Healthcare organizations can combat staffing shortages through digital recruitment platforms, educational partnerships, and retention-focused benefits.
Key Takeaways
- The healthcare industry faces a critical staffing crisis, with 6.5M workers expected to leave by 2026, and only 1.9M skilled workers available to replace them.
- Despite $24B in hospital spending to address nursing shortages, traditional recruitment methods aren't meeting demand, necessitating innovative solutions.
- Success in healthcare recruitment requires a three-pronged approach: modernizing recruitment strategies, strengthening educational partnerships, and implementing retention-focused benefits.
The healthcare industry continues to face unprecedented global staffing shortages that began during the pandemic.
A study shows that 6.5 million healthcare workers in the U.S. will leave their positions by 2026, leaving only 1.9 million skilled workers available to replace them. Despite hospitals spending nearly $24 billion to mitigate nursing shortages, retaining and recruiting staff remains difficult.
Regardless of why workers are leaving their posts — whether to retire or seek a less demanding occupation after burnout— the demand for these workers in the U.S. will continue to increase with an aging population to care for.
This crisis leaves healthcare organizations strained to provide optimal patient care without enough hands on deck. Organizations are desperate, reportedly poaching staff from other organizations to meet their needs, and traditional recruitment methods haven't met the demand.
How can healthcare talent acquisition teams rethink their approach to close the wide workforce gap?
Practical strategies exist for talent acquisition professionals to address these critical staffing shortages and regain a robust workforce with a good dose of strategy and the right tools.
Modernize Healthcare Recruitment Strategies
In this post-COVID job landscape, healthcare talent acquisition teams should focus on two strategic umbrellas: diversifying the talent pool to increase the number of potential candidates and going digital to make recruitment workflows more efficient.
Targeted Social Media Campaigns
Hiring professionals who want to broadcast roles to the largest possible audience using the fewest resources should start with targeted social media campaigns. Social marketing easily targets the right audiences by location, age, interests, alma mater, etc. To be savvy on social media, highlight the roles available (maybe even a day in the life video on the roles that need filling), the benefits, and where to apply.
Using digital advertising data, talent acquisition professionals can devise a marketing funnel with multiple touchpoints to move interested people into the application process once they engage with the first ad.
Digital Recruitment Platforms and AI-Powered Sourcing
Once the applicant is in the pipeline, recruitment platforms can help hiring professionals streamline talent engagement by automating repetitive administrative tasks like following up with candidates, scheduling interviews, or using chatbots to answer FAQs 24/7.
In healthcare, targeting and working closely with diverse applicants is a great way to include every skilled candidate in the talent pool for an industry already a major employer of diverse communities.
Tip: Robust recruitment platforms like Recruitics offer job advertising and distribution automation to a select network of top job sites with continuous optimization and transparent results.
Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives
There are many ways to include more culturally and socio-economically diverse communities in healthcare, from small to big strategies. These include using dashboards to track diverse candidates and employees, providing an ample business case for resource-heavy interventions, and offering visa relief options to engage eager, foreign-born applicants.
Organizations with strong DEI values should showcase these aspects of the company culture in their employee value proposition. These attributes are vital for Millennial and Gen Z workers, who value a cultural fit even more than traditional benefits.
But modernizing healthcare recruitment strategies also means returning to basics building and fortifying partnerships with educational institutions that will prime the pipeline with skilled talent.
Building Strong Educational Partnerships
Employers should partner with various educational institutions to impact future workforce development. According to EdAssist's 2024 Education Index, 53% of people surveyed said that knowing they would accrue student loan debt prevented them from pursuing additional education. Of the younger generations, 99% of Gen Z employees are interested in developing new skills or continuing education.
It's possible to engage with applicants years before they apply by working with specialized high schools to train students as hospital volunteers and pique their interests in healthcare.
Developing Talent Pipelines with Nursing Schools
In nursing, where the need is most urgent, employers should work with nursing schools or other specialized schools to encourage larger classes of nursing degrees, offering tuition subsidization or loan forgiveness programs, and providing more defined pathways to set graduates up with jobs afterward.
Then, there is also the challenge for employers to retain the workforce they already have.
Implementing Retention-Focused Benefits
When healthcare organizations retain the talent they have, it means that workers are more fulfilled, and turnover (and its associated costs) will be reduced. To achieve this, it is essential to ensure staff wages are competitive, match wage offers, be cognizant of the cost of living, and provide higher pay for expertise or increased efforts.
However, since talent acquisition professionals usually have less power to impact these financial levers, they may want to use existing but less apparent options to entice talent. Here are a few ideas.
Career Pathway Development
Healthcare employers need more skilled workers, and employees want to upskill but often lack the necessary support. By prioritizing employer-sponsored education assistance programs, employees may be motivated to stay while fighting burnout by turning to something new.
More than four in five employees surveyed in 2024 said employers who invested in their education would make them more loyal. Most also said that employers who offer education benefits could make or break a job offer. So, it’s beneficial for companies to leverage these clear career pathways and further educational opportunities.
Organizations can also use virtual simulations to help employees transition from one role to another while encouraging the adoption of emerging technology. Solutions like telemedicine platforms and AI-driven diagnostics may make the barrier to entering these new roles more manageable, with improved efficiencies in the more monotonous aspects of work.
For some applicants, flexibility outweighs growth opportunities.
Flexible Scheduling Options
Healthcare workers are highly motivated by the opportunity to work a flexible schedule. Working around their appointments and childcare is key to a flexible culture. Some experts think the industry may even offer more per diem shifts, like Uber's model, or rely more heavily on locums to meet the needs of local health systems and provide more flexibility for employees.
Other healthcare organizations are getting creative on options for flexibility, too, encouraging former employees or retirees the chance to "boomerang" back to the company, particularly for short engagements.
Wellness benefits are another way employers can keep employees satisfied and provide another aspect of work that recruitment marketing can promote when filling open roles.
Wellness Programs and Burnout prevention
Especially after the stress of the last few years, healthcare workers may rightfully demand developed wellness and burnout prevention programs. These benefits could be as small as assisting employees with an ergonomic set-up at a computer or offering free mindfulness apps, up to sabbaticals, and providing subsidized housing benefits.
Intrinsically, healthcare workers are more likely to stay with employers who give them a sense of purpose and recognize their excellence.
Creating a Sustainable Staffing Model
Poaching employees from other organizations is a sign that employers are in a scarcity mindset. A shared workforce consortium model that health systems can use to fill vacancies could make sourcing talent less painstaking and reduce the need for unnecessary competition. Here are a few other ways to create sustainable staffing.
Cross-Department Resource Sharing
Shared talent pools and cross-training can be effective to maintain workforce levels. Cross-trained staff can perform multiple roles, making workplace planning more manageable; staff feel more valued and may feel less burned out by working across various departments.
In some situations, healthcare organizations can also attract workers from less traditional care provider roles to fill gaps by leveraging community health or social workers.
However, technology and AI also allow physicians to become more skills-based instead of knowledge-based, which may make talent acquisition easier.
Balance of Permanent and Temporary Staff
Healthcare employers facing significant shortages should first focus on retaining permanent staff. However, there is merit in working with agencies to source more temporary and traveling staff for immediate needs, especially in critical care or emergency medicine.
Future-Proofing the Healthcare Workforce
Long-Term Strategic Planning Recommendations
Thorough measurement and technology can better evaluate how much supply will be needed down the road and what departments need it most. Forecasting staffing needs allows the recruitment process to have higher chances of success.
Measuring Success and ROI
Success in recruitment for highly competitive fields might depend on how quickly employers can move applicants through the interviewing process, however, with more consolidation in healthcare companies, brand reputation matters. Talent acquisition professionals should pay special attention to the quality of candidate experience and quantify their experiences as a measure of success. Hiring professionals can also ask unsuccessful candidates for feedback to keep the connection warm and show that the employer cares about improvement.
Healthcare workforce needs are constantly evolving. Planning to have the right pathways, procedures, and technology in place for staffing shortages is essential for company success and, most importantly, for providing top-notch patient care.
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Recruitics works with leading healthcare organizations to fulfill their recruitment needs. Driven by our commitment to delivering quality talent, we’ll help craft the right customized solution for you. Contact us today.
