Recruitment is one of the most important parts of success in any industry. When the stakes are as high as they are in the healthcare industry, however, getting the right people to work for your organization can make or break your company.
With record numbers of workers leaving the healthcare industry since 2020, many hospitals and other medical facilities are looking to hire new talent. This can pose challenges to even the biggest healthcare organizations as the pool of highly-qualified experts is far smaller than the positions that need to be filled.
If you want to stay at the front of this increasingly competitive race to hire the best candidates for your organization, you’ll have to ensure that your recruitment is as effective as possible. So how can you improve your healthcare recruitment strategies?
Identify weaknesses
There’s no point in changing aspects of your recruitment strategy that are already working well, so you should begin by evaluating your existing process. Take stock of everything that could relate to recruitment and retention, from your job advertisement success rates to your healthcare payroll software.
Talk to all of your employees in HR and find out what is and isn’t working - including smaller technical issues such as workflows as well as the big-picture hiring strategy that shapes how your company recruits. This will allow you to devise a plan that will work on the weaknesses you’ve identified.
Develop your brand
It’s common sense that your brand is crucial when competing for customers, so why would the same not be true when competing for employees? However, developing a strong employer brand is not as simple as customer marketing. Three principles will help you attract the right hires:
1. Have the right culture
If you encourage a inclusive workplace culture that cultivates growth, you’ll soon build a reputation attractive to high-value candidates. You should ensure that your organization is a place where ambitious employees can collaborate and improve together.
2. Show off testimonials
Word-of-mouth can only take you so far. When advertising jobs, you should use employee testimonials to show off your company. This will emphasize your brand with potential employees.
3. Grow a social media presence
With sites such as Twitter or LinkedIn having an increased role in all of our lives, building company culture through social media is crucial when improving your recruitment strategies. Having a professional and engaged brand on social media will allow candidates to see that you would be a good organization to work for. For example, if your existing staff get involved in user-generated content and post-sharing, your organization will seem like a friendly community. And you can ensure your branding is consistent across all channels, giving potential recruits a consistent message.
Invest in technology
It should be obvious that technology plays a big part in any modern recruitment process. However, investing in the right software can greatly improve the efficiency of your recruitment strategy.
Data collection tools help to centralize applicant information, ensuring you’re not wasting time going back and forth between email correspondence. Using an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) will mean that you’ll be able to keep a record of candidates who aren’t quite the right fit for a certain job. This will allow you to have a pool of quality candidates who might better suit future job openings, saving time and money on advertisements.
Similarly, if you want to focus on streamlining recruitment among a team of current employees, you can use a Human Resource Information System (HRIS) meaning that your recruiters have easy access to employee data.They can easily review records and performance and identify talent from within the company. Using the right technology can reduce the cost-per-hire of your recruitment process and ensure that you can find the right people for your organization.
One way to improve your healthcare recruitment strategies is by using an employee app, which can streamline communication and engagement between your organization and potential candidates.
Offer competitive benefits
Attracting the best candidates is not simply about offering the largest salaries, especially for younger recruits. The benefits that you offer can make your job advertisements stand out from the crowd. Here are some of the ways that you can achieve this:
1. Emphasize career progression
While healthcare might not have the same obvious opportunities for progression as other industries, the most talented candidates tend to be ambitious. Your recruitment advertisements should highlight how employees can attain greater responsibility and have opportunities for personal growth in your organization.
2. Offer health insurance and retirement plans
As a healthcare company, you should include access to your own health programs in any job offer. On top of financial wellness programs such as pensions, this will create a sense of community around your company.
3. Have flexibility
In today’s world, flexibility over working hours and working from home can be one of the most attractive benefits for younger employees. In healthcare, long and demanding shifts can be offset by allowing your employees to organize those shifts around other commitments.
Develop a diverse strategy
Ensuring workplace diversity is an increasingly important part of healthcare, and your recruitment strategies should encourage a diverse range of people and backgrounds to apply. Especially as 93% of workers personally value diversity.
You should begin by using inclusive language in all of your job advertisements. On top of this, consider posting adverts on a range of job boards to open your company to a wide range of applicants.
Don’t forget about retention
Promotion from within can be a great way to reward high-performing employees - this can help your overall retention, which is often a problem for an industry that is as demanding as healthcare. Focusing on retaining your existing employees should be an integral part of the recruitment process.
This will mean that you save money on advertising opportunities, while it will also save time as the transition will be much easier. Without the need for an extensive onboarding process, hiring from within will mean that you’ll have roles filled by experienced employees quickly.
Improve your healthcare recruitment strategies today
Workforce shortages, increasing competition, and the legacies of the pandemic mean that this is a challenging time for recruitment in the healthcare industry. However, it’s possible to stay ahead of competitors by updating your recruitment strategies for today’s environment.
By beginning to identify the weaknesses in your existing process, you’ll be able to overcome the specific issues that are dragging down your recruitment. As well as this, you should show off your company culture and highlight the benefits that come with working for your organization. You should also focus on hiring a diverse workforce and hiring from within when possible.
By implementing these strategies, you’ll be able to develop a workforce of top talent and continue to grow your healthcare organization.
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