Talent Management

Healthcare employers know they have to be at the top of their game to get the people they need: Increasing provider retirements as insurance coverage expands mean healthcare recruiting has gotten competitive. The first Tuesday of June is National Health Care Recruiter Recognition Day, so it’s a good time to look at best practices in healthcare recruiting. These five tips will help your organization stand out to potential hires.

The healthcare industry is “Headed in the Wrong Direction” and it’s struggling due to the changing business environments and demographics. Leader quality and bench strength (the capabilities and readiness of potential successors to move into key professional and leadership positions) have declined or seen no change in the recent years, according to Development Dimensions International’s and The Conference Board’s latest Global Leadership Forecast.

As talented job candidates continue to be in short supply, your healthcare organization will benefit from expanding its traditional recruitment sources. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) has identified the broadening of sourcing scopes as one of their key HR trends for 2016.

A recent report from Deloitte found that culture and engagement, leadership and workforce capability are some of the biggest HR challenges healthcare employers are facing, and healthcare HR leaders are looking for tools to lighten the load. One potential solution: talent analytics. Once limited to simple personality tests, talent analytics can now help organizations be more strategic in many areas of HR management, experts say.

A CareerBuilder survey reveals that 82 percent of employers think there’s little to no negative impact on the company when a candidate has a bad experience during the hiring process—but that couldn’t be less true. Not only can an unpleasant candidate experience reflect negatively on you and your employer brand, but Steve Lowisz, CEO of global recruitment research firm Qualigence International, says it can leave candidates feeling unappreciated and disrespected.

A strong talent management strategy is essential to achieving your healthcare organization’s mission.

The national unemployment rate is holding steady at 5 percent as of December 2015, which means the job market is now candidate-driven. Staffing professionals know that filling positions in healthcare is even more challenging than in other industries when the applicant pool is tight.

Effective teamwork in healthcare can have an immediate and positive impact on patient care. Developing a culture that values teamwork has not only proven to boost existing staff relationships, but it can also help increase efficiency, job satisfaction, responsiveness and much more.

Employees are only as good as their leader, right? Not only do great leaders create the right environment for engagement, they also play a significant role in shaping a group of creative minds and inspiring new leaders.  “We know that frontline staff, when provided with enough freedom, confidence and encouragement, can be capable of incredible things,” says Clair Cater, founder of the Social Kinetic and a member of the Wish Forum for Patient Engagement.

There is no doubt that positive employee morale is a key component in your organization’s success—it can either make or break your organization. Statistics reveal that letting engagement slide can cost companies 20 percent less revenue growth than their competitors. Therefore, it is critical that healthcare organizations prepare and support their team during this challenging time of new technology and constant change.