The Importance of Partnering with a Diverse Healthcare Recruiting Firm

It’s safe to assume these days that most healthcare organizations worry about representing a diverse melting pot of talent on their team. Most realize that staff diversity in your healthcare service lines offers tremendous benefits to patients and your practice.

Not only does a more diverse healthcare organization attract better talent, but there are also studies that show these institutions are more innovative and productive than their competitors. Other studies show that patients feel more comfortable, have a better experience, and even are more compliant with the clinician’s recommendation when they feel their worldview is represented by demographic similarities between their treatment team and themselves. Some of these same benefits also apply to your staff at both the clinical and administrative levels. The Wall Street Journal points out, “Diverse and inclusive cultures are providing companies with a competitive edge over their peers.”

If your healthcare organization is working on a diversity initiative, how do you get there?

A diverse healthcare organization starts with diversity-focused healthcare recruiters. Healthcare organizations striving to find diversity balance on their teams often partner with healthcare executive search firms to target specific categories of clinical and administrative talent. This blog will help you understand why the best healthcare organizations select firms like the Merraine Group®, which is women-owned and specializes in diversity healthcare recruiting to serve clients.

How Does Diversity Impact Healthcare Recruiting?

To state the obvious, healthcare providers are tasked with treating patients. All patients. To provide this care, organizations must be completely blind to demographic differences between patient populations on the one hand, but on the other, must acknowledge and recognizes differences that affect the health of these populations, such as race, gender identity, age, and socioeconomic status—to name a few. Yet we know healthcare is still predominantly made up of white male representation at the doctor and surgical level, while nurses are primarily female.

Here are the statistics that show, frankly, that we need to do better:

64% of physicians are male and 56% are white.
6% of doctors are Hispanic or Latino, however, the overall population is growing and is currently at 19%.
5% of physicians are black or African-American, but the U.S. demographic population overall stands at 13%.
36% of active doctors today are female.
For every 100 men who are promoted to managerial positions in healthcare, only 85 women are promoted. The gap is higher when you add “women of color” to the demographic category.

Changing these numbers can only begin to improve when a healthcare organization takes on a diversity and equity recruiting initiative. Diversity starts when organizations seek out partnerships with underrepresented communities, build these bridges, and then draw talent from these communities. The idea is that representation creates the cultural competence that allows these clinicians and administrators to understand the unique needs, wants, and priorities of their targeted populations. Having culturally competent clinical and administrative representation ensures equal and respectful treatment of all patients that enter your facility.

Why is Diversity So Important in Healthcare Recruiting?

As a women-owned business, we believe diversity in healthcare recruiting is critically important because lives are at stake. Here’s the reality: A lack of diversity in your healthcare workforce can also negatively impact health disparities for minority populations.

A study from the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health found that not only are Black, Latino, and Native American populations underrepresented in the healthcare workforce, researchers concluded, “A more diverse group of new graduates might change the trajectory of the past.” The study went on to suggest, “By building a more diverse health workforce, the United States would improve access and improve outcomes in underserved communities and for high-need populations.”

Another study noted, “Despite major advances in medicine and public health during the past few decades, disparities in health and health care persist. Racial/ethnic minority groups in the United States are at disproportionate risk of being uninsured, lacking access to care, and experiencing worse health outcomes from preventable and treatable conditions.”

Diverse recruiting initiatives ensure representation by your staff of all viewpoints and all backgrounds, not just the predominant “white/male” demographic. (Although this too, needs to continue to be represented.) Diversity healthcare recruiters like the Merraine Group® focus on finding representative talent across demographics to help your organization build a culture where diversity is not only celebrated—it is actually fully represented.

Benefits of Hiring Diverse Candidates

Simply put, the diverse representation of your talent pool impacts much more than the numbers on a page or a DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) spreadsheet. Our diversity healthcare recruiters impact how your patients are treated and in turn, your customer satisfaction scores. But that’s not all. There are many benefits to a successful diverse recruiting effort, including:

A broader talent pool.
More positive organizational branding.
Improved employee empathy and understanding.
More creativity and innovation.

Larger Talent Pool

It’s no secret that all healthcare organizations are struggling to find talent these days. That’s why most of them partner with a healthcare executive search firm like the Merraine Group®. Sourcing, developing relationships, recruiting, and hiring top talent is a critical function for healthcare organizations tasked with building the right volumes of human capital to serve patients—and in turn, drive revenue. But the employee scarcity exacerbates when your healthcare executive search firms are all pulling from the same talent pools. Author Paolo Gaudiano in Forbes says, “I believe that the pipeline problem is greatly exaggerated, and that it is largely an artifact of the way companies go about recruiting talent.”

This is exactly why diversity healthcare recruiters are so effective; they find hidden talent that your competitors miss. This, in turn, can cut your recruiting costs. Partnering with an organization like the Merraine Group® gives you immediate access to diverse talent pools that we’ve spent years building.

Positive Employer Branding

The level of deliberateness you apply to brand your healthcare organization matters greatly to your patients and the talent you’re seeking. Ask any healthcare marketer and they will tell you about the importance of branding to set yourselves apart from the competition.

Employers seeking to attract a more diverse pool of candidates must proactively “walk the walk” by establishing a culture where diversity is welcomed by all. This should be coupled with a commitment to diverse recruiting efforts that include positive messages in support of this focus. But participating in these communities requires that you live in that space, and not just “talk the talk.” Having a diverse team in turn leads to authentic branding around your efforts to represent these demographic communities. A genuine commitment to diversity in turn leads to changes that you can see, hear, and experience. This leads to better branding, happier patients, and better talent.

Increases Your Workforce Knowledge

Successful diverse recruiting efforts increase workforce knowledge with a talent pool drawing from the various communities you serve. It’s the cornerstone of a learning culture where the open-minded draw together to embrace the various experiences that make people—people. Studies show that a diverse staff helps your organization understand and address the social determinants of health that negatively affect the health of your patients.

Science and medicine are like technology in the sense that these disciplines are always changing and striving to improve. The Society for Diversity states, “It has been proven again and again that a fixed mindset is not a progressive approach; in fact, it is a deterrent to new forms of learning.”

Boost Innovation & Creativity

The studies show that diverse organizations achieve competitive advantage through better innovation and creativity. The Harvard Business Review says, “there is arguably no better incentive for promoting diversity than the premise that diverse teams and organizations are more creative.” Healthcare is facing big challenges around declining reimbursement and worsening healthcare outcomes. Why would you limit the level of creativity around solving these problems by embracing only one predominant worldview?

Diverse recruiting efforts not only create a more aware organization overall but also improves employee engagement and productivity. It creates an environment of “skin in the game,” where creative and diverse ideas flow between teams and are welcomed by the organization.

Merraine’s Dedication to Diversity in the Healthcare Sector

The Merraine Group® is a nationally recognized women-owned healthcare executive search firm known for diversity recruiting tactics. Our efforts go beyond racial representation but also focus on improving the talent gap for:

Age
Culture
Gender
Education
Ethnicity
Language
Military background
Physical ability
Political belief
Religion
Sexual orientation
Socioeconomic level
And more

We believe, and have seen, how our diversity healthcare recruiters create better cultural competency in the organizations we serve. This ensures our healthcare clients offer services that meet the unique needs of the populations that pass through their doorways. How do we do this work? Here are some examples of how the Merraine Group® better serves our clients’ diversity recruiting efforts.

Diverse Recruiters Across the Globe

Merraine Group® has offices in the U.S., U.K., and Dubai. Within these offices, you will find our Diversity Practice Group dedicated to building bridges within the diverse communities we ultimately represent to our healthcare employers.

The Merraine Group® is a women-owned and operated business with very specific programs to serve our clients’ diversity initiatives. For example, our Berkshire Farm Center & Services for Youth program supports immigrant children and their families. Healthcare candidates serving this program are bilingual—and we have filled more than 240 roles for this unique organization in the past year alone.

Bilingual & Multilingual Job Placements

Our bilingual and multilingual staff helps healthcare organizations across the globe. This local presence creates a broader candidate pool that can tap into bilingual and diverse markets for our healthcare clients.

Work with Merraine Group® to Find Diverse Candidates

The numbers speak strongly to our commitment to helping you find diverse healthcare candidates. For example, in the past two years, we filled more than 350 roles for our healthcare clients and more than half were candidates from diverse backgrounds.

Contact Our Healthcare Executive Search Firm Today

We know you have a choice when selecting a healthcare executive search firm. What sets the Merraine Group® apart is our commitment to focus not just on staffing but on focusing on diverse recruiting tactics to build your culture and better serve your patients. We offer you an unbiased lens for finding top talent as well as diversity healthcare recruiters with talent networks to help you meet your DEI goals. For more information on how we can further your diversity recruiting efforts, please contact our Director of Diversity and Inclusion, Alfred Hankins at alfred@merraine.com or 845-405-8750.