4 Ways to Attract Healthcare Talent Besides a Higher Salary

Today, the challenge for healthcare employers is finding new ways to attract candidates, other than a high salary. A high salary is enticing for any candidate, yet many hospitals have to manage strict budgets and so need to find new and creative ways to grab a candidate’s attention.

The following are four innovative ways of turning candidates’ heads in the direction of your hospital, enticing them not just with enticing salaries but also with more meaningful experiences at work.

1) Build an employee brand

Building an employee brand involves clearly describing the culture, mission, and vision of an organization. New employees not only desire a high salary but also have a strong need to build an affinity with an organization’s values and vision.

Creating a strong employee brand that others connect to is crucial for attracting new talent, as the research below shows:

Hospitals and health systems with strong employee brands draw twice the number of applicants per job compared to other healthcare organizations reports LinkedIn. There is also 40% less chance that they will lose new hires after the first six months, and they enjoy a 43% decrease in cost per hire. 

2) Promote a flexible work environment

Hospitals that offer flexible scheduling give their staff more autonomy to build their working day. Healthcare organizations such as the University of Rochester Medical Center offer both 8-hour and 12-hour shift patterns with many departments providing self-scheduling. Thus enabling this facility to strike a balance between their staff needs and the needs of the department.

One of the major issues for today’s hospitals is staffing schedules; one such facility facing this issue was St. Francis Hospital. St. Francis was forced to spend valuable financial resources on agency nurses and incentive payments for their employees to plug gaps in their staffing schedules.

They realized that this was not a viable solution and decided to offer their nurses self-scheduling. They discovered that implementing self-scheduling gave nurses greater work satisfaction. They also found this avoided the problem of having to pay nurses incentive payments and employing agency nurses.

Hospitals that offer self-scheduling satisfy the need of today’s healthcare professional looking for greater flexibility and a suitable work/life balance.

3) Provide a culture of employee engagement

Many healthcare professionals favor an organization’s culture over a high salary. In a survey conducted by Glassdoor, they found 66% of healthcare professionals put an organization’s culture high on the list when deciding to move to another healthcare organization. 56% of respondents reported that they prefer working for a hospital where helping people matters above everything else.

In partnership with Contrast Creative, Duke University puts on an all-inclusive employee engagement program. The event highlights contributions made by staff from a variety of departments that has touched the lives of patients and their families. Events such as these have a palpable effect on enhancing work culture scores.

4) Create a candidate experience that is both consistent and credible.

In this burgeoning environment for the healthcare industry, the competition for the best candidates keeps on intensifying. Today, there is lower unemployment, greater opportunity and more choices for candidates to choose where they want to work. Creating a candidate experience that is both consistent and credible is critical for any hospital. From the first conversation to the last on-site interview, information shared has to be consistent. This gives the organization greater credibility in the eyes of the candidate, as well as, presenting a clearer picture of the organization and the expectations of the job. This leads to candidates that are a better fit for the position.

The Take-Away

The competition is intensifying between hospitals to not just provide services that attract patients but grab the attention of top healthcare talent. Research shows that a company’s culture, values, and ability to offer candidates a place where they feel they belong; holds more weight than a higher salary. 

At Merraine Group we go above and beyond to help our clients secure the most talented healthcare professionals. In this current candidate-driven market, we offer a highly personalized service that is valued by our clients and candidates. Find out more by contacting us at www.Merraine.com

By: Jonathan Gordon