If you provide recruiting or staffing services within the healthcare industry, you don’t need another statistic to tell you what you already know and feel—there is a severe shortage of workers. High demand for providers combined with a low supply has created a perfect storm. The numbers are not working in anyone’s favor—not healthcare institutions, providers, or those who source and place providers.
Once accustomed to providers coming to them, recruiters have seen the tables turn in the opposite direction. Finding providers is difficult, and the cost to acquire them has skyrocketed, as has the pay they demand. As a result, those who source and place talent struggle to balance urgent staffing needs with the desire to secure a return on investment (ROI).
Reduce the Friction, Increase Redeployment
When it comes to staffing, one of the most effective ways to generate ROI is redeployment—the ability to return to reliable talent and re-engage them for additional work. In an environment where providers are scarce, having talent in your back pocket is essential.
Unfortunately, talent redeployment has historically been cumbersome and inefficient. Phone calls, lunch meetings, and emails lead to drawn-out exchanges that delay rapid response and strain relationships. Nobody wins and the storm rages on.
To win the war for talent, recruiters and staffing organizations must instead establish a frictionless redeployment process that respects providers’ time and their desire for simplicity.
One of the most time-consuming and arduous processes for providers is credentialing and licensing, and it is often a barrier to redeployment. Those who reduce the burden on providers and make it easy for them to get to work fast will earn their trust and win their loyalty.
Trust and loyalty are the building blocks of meaningful and reciprocal relationships with healthcare providers. When trust is built and nurtured over time, providers are more likely to redeploy. That is why it’s essential for information regarding the roles they want, the locations they want to work in, and the requirements those roles entail to be easily and readily accessible at a moment’s notice.
Optimizing Redeployment Through Mobile Technology
To truly capitalize on redeployment, and create that frictionless experience providers expect, requires an investment in mobile technology. It’s not only a matter of efficiency; it’s about respect. Healthcare providers work long hours in stressful environments under immense pressure, and they want accepting a job placement to be pain-free. Organizations that offer end-to-end mobile experiences are seeing significant results in this regard.
An enterprise staffing company adopted Avionté’s 24/7 mobile app and within six months saw a 33% decrease in overall cycle time between receiving a job order and filling it. That’s an average of more than six days saved for each assignment filled.
Additionally, the company increased its fill ratio by 45%, and its deployment rate increased by a staggering 221%. They went from redeploying 14% of their providers to more than 45%.
It all goes back to a seamless experience. End-to-end mobile technology centralizes the entire process, from application and interview to scheduling, payment, and redeployment. All of the providers’ preferences, documents, credentials, and schedules are in one place. When a job that meets their preferences is entered, the notification process—and the subsequent acceptance process—can be nearly instantaneous.
As a result, that same enterprise staffing firm increased its gross margin by 47%, leading to a $38,000 increase in gross profit per recruiter. But most importantly, the healthcare organizations that desperately needed providers, got them. The ability to redeploy talent quickly may not immediately solve our nation’s dire talent conundrum, but it’s a step in the right direction for providers and the organizations they support.
Prioritize Mobile Now or Fall Behind Later
Recruiters and companies that identify and adopt mobile technology for healthcare staffing will see the most explosive growth going forward. While this tech may seem en vogue today, it will only become table stakes later. Those who lag behind or are reluctant to adopt new technology now will struggle to keep up in the future.
It’s time to move beyond old practices and get serious about helping healthcare organizations succeed. If mobile technology can help redeploy even a small percentage of providers, the benefits will be significant. Recruiters and providers will be happier, companies will be stronger, and patients will receive the care and attention they deserve.
Justin Uselton is Director of Sales at Avionté.
Justin has more than 15 years of experience in healthcare and technology staffing, and now manages the Healthcare division for Avionté Staffing Software. He has managed teams for enterprise-level operations in healthcare both before and after the COVID-19 pandemic, and has seen the changing landscape of healthcare staffing, as well as the ongoing impact of maturing technologies in the talent marketplace.
