Healthcare Recruiting

The 45th National Association for Health Care Recruitment (NAHCR) Conference took place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania this past week. By practicing self-discovery, healthcare recruiters can become better leaders in the workplace. In the increasingly competitive healthcare hiring environment, recruiters are challenged with distinguishing their employer brand in order to tackle the industry’s biggest issues such as the ongoing talent shortages and passive talent pools. 

As the healthcare sector witnesses unprecedented organizational changes, fostering leadership potential in physicians is crucial. Studies have shown that physician leadership has positive effects on both organizational outcomes and patient care. There’s no question that physician leadership marks a change for the better in healthcare organizations, but achieving that change can be difficult.

So how can HR teams in healthcare organizations integrate physicians into leadership roles?

Recruiting top talent in healthcare is no easy feat. With growing staffing shortages and a tight labor market, healthcare recruiters continue to face challenges unique only to the field. For example, according to research by the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN), only 39 percent of respondents said that they had adequate staffing with the right knowledge and skills at least 75 percent of the time.

Nurses are a critical part of the healthcare workforce, so the ongoing nursing shortage is a big challenge. Research by the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses says that while nurses report being highly satisfied with their career path, 54 percent said they plan to leave their current job within three years.

This week, National Nurses Week, is an annual event held May 6-12 to not only honor the late Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing, but also to celebrate the nursing profession and the important role nurses play in providing the highest level of quality care to their patients. This year’s theme, “4 Million Reasons to Celebrate,” aims to recognize the vast contributions and positive impact of America’s four million registered nurses as well as their ongoing commitment to their work.

Healthcare organizations are facing a workforce crunch. The combination of an aging population and the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of access to healthcare has increased the need for health services and resulted in employee shortages throughout the industry.

A job candidate’s journey with a company from application to hire (or not hire) is no longer just a process, it’s an experience. As a job seeker travels through the different recruitment phases—sourcing, interviewing, screening, hiring and onboarding—they naturally develop their own perception or opinion of your company. Whether it’s a positive or negative experience, it can have a lasting impact on your employer brand.

With the combination of an aging workforce and a growing demand for services, the ongoing search for talent will continue to rank among the top human resources concerns for healthcare organizations through 2019 and beyond. 

While the talent shortage alone would be enough to test HR departments for the next several years, ongoing digital transformation and the incorporation of emerging artificial intelligence and automated tools — particularly in the recruiting space — are forcing further adaptation.

Healthcare organizations have one mission—to provide quality care to patients. And nurses are integral to accomplishing that mission.

Millennials now make up the largest proportion of the American workforce, at 35 percent. And Generation Z, people born after 1996, represents another massive wave that has begun joining the workforce. There are an estimated 61 million members of Gen Z — bigger than Generation X and two-thirds the size of the baby boomers’ population.