Few areas of the country can compare to the natural beauty of West Virginia in the fall.
At one time Walmart was the state’s biggest private employer. Today that distinction belongs to West Virginia Health System (WVU Medicine), the state’s largest health system with more than 33,000 employees spread out over portions of neighboring Ohio, Maryland and Pennsylvania. There are also remote work locations across the country.
The flagship hospital in Morgantown, J.W. Ruby Memorial, ranked No. 1 in the state by U.S. News and World Report, and 41st in the country for ob-gyn care.
Morgantown is a few miles from the Pennsylvania state line. Many employees who work at WVU Medicine live in the Keystone State. Employees’ children would normally pay out-of-state tuition at West Virginia University (WVU Medicine is affiliated with the school). But not here. WVU Medicine pays 100% of university tuition for employees’ kids. How’s that for an employee perk?
A $7 billion behemoth
There’s no other way to say it — WVU Medicine is huge. It will add a 25th hospital sometime in January 2025 from just six a few years ago. Even more incredible is the fact that it is a $7 billion organization with very low corporate overhead — a measly 7.5% operating margin. Financially, WVU Medicine is doing well.
An interesting dynamic is playing out in the state — West Virginia has one of the lowest health care uninsured rates per capita in the country, so almost everyone has coverage. That’s the good news. But at the same time, it has the nation’s highest rate of avoidable deaths (i.e. smoking, alcoholism and diabetes).
Having a health system that is both responsive to the needs of residents and a major source of jobs makes WVU Medicine a vital nexus point in the community.
A unique thing about the organization: it doesn’t want to be known as the state’s largest private employer, proud as it is of that. It wants to be known as the best employer, Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer Leeann Kaminsky told me from her office in Morgantown.
“We want to be where people want to come to work and want to get their health care,” she said.
And while the amazing employee benefits garner all sorts of attention for sign-on bonuses, tuition assistance and career progression, there’s something standing in the way of WVU Medicine’s quest to be the best.
Clunky career site
The organization’s career site — probably the most important real estate on the internet for any employer —- can use some help.
“It’s not intuitive, it’s kind of clunky, it’s not the most applicant friendly and it’s not recruiter friendly,” said Kaminsky.
The HR team would love to know, for example, who applicants are so it could encourage them to complete the application, but the team lacks the insight.
This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this lament from an organization, and it likely won’t be the last.
Incomplete job applications are a serious issue for any employer, but especially so for one like WVU Medicine as it hopes to hire at least 13,000 people in clinical and non-clinical roles in 2025.
To reach that goal it faces a stark choice: Continue to chew up hours of recruiters’ time by methodically going through a massive pile of resumes, or let artificial intelligence (AI) sift through CVs in minutes and produce candidate recommendations based on skills, qualifications and experience.
A few enhancements to the career site have been made over the years, but not anything that’s going to stop candidates in their tracks and go “whoa, I need to apply here.” The CHRO is well aware of this, so not surprisingly she’s turning to AI for help, just like so many other organizations have already done with great success.
J Crew & Ann Taylor
Kaminsky’s HR team includes more than 75 recruiters who assess candidates and either reject them or move them forward. But the team lacks vital tools that could help them do their jobs better.
“We don’t really have that mechanism to help clarify who’s really qualified for jobs. We also don’t really have the opportunity to use the data that’s in our system,” she said. So essentially the HR team is flying blind. They don’t know who has visited the site or started an application.
What she would love to have is a site that mimics the online shopping experience.
“When I’m looking at something at J Crew or Ann Taylor and I click on it, I’m getting emails two hours later saying ‘Hey, have you forgotten that you were looking at this item?’” she laughed. “That’s what we need for applicants. We want it to be like ‘Hey, we saw you looking at this job. Don’t you want to apply?’”
That’s where AI can help.
Like other health systems, WVU Medicine is having a tough time finding people to staff facilities. Its critical workforce segments include roles such as nursing, radiology, respiratory therapy and lab. “There aren’t enough skilled people trained to be able to come in and do the jobs that we need,” she said.
WVU Medicine has had to rely on outside agencies to fill staffing gaps, a common industry practice. An AI platform will not only help them lower those expenditures, but also speed up the hiring process and promote from within better.
Growing their own talent
In the meantime, desperation has led to innovation.
A nursing school is being built in Morgantown in what was once a pharmaceutical lab owned by a big corporation. The university bought it and converted it into an innovation center. The initial class only has room for 25 students, but the program attracted more than 600 applicants. The outpouring of interest likely stemmed from the generous offer of a tuition-free nursing degree in exchange for a three-year employment commitment.
Interest in the nursing program was such a resounding success that the organization is looking to replicate it for imaging, surgical technicians and other hard-to-fill roles.
“When we looked at our data over the next 10 years in just those critical workforce segments, we are going to need to hire more than 35,000 employees, and that’s just for normal employee attrition and growth,” Kaminsky said.
No doubt WVU Medicine will hit that goal. The organization is in the midst of considering purchasing an AI platform focused on enhancing the overall talent experience, and a whole new world is about to open up for them. Here is one employer that is well on its way to fulfilling a desire to be a place where people feel a) they have a home and b) they can make a difference in the lives of others.
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.
