Talent acquisition or hiring can pose challenges for HR leaders and hiring managers in any industry, but the healthcare industry is unique. After all, in healthcare organizations, clinical staff are charged with interacting with patients during very sensitive and vulnerable times.
Ancillary staff are also responsible for interacting appropriately with patients, family members and visitors, regardless of the department they work in or their role. Even a back office team member that processes data can encounter patients in hallways, elevators, or other common areas.
In this environment, clinical staff members are often at a premium. Unfortunately, they’re also largely overworked and burned out. This burnout leads to turnover which leads to shortages, meaning that healthcare organizations need to continually engage in talent acquisition in order to adequately staff their organizations, maintain proper quality of care and see the best patient outcomes possible.
That means healthcare organizations need new ways to efficiently source, vet and onboard candidates. In this post, we’ll summarize each of those points.
Ongoing demand for healthcare professionals
Burnout, among other factors, has led to critical staffing shortages across positions and specialties.
Burnout among nursing staff, for instance, leads about 31.5% of US registered nurses to leave the profession. Compensation, job satisfaction, and cost of living contribute to feelings of burnout, according to Nursa, which did a study to determine the states where burnout is at its highest.
For example, the National Center for Health Workforce Analysis (NCHWA) projects an overall shortage of 187,130 physicians in 2037. Other shortages are predicted for opticians, respiratory therapists, physical therapists, pharmacists, podiatrists, and chiropractors. Nurses, of course, are virtually always in high demand and this will continue to be the case with a projection of a 10% shortage as early as 2027.
HR leaders and hiring managers in healthcare organizations aren’t just worried about the numbers. They’re also interested in quality of hire. Every organization wants to stand out as an employer of choice to attract qualified, competent, and high potential talent. They want to vet applicants appropriately to ensure the people they hire will not only be able to perform their jobs effectively, but will also fit the unique culture of the organization.
All of this takes place in a hiring environment where candidates are often considering multiple opportunities — and the prize often goes to the organization with the first offer.
Time is of the essence, but healthcare organizations need to find the right balance between time to hire and quality of hire.
Key considerations include: where to find candidates, how to expedite the hiring process, and how to ensure offers are made to individuals without any red flags in their backgrounds that that bring their ability to interact safely with patients into question.
Where to find candidates
Finding candidates for open positions can range from considering those who are right under your nose (current employees) to casting a wide, niche-specific net to identify potential new candidates.
Your current employees are an important talent pool that shouldn’t be overlooked. Today’s employees want opportunities for internal mobility and development. Empower them to advance in your organization and you’ll be much more likely to keep them for the long-term
So they should be your number one point of contact when an open role exists. Some organizations have taken major steps to engage with this audience via internal marketplaces, where employees can look for open positions or sign up to receive notifications about positions that may open in the future.
Employees can also be a rich source of referrals. After all, they are personally invested in finding candidates that will reflect positively on them. And since they know the culture of the organization, these referrals are likely to be a good fit.
Past employees can be a good source of talent too. The Cleveland Clinic has created an alumni organization to connect past employees with one another and facilitate referrals. This includes employees who worked with the organization for three or more years, along with physicians and graduates from Cleveland Clinic’s Medical School.
Beyond these traditional and close-to-home sources of candidates, the internet and social media have vastly opened up new channels for finding potential applicants with LinkedIn topping the list of the most go-to online sites for recruitment.
Finding candidates today is vastly different from the era where employers would run classified ads in local newspapers or space ads in trade publications. While those avenues may still be used as part of the recruitment process for some organizations, healthcare recruiters are better served by taking a more targeted approach to find candidates to fill open roles.
Some key sources of candidates include:
- External marketplaces. Just as some companies have internal marketplaces where they share information about open jobs and invite employees to “raise their hands” if they’re interested in certain types of roles, external marketplaces also exist. These can serve as a great source of talent and an opportunity to stay in touch with healthcare professionals.
- Industry/role specific job boards. Trade associations can be a great source of candidates — both through traditional ads about open positions, and through access to job boards or groups where you can connect with role-specific professionals. The American Nurses Association, for instance, has a career center where employers can post openings. Find others by searching the name of the trade group or association + “job board” or “career opportunities.”
- Online groups on social media sites and relevant websites. Groups where specific employee segments interact or “lurk” can be great watering holes to find potential candidates by nurturing relationships with them. On LinkedIn, for instance, there are groups ranging from the broad — Healthcare Industry Professionals Group with 330,000 members — to the very small and highly specialized, like the AI and Data Science in Healthcare group with 390 members.
Social media channels can also be a good place to make connections and find potential applicants. While LinkedIn is generally considered the top of the list here, other channels can also yield leads. There are also niche social media channels that may appeal to specific target segments (for instance, Sermo, a channel for doctors).
Finding candidates is just one aspect of the process, of course. Once found and once connections have been made, it’s important to ensure that the acquisition process is an efficient one.
How to expedite the hiring process
The median time to hire a healthcare provider according to a LinkedIn analysis is 59.5 days. Almost two months!
Four or six weeks into the hiring process, you can imagine that candidates are going to start getting impatient — and start shifting focus to the companies that are moving more quickly.
Technology can help companies deliver a quality hiring experience more quickly. But it can actually detract from the experience if it’s not used properly and thoughtfully.
In addition to the use of technology, other ways to expedite the process include:
- Automating workflows across the hiring process — from interview scheduling, to background screenings.
- Ensuring that the candidate communication process is streamlined and efficient.
- Setting expectations for commitment and turnaround time among members of the hiring team — and explaining why a timely process is important.
Healthcare organizations need to hire quickly. But especially in healthcare, where the stakes are high and patient outcomes are in the balance, employers need to balance speed with effectiveness and safety.
It’s not just about “getting bodies in the door.” It’s about matching candidates with open roles and finding the best fit. That, as we’ve indicated, is especially critical in the healthcare industry.
How to ensure quality hires: the critical role of background screening in healthcare
Background screening is critical for any role you may be trying to fill. The process is especially important — and complicated — in regulated industries like healthcare, where various federal, state, and local regulations. Credentialing requirements can make the process quite complex.
Slow, inaccurate or incomplete background checks can cost you candidates, or even open your organization up to regulatory or legal. Accurate can help healthcare organizations successfully navigate these challenges.
We give you, your patients and your team members background screening process you can count — by pairing healthcare-specific features like license and sanctions monitoring and continuous monitoring with industry-leading accuracy and turnaround times; industry-specific support; and an easy-to-use mobile-optimized interface.
Don’t lose top candidates to a slow or clunky background screening process. Accurate pairs mobile-optimized technology with industry-leading turnaround times and dedicated healthcare support to give you and your candidates a background check process you can trust. Contact one of our experts today to learn more about your background screening options.
