Healthcare recruitment strategies have shifted dramatically over the past few years, with a heavier emphasis on retaining key talent. This has manifested in a number of ways — relying on contingent staff to fill gaps and give full-time staff a break, implementing measures to improve work-life balance, and more. Since these changes have been driven by external factors such as new technologies, demographic shifts, and more, it has been up to each individual healthcare organization to decide how to invest in creative ways to attract talent.
But creative solutions are often easier said than done. HWL's experts put together the following strategies that take into account the key components of talent management in healthcare so you can kickstart your initiatives.
Revamp Recruiting Strategies
The healthcare industry as a whole has felt sweeping changes in how it conducts itself, and recruiting is no exception. With persisting labor shortages having no end in sight, attracting top talent is more critical than ever. A few strategies to improve recruiting and onboarding include:
Developing employer branding
Employer branding, as opposed to an overall company branding, is how your organization presents itself to candidates. This includes essentials such as competitive wages, benefits, and other perks of working with you, but it also includes soft benefits such as work-life balance, providing professional development opportunities, and professing your organization's core values. The ultimate goal of a strong employer branding campaign is to make people want to work for you. This not only establishes your organization as the cream of the crop among competitors, but also drastically reduces your recruiting team's search efforts.
One of the best ways you can establish a solid foundation for your employer branding strategy is by starting an internal agency. This not only helps you cut out the middleman during your recruiting processes, it can help you establish branded recruiting websites, job boards, and more. One of HWL's clients, for instance, reduced contingent staffing costs by 30% by attracting talent directly, rather than utilizing an external agency. Their Director of Business Operations added, "HWL developed and deployed a turnkey internal staffing program that aligned with our objectives to improve brand recognition and significantly cut our contingent labor costs while sustainably meeting our staffing needs."
Read the full case study here.
Foster positive workplace culture
Your retention efforts are only as effective as they are inclusive. Fostering a positive workplace culture from the top down is critical to keeping your workforce happy. Everybody has had a job that they dread going to — do everything in your power to prevent that perception! By showcasing employee success stories, promoting employee wellness programs, incentivizing volunteering opportunities, and articulating your organization's values, employees will be more likely to stay loyal.
Provide Professional Development Opportunities
Improving recruiting processes is great for attracting new talent, but nowadays the name of the game is retention. And in order to retain key employees, it's important for them to see a clearly defined career roadmap. This ensures they don't feel stuck in a dead-end job and allows them to grow personally and professionally. Here are some ways you can offer meaningful mobility opportunities:
Sponsorship and mentorship programs
While there are some key differences between sponsorship and mentorship programs, they are both vital toward career progression. In a mentorship, the mentor's role is to provide guidance to the mentee to ensure they are able to reach their goals. This mostly comes in the form of consulting and building a trusting relationship.
Sponsorships, on the other hand, are a more formal relationship, in which the sponsor takes an active role in the career path of the person being sponsored. Sponsorships thus tend to be internal, within an organization. The sponsor is usually someone higher up in the organization and will actively open new opportunities for their subject by becoming their advocate to internal leadership teams.
Mentorship and sponsorship have proven to be vital in upward mobility, particularly in medicine. Starting formal programs will show key talent that they can become successful in the long term.
Continuing education programs
Continual learning opportunities not only directly benefit your business through the creation of an increasingly skilled workforce, they also signal to your employees that you care about their personal growth and happiness.
A few ways you can kickstart a continuing education initiative include:
- Cross-training employees so they have exposure to other departments' day-to-day
- Encourage open dialogue about career goals within performance reviews
- Offer research sabbaticals and encourage publication of peer-reviewed articles
- Host seminars about new technology, how it can be utilized, and how to pursue training
Technology Provides Visibility
Technology platforms that are custom-tailored to your business' needs are just a few clicks away. HWL, for example, provides a vendor management system (VMS) that boasts highly configurable functionality to meet unique workflow requirements. There are many labor categories within each department working in healthcare systems, so HWL's platform was designed from the ground up to accommodate each of those needs.
Whether it's the VMS platform, internal resource pool management, business intelligence and integrations, or any other need, utilizing a customizable technology to manage your talent is critical in recruiting and retention efforts.
HWL Works to Improve Your Recruitment Strategies
Our platform and advisory services are built from the ground up to ensure the challenges your healthcare organizations face are addressed as efficiently as possible. Whether through developing an internal agency, VMS, or MSP services, or advisory services, our team of seasoned professionals is ready to help you navigate the complexities of workforce management and provide tailored advice that aligns with your unique goals and objectives.
To learn more about how you can start implementing smarter strategies, get in touch today.