Preparing for challenges and keeping up with trends in talent acquisition is essential for any healthcare hiring manager in 2024.
No matter where in the world you are or what you do for work, the past couple of years have been a whirlwind. Although many different industries were affected by the pandemic, the healthcare industry went through remarkable turmoil and transition.
Not only were there record numbers of patients, but hiring managers became concerned about their employees. Staffing shortages and supply chain problems are only two of the main concerns many healthcare professionals continue to face every day.
Ensuring that your workplace can sustain the tasks of its employees is essential to the success of any organization. When it comes to talent acquisition in the healthcare market, you need to be intentional with your talent acquisition strategies if you want to increase your chances of success. It isn’t worth the risk of not being prepared.
What Is Talent Acquisition?
Chances are if you’re thinking how do you stay up to date with hiring trends in 2023, you might be asking yourself—what is talent acquisition?
Well, talent acquisition refers to the common practice of recruiting experienced workers for different roles in varying organizations. This involves the initial sourcing and contact, along with the interview and hiring process.
Talent management is a subdivision of any organization’s human resources department and plays a crucial role in sustaining business or organizational operations.
While at face value this may seem like a straightforward process, there’s a lot involved behind the scenes that you need to be aware of if your work involves recruiting of any kind. More specifically, healthcare recruitment comes with its own set of challenges to consider, especially if you’re in a managerial position.
Challenges Of Talent Management
You might think a booming industry would have a plethora of qualified applicants and a fairly simple acquisition process. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case when it comes to healthcare.
Research by the Association of American Medical Colleges suggests that by 2032 we’re going to face a shortage of over 100 thousand physicians.
With that in mind, it becomes nearly impossible to fill many vacant positions. When you have a shortage of staff in any healthcare organization, you put your patients at risk, increasing your liability in the process.
When you consider your current talent acquisition strategies, ask yourself if you’re sticking to what’s comfortable or if you keep an eye out for trends.
Staying up to date with trends is a big hurdle for many organizations in the healthcare industry, but it is essential to thriving in the healthcare marketplace.
Healthcare Talent Acquisition Trends 2023
If you want to stay on top of your talent acquisition efforts and mitigate the many challenges of talent management, you need to be up to date with the latest current trends in the healthcare market.
Not only do you need to consider your actual recruitment methods, but also consider your brand and values.
Everything is connected in today’s digital world and your image and reputation are everything. The more you can focus on this, the more you stand to attract the right type of candidate.
Below are some of the most prominent healthcare recruiting trends in 2023:
1. Employer branding
Healthcare Recruiter’s International (HRI) reports that employer branding is considered to be an essential recruiting tool by 90% of the healthcare workforce. These days, digital media makes it simple to connect with healthcare professionals and even a more general audience.
Someone who sees your branding may know someone who would be a good fit. Branding is a great way to utilize a lot of free tools to accomplish goals that you’d usually have an expense associated with.
2. Remote capabilities
After the events of 2020, more and more candidates are expecting jobs to have more flexibility. Whether that means a hybrid or fully remote setting, it’s important that any jobs that can be done remotely, are prepped to do so. This way, if anything happens, these employees will already be set up and prepared to continue their work.
3. Work-life balance
As part of your branding, you should show potential candidates what it’s like to work for your organization. These days, work-life balance isn’t a perk, it’s essential. If you can’t show a candidate right from the beginning that you care about their well-being you can’t expect them to care about your recruitment needs.
4. Automated recruitment tasks and prescreening
The talent acquisition process is no simple feat. From sourcing to hiring, there are a ton of administrative tasks to take you along the way. One way to take a huge weight off your workload is by automating some of your tasks and prescreening candidate resumes before contacting them.
5. Age of the healthcare workforce
One huge thing to take into account is employee turnover. Many healthcare professionals are “aging out” of their positions. Make sure you’re doing what you can to retain your older employees who are assets to your organization.
With this in mind, it’s more important than ever to recruit new hires to make up for the large number of people retiring after 2020.
If you can keep these trends in mind, you can begin to discern where your priorities are. Try to figure out how these talent acquisition trends can apply to your specific organization.
Everything listed above is necessary for every healthcare talent manager to consider. Once you have your priorities laid out, you can focus on developing a strategy.
Talent Acquisition Strategies
There are all types of talent acquisition strategies you can use for your recruitment process. Depending on the needs of your organization, some might be more favorable than others.
1. Employee Value Proposition (EVP)
If you’ve never heard of an employee value proposition or are just unclear on what it means, EVP refers to the benefits that employees are entitled to after completion of their work. This doesn’t just come down to compensation, though.
Many companies pride themselves on EVPs that are rooted in the goals and desires of their employees. Some of these can include, but are not limited to:
- Programs for well-being and empowerment
- Advancement and development opportunities
- Diverse, inclusive, and equitable experiences where everyone is given what they need to thrive.
Your organization’s EVP is more than likely going to be what convinces a candidate to get on board or pass on your offer, so make sure you take time when putting it together.
2. Custom messages for different employees
Many experts report success with persona-based strategies when it comes to their approach to employees. Instead of sending out the same correspondence to all your employees, consider a touch of customization. This allows employees to feel seen and understood, not like they’re just another cod in the machine.
When your employees are all receiving the same exact messages, it creates a sense of uniformity, which is not considered an ideal dynamic. Make sure you’re doing your part to enforce diversity, equity, and inclusion in your workplace by starting with your hiring techniques.
3. Promote from within
One of the best ways to ensure you’re getting a qualified candidate is by promoting from within your organization. When you do this, you’re already familiar with someone’s personality. If there are certain traits you’re willing to put up with in exchange for quality work, you already know what to expect.
You’ll also probably find that the onboarding process is much easier than it would be with someone who was entirely new to your organization.
4. Leverage social media for branding
Today’s digital world calls for every industry to lean into social media in one form or another. Even if it’s for the most basic level of connection, social media is the fastest way to get a message across to your audience.
With different marketing tools integrated in different social media platforms, the opportunity for creativity is endless, and so are those for potential candidates.
Aside from social media, you can also leverage your existing relationships with academic institutions and make sure to maintain a valuable presence on job boards.
There are plenty of digital tools at your disposal, so make sure you make at least some of them part of your talent acquisition arsenal.
5. Efficiency is everything
If you want people to make it through your hiring process, you need to make the administrative side of things as streamlined as possible. Some experts find it helpful to think of your job applicants as customers.
You have a goal in mind for them in relation to your organization, so it’s on you to help them get there as efficiently as possible.
There are a few different ways to implement maximum efficiency in your healthcare recruitment process:
- User-friendly applications
- Clearly state total compensation and EVP
- Be clear about expectations and responsibilities of the job
- Post-application candidate experience surveys
The Bottom Line
At the end of the day, the healthcare industry is an essential component of our society. Talent acquisition is based on finding the most experienced person for the vacant role who meets company needs.
When you consider how this is directly correlated to the experience of patients, it becomes evident that the responsibility of hiring is not one to take lightly.
Take advantage of a platform like Ampliz to extend your reach and gain valuable data insights to help you make the right decisions. You’ll never have to google—”how do you stay up to date with hiring trends” again!
