The healthcare industry is on a hiring tear. It recently added 68,000 jobs in one month, eclipsing the average monthly gain of 64,000 over the prior 12 months, the latest figures show.
Employment activity is so hot, in fact, that healthcare is running circles around the construction, manufacturing, transportation and hospitality industries. Momentum is carrying over from last year, when healthcare jobs expanded by 4% in 2023, more than doubling the growth rate across all other sectors. Good times!
Some health systems are so flush with employees they may be tempted to ease off the hiring gas. It’s easy to see why. The pipeline is almost full, demand for ambulatory health care services, hospitals and nursing facilities is only expected to increase with the aging population, and people aren’t job hopping the way they used to.
So why continue sourcing for talent, right? Wrong. Talent acquisition teams ought to be doubling down on talent, not leaning back.
Complacency is the last thing the industry can afford right now. Especially since the pendulum could easily swing in the other direction, and the mad scramble for talent begins anew.
Fill the pipeline. And keep it filled
Here’s how not to get caught flat-footed.
Start by standing up an internal travel nurse program, which plays a crucial role in connecting travel nurses with healthcare facilities in need of temporary staffing. Internal nurses get to rotate in and out of medical units, a major difference from regular travel nurses who stay at the same position for the duration of their contract.
Company-managed, company-run travel nurse programs offer the kind of schedule flexibility nurses demand, and they’re popular. Hospital operator Franciscan Health, headquartered in Indiana, advertised its program on the corporate career site and it is the No. 1 searched job. Franciscan’s program is also saving tens of millions in labor costs, a huge issue for health systems. HCA Healthcare cut contract labor costs by almost 26% from all the work being done around recruiting and retention.
On a personal note, I had to shut down the healthcare staffing firm I ran for seven years. The business model was no longer sustainable now that health providers are recalibrating their talent strategies and focusing on how much is being spent on contract help.
Next, review your HR tech system. Does it have a chatbot to speed up the application process? Recruiting, screening and interviewing still take far too long. Busy nurses looking for jobs on their lunch break would appreciate the ease and convenience of finding the perfect role on their phones. Is AI properly configured to take the workload off recruiters’ tired shoulders? Does the tech stack even have AI? If not, that’s a critical conversation because, today, most manual tasks can be automated so that talent teams’ work can be augmented.
Next, know who resides in your talent community. The perfect candidates may have been sitting in an internal talent pool the whole time. Best of all — they’re probably certified and qualified. They may have just missed out on an open role a few months ago. Reach out and let them know a great job is still waiting for them. (AI can actually surface these candidates and help you send personalized outreach to bat).
Feast or famine on the horizon?
Healthcare is playing a big role in fueling a strong labor market, no doubt. How long that remains the case is anyone’s guess. One study predicts a shortage of up to 86,000 physicians by 2036, and half of all physicians are considering leaving clinical practice because of the current lack of doctors. Countering that report is one by Purdue University that predicts solid job growth from now to 2031. Whom to believe? No one knows for sure. Which is precisely why organizations need to keep the talent pipeline filled.
Gratitude and respect
Think back to where the industry was just a few years ago. The picture was incredibly bleak. The word that comes to mind is disconnected. People were disconnected from care and patients were often disconnected from family members due to covid restrictions. Meanwhile, talent acquisition teams didn’t know where the next hire was going to come from.
The financial picture looked terrible as well. Already cash-strapped health systems were suffocating from high agency costs and overtime. Frontline workers who saved countless lives were burned out. Things could have gone further south real fast. Instead, the industry stands tall today.
While it’s too early for a victory lap, healthcare is innovating at a faster pace than any other industry when it comes to talent, well-being and overall wellness in the workplace. It was love — love of profession and love for patients — that helped clinical staff survive what will likely be the most stressful time they will endure personally and professionally.
But don’t spike the football just yet. Keep playing the game.
Luke Carignan
Luke Carignan helps health systems hire smarter, faster and more efficiently in his role at Phenom, a global HR technology company in greater Philadelphia. He is the co-host of “The Bo and Luke Show” and The American Society for Healthcare Human Resources Administration podcasts.
