Imagine if every employee, regardless of industry, had the same passion and purpose about their jobs the way healthcare workers do.
“Patients rely on you, they trust you.You’re in a relationship with them while giving birth,” said an obstetrics nurse in Texas. “I like being able to be a part of the monumental change of bringing children in the world.”
That’s a powerful testimonial to the profession, but by no means is it the only one.
A pair of Baylor Scott and White nurses — one works in endoscopy, the other in the ER — talk about the grace of bonding with patients at their most vulnerable.
“Nursing is such a rewarding experience,” one of the nurses said. “I’m getting the chills just talking about it.”
It would be nirvana if job seekers felt the same way during the recruiting phase. Many health systems leave a lot to be desired with their talent acquisition practices.
Recruitment teams are so bogged down by low-value administrative tasks that sourcing, or actively finding candidates and having conversations with them, isn’t even getting done.
It’s not their fault. They are supposed to handle screening, scheduling, paperwork processing and a host of other time-consuming responsibilities. As the demand for health workers increases, it becomes impossible to keep up. A better way would be to transform them into talent advisers — a more strategic, less task-demanding role.
Recruiting is hard and is only going to get harder. TA teams are in relative stasis now that the era of manic job-hopping for a bigger paycheck is over and folks are staying put.
But that doesn’t mean they can afford to kick back. Because by 2036, the industry will have shortages of more than 68,000 primary care physicians, 62,400 psychologists and 42,000 psychiatrists, according to the National Center for Health Workforce Analysis.
The time to prepare is now. Recruiters would be wise to let AI handle the brunt of the day-to-day duties. So instead of employers going to talent, talent comes to them.
Here are three steps employers can take to fill some of the nearly two million job openings in healthcare.
1. Qualified Talent May Already Be in The System
The average time to fill for direct care RNs is 84 days, according to RogueHire, a TA analytics firm. Time to source (how long from when the job was posted to the first conversation with the person who was ultimately hired) accounted for 70 of those 84 days. The average time the candidate was already in a health system’s Applicant Tracking System: 650 days. Almost two years!
The talent is there for the taking. That’s why ChenMed has been so successful at driving down time to fill and increasing applications internally and externally. The Florida-based company, which primarily treats seniors on Medicare, took the extraordinary step of putting their most experienced people on the sourcing role, typically viewed as an entry level recruiting job. That maneuver is filling the pipeline nicely.
So is having a thriving talent community. ChenMed can search and filter by skills, experience, interest, location, and more, allowing the company to find best-fit candidates in the right areas and target them appropriately.
More health systems should spend time communicating with people in their talent communities and sharing open roles they might be better suited for. It’s almost like tapping the equity in a house. There might be 10 additional people behind the person who was hired that a hospital could use right now. Instead, they sit stagnant.
2. Do What You Say, Say What You Do
Happy employee testimonials such as the ones mentioned earlier are an effective way to attract workers in their 20s, the average age for entry level health employees. The videos, leveraged for maximum impact on social channels, are often unpolished and unfiltered, matching Gen Z’s preference for authenticity.
Few health systems do it to the successful degree as Baylor Scott and White, the Texas-based hospital chain that made U.S. News & World Report’s “Best” list in 2024.
People interested in a career with Baylor can watch videos by Ashif, a nursing manager; Christy, a housing admin supervisor; and Silanise, a licensed vocational nurse. The minute-long clips share a common theme — “Living Our Commitment.” The content could help Baylor appear as an inviting place to work.
The videos aren’t new, and they are used in other industries, but they’re being distributed through an ever increasing number of channels, a signal that they are forging a connection.
Besides LinkedIn and TikTok, videos can now be accessed via the career site chatbot for anyone who asks: “What’s it like to work at your company?” Another advantage: testimonials convey information about the company in a personal way that no job description can offer.
3. If Not 9 to 5, How About 10 to 3?
Workplace flexibility will never go out of style. Eight out of 10 Gen Zers care as much about it as pay. Empty nesters too. And, for the first time, researchers have now made a connection between job flexibility and mental health.
Remote work in most healthcare fields isn’t possible, obviously, but there are other ways an employer can bend.
Scheduling and location choices are a big reason Franciscan Health’s internal travel nurse program has taken off. The operator of hospitals in Indiana and Illinois recruit local nurses into the program, and they commit to travel between facilities in a particular region. In turn, Franciscan doesn’t have to worry about housing, stipends, or other travel incentives that outside agencies use.
“Pick your shift, pick your assignment, pick your length of assignment, and let’s go,” said Ellen Page, head of TA. “The flexibility of it was so attractive that it just exploded.”
By reducing the cost of outside agencies, Franciscan is saving millions a year. The travel program, not surprisingly, is the top-rated job search on the career site.
Chasing zero
With the three recommendations above, health systems can chase zero — do no harm.
Employers can apply the chasing zero philosophy to talent acquisition by making sure no candidate is left behind, recruiters morph into talent advisers and workplace flexibility is the norm, not the exception.
If done well and with intention, healthcare organizations may see the day when a swell of qualified talent lands on their doorstep.
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.
