I’ve done a number of presentations on the staffing challenges facing providers and how, certain strategies work and others don’t in terms of recruitment and retention. Over my 30 plus years in the industry, I’ve had reasonable (ok, very good) success in building and retaining high-performing teams, including direct care staff. I’ve been fortunate to have many folks who have worked with me, follow me from assignment to assignment, some across the country. Leadership is no doubt key to recruiting successfully as people want to work with winning organizations. Likewise, really good recruiting strategies don’t use the same methodology as the past – namely advertise, incent (throw money at it), repeat. Steve Jobs said it best: “Innovation is the only way to win”.
Most healthcare providers can’t financially compete for staff, consistently. In reality though, staff only work for money when they see no long-term value in the employment proposition. I know travel nursing and agency nursing catch lots of news and sound sexy and high paying. I also know nurses (really, really well as the same are throughout my family) and, the lure of travel nursing is short, regardless of the money. Stability, home base, regularity, working with good colleagues and peers has more value to most nurses.
Before I offer my five “DOs” for recruiting, let me offer a few “DON’Ts” and a reminder. The reminder is recruiting is like marketing – it requires constant, incremental effort to achieve success. Superb marketing campaigns and brands build year-over-year. One misstep, however, can damage a brand significantly (see Bud Light). The “don’ts” mostly focus on money as in don’t think you can buy staff and don’t think, sign-on bonuses buy anything other than applications and temporary workers. Don’t focus on the economic alone but on the goal of recruiting. Like marketing, it’s about positioning the organization to attract workers. The sale or close comes via an H.R. specialist or someone exceedingly good in the organization of convincing people of the value of working for the organization.
My Top 5 tips for recruiting are….
- Focus on recruiting introductory, PRN workers first. Stop advertising for shifts, full-time, part-time, etc. Focus on people who are interested in flexible work and are willing to take a role and see how it goes. This is the “dip your toe in the water” insight. Be prepared to pay well but not necessarily crazy. You won’t be dealing with many if any benefits for this group other than some soft stuff (meals perhaps, incentive rewards like a gift card now and then, t-shirts) so hourly rates can be decent. Likewise, be prepared to pay weekly if not even more frequently.
- Have a killer, multi-media/onboarding/orientation program. Little investment here but not much. YouTube, Tik Tok (can’t believe I wrote that), a website, and other applications can be used to recruit (what it’s like to work for us) and to onboard and orient. The more new staff, even your PRN, feel comfortable walking in the door, the easier it will be to get them and keep them. Giving them a stack of policies and procedures, a big manual, a drone-on HR speaker or a computer-based checklist is a certain turnoff.
- Give the Bonus to the Staff. Turn your own staff into recruiters and pay them for it. Nurses know nurses, CNAs know CNAs, etc. Comp and incent them to bring referrals and comp them well. Sign-on bonuses really don’t work but referral bonuses do. Heck, do individual and team and create a bit of competition and fun.
- Create a Marketing Campaign and Have Accountability. Recruiting is marketing. Stop thinking otherwise. Sure, many think it’s an HR function but most who do, are wrong. It’s an organization function today requiring the best talent. For people to join your organization as employees, they need to know “why” – what are the tangibles and intangibles. Why should I work for you? This is not about pay and benefits but about the value and benefit internally, of a person working for XYZ organization. What’s the value proposition? What’s the real reason people work and stay for an organization (trust me, it’s not money). Build the case and sell that case.
- Get out of your own way. I watch organizations fail as their message is all wrong – tired, non-descript, sounding like everyone else. I watch organizations fail as their environment and their culture are all the same. Stop and align the incentives. Reward what matters and differentiate. Remember the Jobs quote in the first paragraph. Innovate. Stop looking externally at what everyone else is doing and stop going to the same conference sessions. Direct care staffing has certain red rules but not as many as providers think. In other words, stop the “can’t, regulations won’t let us” and start with WHAT can we do. Maybe even bend a rule or two if the same doesn’t jeopardize patient care or quality. Worklife for nurses and CNAs in terms of direct care has lots of negatives but many that I see are driven by provider foolishness – too much paperwork not necessary, too many meetings not necessary, and very few positive touches and rewards. If your culture and the work create fun, ownership, and staff love their work and their company, recruiting others to join the team just got that much easier.
Upcoming, I’ll touch on the opposite of recruiting – retention.