Battling to attract and retain the best

“Our employees are our most valuable resource.” We constantly hear these words from organizational leaders across every industry, but mostly in the healthcare and life sciences fields where employees make decisions that not only impact a ‘customer service score’, but at times, patients’ lives. Yet many healthcare executives are concerned that their attraction and retention strategies are not getting the necessary attention for talent to become their competitive advantage.

“The costs associated with vacancy rates are simply too high in some business segments - or they negatively impact patient care, staffing budgets and employee satisfaction - often creating additional turnover and more vacancies.”
-Chadd Dehn

The aging US population is creating increased demand for healthcare services and people to provide these services. Even during our recent economic crisis, in a month where 85,000 jobs were shed across the country, hospitals, long-term care facilities and ambulatory clinics added 21,000 new positions. In the nursing profession alone, the demand for clinicians is expected to grow by 22 percent through 2018, creating 581,500 new RN positions. Organizations that make a strategic decision to reposition their approach to attracting and retaining top talent will develop a formidable competitive advantage into the future.

The four core components

The first step is to create a philosophy of ‘continuous recruitment'. Instead of being driven by requisitions, companies must be constantly recruiting and building a pipeline of talent, especially for critical skills sets. Organizations need to build talent communities, promote themselves via different social media outlets, create realistic job previews and employee testimonials, leverage technology to enhance the candidate experience, and constantly seek innovative ways to promote their organization and career opportunities. The costs associated with vacancy rates are simply too high in some business segments - or they negatively impact patient care, staffing budgets, and employee satisfaction - oftentimes actually creating additional turnover and more vacancies. In addition, the quality of new hires improves as organizations hire the best candidate instead of the best candidate available.

Secondly, the recruitment process must be designed with the ultimate customer in mind - the candidate. Having a ‘candidate-centric' recruitment process is imperative in this highly competitive field. Many healthcare organizations have developed great systems to measure the quality of care and service they provide, yet have failed to establish similar systems to measure the experience of their future employees. Organizations need to be mindful that a good candidate is also interviewing them as a prospective employer.

The third requirement is to create a focus on selling rather than selection, which often means filtering out candidates. In today's world - especially for skill sets in high demand - organizations must balance their focus between selection and selling. Whether candidates actually come out and say it, they want to know ‘what's in it for me?' Recruitment marketing materials and hiring managers should articulate the organization's value proposition to prospective employees.

The final element is training. HR business partners, along with talent acquisition specialists, need to collaborate on training hiring managers and others interfacing with potential candidates on proper interviewing techniques. Interview guides should be developed that promote and perpetuate best practices. Managers should be ambassadors of the company who are able to articulate the benefits of joining the team. A training program should also attempt to reinforce a culture of ongoing recruitment by establishing a ‘candidate-centric' philosophy, and providing hiring managers with the tools and information necessary for them to effectively sell both the job and the company to a prospective employee.

Organizations that consistently attract and retain the best employees share these philosophies and more. They instill commitment to continuous recruitment within their organizations. They keep the needs of the candidate in mind when making decisions regarding their hiring and employment practices. High performing recruitment organizations know how to sell the employee value proposition and recognize the importance of training their managers on these philosophies. In doing so, talent acquisition is viewed as an enabler to organizational success instead of an obstacle. The function becomes a competitive advantage to help a company differentiate itself from its competitors and attract the best talent.

About

As Healthcare/Life Science Practice Director, Chadd Dehn is responsible for growing and managing his accounts. Dehn works with his leadership team to design effective recruitment processes, integrate proprietary recruitment technologies, and create systems to analyze results. Dehn earned his MBA from the University of Toledo and is a Certified Personnel Consultant.