STAT LINE Insights Into The Healthcare Sector Insights Into The Healthcare Sector FROM THE EDITOR S DESK www.adcomms.tmp.com GRETA SHERMAN Forget Boxes It s All About Selling Many times a split personality exists within healthcare recruiting. Human Resource management tends to talk about how much vacant positions within healthcare are costing in terms of money and morale while recruiters may talk about various systems that surround the process of attracting and hiring qualified candidates. For example, a VP of HR may lament that the RN vacancy rate increased one percent and the resulting cost in agency, travelers, overtime, PRN and cost-per-hire cut an estimated $1 million off the bottom line. Recruiters may also be heard commenting how paper applications are a thing of the past; it is now on-line or nothing for every candidate entering the system regardless of the position or the situation. It is almost as if one side of the recruiting equation is not hearing the other. We must get the right people hired and retained vs. we aren t going back to the days of applications everywhere and copying files for hiring managers. Both sides have a point but it is important to remember it is individual people we need to hire. Individual people must be hired with a variety of skills and shortcomings as well as individual perspectives and feelings. The candidate for a Certified Nurse Assistant position may be completely unable to apply on-line even though she has ten years experience and can keep four RNs happy as well as improving patient satisfaction and outcomes. And the lab professional, who is able to apply on line, may be unable to relate to people and has a hard time because she feels inadequate socially. CONTENTS April 2007 In The News 5 Article snapshots of current recruitment/retention and human resources news. Numbers 5-6 Any graph, survey or statistic of relevance to the healthcare recruitment community. Continued next page Visit Greta's new Healthcare blog at: http://blog.tmp.com/gretasherman If you'd like to submit a question for Greta to review and answer send it to askgreta@tmp.com. Every two weeks we will draw a question for Greta to address on her blog. Greta Sherman Senior Vice President, Healthcare TMP Worldwide phone: 502.244.5980 email: Greta.Sherman@TMP.com
Stat Line: Insights Into The Healthcare Sector 2 It s All About Selling Continued from page 1 To be successful, everyone involved in the recruiting process must embrace the fact that today it s all about individuality, selling and appropriate positioning. Don t misunderstand me; I m not saying we should take everyone by the hand and become their therapist or that recruiters should hire gleefully anyone who walks in the door. On the contrary, healthcare delivery systems should be more discriminating than ever, but they need to control the process so they control the decision about who they hire not abdicating the decision to those who stick around in the process long enough to get an offer. Each hire is so important that it should require listening to the candidate, hearing them and making them feel special. Recruiters should want to have the opportunity to say yes or no, not just the applicant. In the course of consulting with clients, we often secret shop their recruitment process to assess how they can improve the process, if anyone needs training and if there are any legal mistakes slipping into the interviews. Secret Shopping is simply putting a good candidate through the process without the knowledge of the recruitment staff so a real assessment can be made. What we tend to find are good recruiters who are working diligently to bring in the hires even though each day they receive about the same number of requisitions as the hires they have been successful in making. There are also those who are hardened by the sheer numbers and processes which have been implemented to put a fence around the hoards of unqualified people streaming through the door. Their mentality has been reduced of simply getting through the day filled with cynical hiring managers and jaded co-workers. It is hard to know what to do in a system that is completely overwhelmed, but it is a guarantee that what we are doing is not working. Vacancy rates continue to rise and people are walking out the door in greater numbers and faster than ever. It used to be understood that some RNs would work for two years to get a prestigious system on their resume and then they would take flight. Today the average RN is leaving before they hit a one year anniversary, with over 40% leaving before completing half that time. What we do know is that retention and engagement begins in recruitment. If a candidate feels they were really lucky to have been chosen and that someone saw something unique and valuable, then they start committed and engaged. If they feel like anyone could have gotten the position then they start disengaged and doubtful of their fit into the organization. It s not just the system, or the numbers, the recruiters or the candidates but a combination of everything. The first step, however, is giving the recruiter support; recognizing what their job really is and rewarding them appropriately. It is their job to sell the position and the organization and most sales professionals are compensated on a commission or sales incentive basis. It is horrifying to many recruiters and HR managers alike to think about putting numbers and sales goals around the recruitment process, but when you consider how much money an effective recruitment and retention program drives to the bottom line it makes perfect sense. Healthcare is the fastest growing sector when it comes to staffing shortages, business is booming and will continue to boom given the move of Baby Boomers to Baby Geezers and yet we are some of the slowest adopters of innovative hiring practices. Successful healthcare delivery systems are going to be the ones who take it so far out of the box; they ll be re-writing the whole thought process of recruitment and retention. Developing an Incentive Program for Recruiters It s not that difficult to develop an incentive program for healthcare recruiters, but you do need to know your numbers. Here are a few things you ll need to know to develop an effective program: 1. How many applications are you receiving each week in the seven healthcare categories? (see box on page 3 for the categories) 2. How many positions is each recruiter handling each month? 3. Is your recruitment function full-service or a big Post Office? 4. Is there an effective turn around time expectation for the hiring managers? You need to know these things because on average an effective hiring program will need the following ratios of applications to hires to be effective: 1. RNs is 3:1 2. Allied Health and semi skilled is 5:1 3 Entry Level is 10:1 (drug screens and the ability to read and write raise the ratios) Continues next page.
Stat Line: Insights Into The Healthcare Sector 3 It s All About Selling Continued from page 2 Consequently, you need enough applications coming in to be appropriately functional for the recruiter and the recruiter needs an adequate number of openings to be filled. Numbers should also be adjusted if the recruiter is truly recruiting or if the recruiter is simply pushing applications around and waiting for the hiring manager to announce the hire, start date and salary. And, the recruiter must be a partner with the hiring manager, not someone who sends candidates over, never to hear back until the candidate has slipped between the cracks. Generally, if you have an adequate number of applications and openings and the hiring managers are as eager to fill slots as a recruiter who is paid on her success, the incentive program may be: 1. A base of 14 RN hires should be made per month. 2. Once that base has been met a sales bonus of about $250 per hire is paid to the recruiter. 3. The recruiter s salary is lowered to $40,000 to $60,000 annually, depending on the area of the country, with the ability to make at least twice that with effective hiring. 4. A retention bonus of $50 is made on any hire that stays at least a year and with whom the recruiter has become a touch stone. Hiring expectations must be adjusted for each job category. For example, rehabilitation hires would never be 14 a month so you d want to lower that base number and fill in with allied health hires. Some recruiters may need to be adjusted monthly to reflect the current needs. It is also a good idea to bonus the receptionist and other clerical support staff of the recruitment team. The average is $10 a hire for all team members and it results in a team-effort with a smooth and impressive recruitment function. Bonuses and sales incentives should be based on the numbers and the expectations of recruiters, but appropriately compensating the recruitment team and being clear about their function will ultimately improve the overall practice environment through high staffing levels, increased employee morale and dollars to the bottom line. The Seven Job Categories of Healthcare The job categories are based on: 1. The education level needed to do the job 2. The pay bands 3. What type of work they will be doing 4. How they respond to recruitment messaging 5. EEO reporting codes The broad groups are: 1. Professional 2. Nursing 3. Allied Health 4. Rehabilitation 5. Entry-Level 6. Office and Clerical 7. Technicians Among all groups there are sub groups which more than likely need to be broken out. For example while Pharmacists and Respiratory Techs both fall into Allied Health, they are different in lots of ways including cost-per-hire and messaging. For a complete breakout of all jobs that fall into each code for measuring and planning, just e-mail us at jill.erickson@tmp.com and we ll send a more detailed list.
Stat Line: Insights Into The Healthcare Sector 4 Stat Line: Insights Into The Healthcare Sector Nursing and Healthcare News: April 2007 Sports medicine, a field that encompasses surgery, therapy and training, is seeing a boom in business as Americans stay active longer and more females take to sports. Combined, those factors are driving sports medicine to become one of the fastest growing and most competitive niches in medicine. The demand for physical therapists and trainers is above average compared with other occupations, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The future of healthcare marketing is here three healthcare organizations- Cleveland Clinic, the Dana- Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, and High Point Regional Health Systems in North Carolina-are breaking healthcare marketing barriers and tapping into a new resource: new media. Healthcare consumers are more technologically savvy than ever before and want the information they seek to be delivered quickly. Choice of mediums is also paramount, whether it's delivered in the form of blogs, podcasts, videos, e-mails, or online via Web sites. By effectively using new media devices to meet this growing need, these organizations have taken a different look at marketing, as consumers search less for specific products and more for answers to their healthcare problems. Growing their own What began as an initiative for one hospital several years ago has now spread to three Dallas area hospital systems and resulted in the graduation of 89 nurses with another 173 students enrolled. Texas Health Resources, Baylor Health Care System and Methodist Health System have teamed up with El Centro College and the University of Texas at Arlington to provide hospital-based nursing school classes. Students must meet the nursing schools' existing criteria. Some participants applied to nursing schools previously, but were unable to escape the often crushing volume of applicants for a slot. At hospitals, the applicant pool is smaller, so people have a greater chance at getting accepted. The estimated cost per student is between $20,000 and $25,000 with an additional $200,000 commitment from the hospital for start-up costs. Don't forget about these important upcoming Healthcare appreciation days. Hospital & Healthcare Week May 6-12 Nurses Week May 6-12 Healthcare Recruiters Recognition Day June 5
Stat Line: Insights Into The Healthcare Sector Stat Line: Insights Into The Healthcare Sector 5 Numbers April 2007 Is your Website in order? Healthcare workers prefer to seek out information on a potential employer by going to the employer s website. Talk to current employees 23% Go to their website 44% Talk to family and friends 17% Other 3% Call in for info or brochure 10% Go to the library 3% Source: Independent survey of healthcare workers online job seeking habits. TMP Worldwide Healthcare Practice, April 2007
Stat Line: Insights Into The Healthcare Sector 6 Can candidates find your website? Healthcare workers use search engines more then any other source to find the website of potential employers. Magazine/ Trade Journal 18% Search engine (ie: Google, Yahoo) 55% Newspaper 19% Radio Other TV Outdoor Source: Independent survey of healthcare workers online job seeking habits. TMP Worldwide Healthcare Practice, April 2007