Talent Acquisition

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.

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.

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.

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.

Healthcare organizations have long been under distinct industry-specific pressures, and human resources professionals in healthcare need innovative approaches to manage those challenges effectively. As healthcare companies cope with an aging customer base, expanding coverage and an avalanche of new technology opportunities and concerns, HR departments will be forced to play an even larger role helping companies and workers adapt to these evolving conditions.

The intense competition to hire for healthcare organizations shows no signs of abating, as demand for care increases while more baby boomers are retiring every day. As a result, too often healthcare companies find themselves hiring haphazardly, taking into account a candidate’s qualifications but not how they will fit with the company’s culture.

A new mindset is to have a “holistic” recruiting strategy. It’s an idea that has been talked about in broader human resources circles, but is just making its way to the healthcare sector. Here’s what you need to know.

Attracting quality talent, increasing retention, and reducing cost-per-hire are just some of the reasons why developing a successful employer brand is crucial to an organization’s long-term success. In fact, recent reports reveal that companies who prioritize employer branding typically see a 50 percent increase in qualified candidates; a 28 percent decrease in turnover; and a 43 percent decrease in cost-per-hire. 

One of the top workplace challenges facing the healthcare industry today is hiring for the right cultural fit. Even as providers fight over a finite pool of qualified healthcare talent, leaders have come to recognize that it’s essential to attract and retain people who can reflect and champion the values and mission of the organization.

Here are some important things human resources leaders need to know to align their talent-acquisition strategy with their company culture.

The 44th National Association for Health Care Recruitment (NAHCR) IMAGE Conferencetook place in Scottsdale, Arizona this past week. Expanding upon the previous year’s conference learnings, successful healthcare recruiters will need to adopt marketing tactics, leverage new technologies, and understand their potential candidate audiences in order to thrive in an increasingly competitive landscape.