There have been numerous changes in the two decades since I began a career in healthcare. But one thing that has not changed are the roles that personal service, a passion for caring and a quality reputation play in successful workforce recruitment and retention.
I have spent more than 15 years at Martin Memorial Health Systems, an organization that has never lost its family friendly atmosphere and continues its long-standing mission of serving patients with excellence. Those traits have helped us maintain a reputation as an organization where people want to work.
Martin Memorial faces the same challenges as other healthcare systems in terms of recruiting and retaining a skilled workforce. That includes finding experienced, mid-career candidates. Today there are a flood of new graduates looking for work, seniors who are looking for part-time or full-time employment, and professionals and support staff seeking to enter the healthcare field for the first time. While we strive to place a good mix of candidates, we still face the market challenge of attracting candidates in the middle of their careers who can go anywhere based on their talents. Our reputation helps us attract those candidates, though mid-career recruitment remains a challenge.
As strategic business partners, HR departments must focus not only on the recruitment and retention of employees, but also must spend time recruiting and attracting physicians, volunteers, students, interns and contracted labor. A strategic HR department must also be focused on promoting an internal, full-service career center that provides a broad array of services to the community. Such career centers not only can place people in positions, but also teach them about healthcare and the opportunities that exist throughout the organization. Relationships with key community leaders, businesses, local governments and universities are also essential to making a career center successful.
The manner in which relationships are developed between healthcare providers and the community at large is constantly evolving, in part as a result of social media’s rise. That has created a challenge for healthcare recruiters who have spent their careers focused on personal service and now must incorporate social media recruitment into the routine of candidate selection and hiring. While social media can be valuable as a means to assist in recruiting, nothing has replaced the personal service that healthcare recruiters provide in the selection process. We are in the business of finding people who help us save lives – a responsibility we take very seriously.
While recruiting a quality, caring workforce is important, retaining those employees is equally vital. Martin Memorial currently has some of the lowest turnover and vacancy rates in our history. That was a key factor in our recognition as a national Employer of Choice for 2009, 2010-2011.
One of the best retention activities we have is our performance excellence program. This involves cross-functional teams from around the system working together on projects that improve both the patient experience and workforce satisfaction, in part by reducing redundancies and creating value to everyone who is part of the system. This has allowed us to increase teamwork and collaboration, resulting in greater workforce advancement opportunities. It has also led to enhanced quality and safety throughout our organization.
Our passion as an HR department is to find the right person for the right position for the right department, so that they may provide the very best service to our patients, customers and workforce. While the methods we use to recruit and retain our workforce will continue to evolve, we remain committed to developing a workforce that is dedicated to providing exceptional care to our patients.
