees are developing or whether the department is building strength for the future.

Leaders can look for additional signs of progress:

• More students moving from externships into paid roles
• More new employees completing orientation and remaining beyond the first year
• Growth in certification and continuing education
• More employees advancing into technical, educational, quality, or leadership roles
• Broader participation in mentoring, improvement projects, and professional activities
• Emerging leaders receiving preparation before a supervisory position opens
• Stronger succession plans for critical roles
• Employees reporting that they understand their career options and have opportunities to grow

These measures help show whether development is becoming part of the department’s everyday work. Success isn’t simply having enough people on the schedule today. It is having people who are becoming more capable, taking on greater responsibility, and preparing the department for what comes next.

A Profession Worth Staying In

For years, sterile processing leaders have asked how to recruit more people. That question still matters, but it is only the beginning. The harder question is what happens after someone accepts the job: Does that person find meaningful work, strong support, room to grow, and a future worth pursuing?

The leaders describe a profession with that potential. They see entry pathways that make sterile processing easier to discover, education that continues throughout the work, mentorship that reaches beyond the fortunate few, and career options that extend beyond a single ladder. They also recognize that purpose and opportunity cannot make up for chronic understaffing, burnout, or working conditions that make a career difficult to sustain.

Building the future workforce will require attention to both sides of that experience. People need areas to enter sterile processing, but they also need the staffing, development, recognition, and opportunity that make staying possible. Recruitment may fill a vacancy. A profession is built when people can imagine themselves growing within it.

The future workforce will not be created simply by bringing more people through the door. It will be built by giving them the knowledge, support, and opportunity to become professionals, and by creating a profession in which they can see a future.

The most sustainable recruitment strategy may not be attracting mroe people into sterile processing. It may be creating a profession worth staying in.