Challenges in Health Care Industry
Recruiting is demanding in any industry, but one will be hard-pressed to find an industry in which it is more strenuous than in health care. The stakes are lofty, and health care facilities cannot afford onboard talent, which does not fit their particular requirements. The health care industry is growing at a faster rate and organizations are experiencing extreme recruitment challenges for clinical staff. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, health care industry was anticipated to add the most jobs from 2014 to 2024, which meant that health care organizations were forced to invest more time, effort, finances, and smarts into their health care recruitment endeavors. In later times, technical demands continue to affect the health care industry with speedily shifting mobile technology, health apps, as well as needs to record all electronic information. Thus, the health care industry is moving towards a candidate-centric economic (Rossheim, 2016).
Furthermore, the employment pace, in this expanding health care industry has been forecasted to balloon up to about 19 percent in 2024 based on US Bureau of Labor Statistics, much quicker than the standard for all jobs, which adds around 2.3 million novel jobs. Therefore, for recruiters in the human resource (HR) departments, recruiting healthcare personnel is a demanding duty, because the personnel must have the capacity to trail, as well as execute safety, ethical processes with the greatest degree of technical proficiency. Additionally, the challenges of team-building along with culture healthy are still on the increase (Simone, 2009).
The health care industry is facing a serious challenge where there is a growing demand, and the supply is low. The effect of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been pretty well-reported in the human resource industry. However, the provision of universal coverage, together with growing costs and an average life expectancy have fashioned a great tornado for health care, where demand is only forecasted to carry on to increase in the prospect. This implies that there is scarcity or dwindling supply of health professionals that could be recruited to meet the growing demand. This is undeniably the most interesting challenges facing the industry when it comes to recruiting. The population is gaining, and the number of physicians, as well as nurses, is diminishing. This apparently puts all of the negotiating power into the hands of applicants and places health industry in a hard-hitting spot. It is predicted that the demand for health care services will swell in the next one decade, contributed by gaining Baby Boomer population, and amplified access to health care because of universal coverage. Nonetheless, the supply of health care experts will continue to diminish, with shortages of qualified nurses and physicians forecasted in the next one decade (Harrington, 2016).
As a huge sector of the present working population, the baby Boomer generation is starting to deliver a blow to health care industry since its members start retiring in huge numbers. At the present, the industry is dominated by baby boomers; however, there is mass exodus starting to occur that will impact all sectors of the health care labor force affecting the recruitment process. This means that the exit of the baby boomers generation will lead to the shortage of nurses since they constitute a main fraction of the present nursing labor force. Additionally, it is estimated that baby boomers make up about 28 percent of the population that implies that, as they retire, more health care staff will be needed. Organizations and systems in the industry have attempted to cure these problems utilizing diverse ways. Some have attempted to raise salaries, while others have begun providing huge sign-on bonuses. In spite the endeavors, minimal progress have been attained regarding increasing the nurse and physician workforce that has greatly challenged recruitment process (Harrington, 2016).
Growing Demand and Dwindling Supply
The majority of the health care organizations have a slow and complicated process of recruiting potential candidates. The long, as well as the tedious process of on-boarding fresh health care personnel has become a major challenge that recruiters experience. The stages entail pre-qualification, detailed applications, and competency testing, which is accompanied by long interviews, background checks along with a skills laboratory exam (Harrington, 2016). It is sensible that health care personnel should be well-equipped with ethics plus skills; however, this very long and boring process exhausts an applicant that hopes to get a job. The long processes may ultimately cause candidate frustration during the recruitment process. When a health care firm does not offer candidates with a concise and convenient screening process, candidate drop-off increases. A study that was carried in 2013 by HireRight Health Care Spotlight found that 47 percent of health care participants responded that getting timely screening results is the main challenges during the recruitment process. Compared to other organization in the industry, health care firms in most instances have complex organizational structures with many components. Though the HR department classically manages the recruitment exercise, each department normally undertakes its hiring procedures. Therefore, this complicates recordkeeping for HR and makes each new worker to experience diverse on-boarding process, which leads to broken along with the inconsistent employment brand (Harrington, 2016).
Compensation has a challenge that has affected recruitment in the health care industry as many applicants prefer higher compensation because of the nature of the job. In hyper-competitive health care setting, employers that pay competitive salaries often win the best candidates in the market when compared to those that pay low salary. Consequently, firms in the industry that cannot offer competitive compensation packages miss chances to recruit the best talents in the market. Even if they offer exceptional signing packages, their staff may leave the company and look for “greener pastures” if another firm in the industry offers them a better signing bonus down the road. This will substantially affect the recruitment process (Flanagan, 2016).
Many health care organizations have failed to retain their staff after recruitment, which in the end “taints” the entire recruitment process. Retaining the employee after the recruitment is more important than anything else in the modern volatile industry. Simply because the company hired the right person, does not imply that the war is over (DeChant, 2016). As the economy stabilizes, more personnel are moving away from holding jobs because of security reasons that has resulted in huge turnover. Coupled to this, lack of development, work overload, poor compensation, too few personnel, and pitiable organizational culture are primary challenges, which make health care employees to hunt other alternatives. Nevertheless, one of the primary reasons for the success in any industry in not only hiring A-players, but too retaining them after recruiting, so they will continue to add value to the company in the future (Flanagan, 2016).
Campus recruitment can be the best way to attract more candidates to join the health care sector and eliminate the problem of shortages in the future. This is given the fact that the current baby boomers are leaving the industry as they are retiring. Seeing the way the majority of the health care jobs needs specialized training, character-types, as well as degrees, colleges or universities are normally excellent place to begin the recruitment process. Not only are the individuals working there industriously to get ready themselves for an occupation in the health care field, but regularly many of them are still in the process of making the decision in the field to specialize (Maurer, 2015). In this manner, where one is recruiting for a health care facility or pharmaceutical giant, one send representatives to university job fairs and can get interested individuals on either side. Thus, focusing on schools that have prominent or big medical schools in addition to nursing programs, a company is more probable to get a competent, well-informed, as well as a competitive team asset. There is also the need to canvas business programs to fill these still very critical positions, which will the above challenge of shortage and dwindling demand and exit of baby boomers (Cocca, 2015).
Baby Boomer are Beginning to Retire in Huge Numbers
Creating a brand regarding the organization through advertising will work towards eliminating the challenges that have plagued the health care industry. Embracing the “grow your own” approach through branding, looking for new recruits through reaching a youthful audience in addition to shaping them to suit the need of the health care careers may be an excellent way to begin. This can be done through designing appealing adverts that targets these audiences and win them. In this case, social media can be used to attract these talents through customized adverts that appeal to them (Cocca, 2015). This will work appropriately the majority of the young generation currently social media sites, such as Facebook. There is the need to attract candidates so that the organization may have a powerful talent pipeline, and publicize more about the organization other than the offered vacation. Then, find prospective candidates through online recruiting software, or any other applicant sourcing websites. It is possible to have onboard overseas personnel to build the talent pipeline (Pizzi, 2011).
Developing a talent pipeline is an important towards attracting highly-trained personnel to the organization. Rather than looking outside the organization to recruit for hard-to-fill positions, there is the need to consider promotes personnel within the organization. Thus, creating a talent pipeline will result in well-built and satisfied employees, as well as increased retention rates. Furthermore, maintain relationships with highly trained candidates even if they reject your offer. These relationships may assist one to capitalize on referral chances, because talented candidates surround themselves with other talented employees. They may also be beneficial if the candidates may re-enter the job market (Cocca, 2015).
An enormous means to gain public attention for the organization or to embrace the university system is to integrate either paid or unpaid internships in the company. Thus, this offers a hand-on, firm-culture engrossed individual to have a track in the business to see the way the candidate like the profession and the organization, while offering the organization with qualified and youthful expert. Internships overlay the way to talented careers in the area, and with the capacity to spend time working with a youthful university scholar, a firm, then has the opportunity to shape the person to the definite culture along with the needs of the business. On the other side, providing returnships may be a vast method to expand the chance of probable re-employment to persons who are taken away from the organization for unnecessary or inopportune situations. This will add to the probable candidate pool when looking for persons to fill those vacant positions, and if the person was an industrious worker along with benefit to the firm. This permit for one to carry on tabs on the individuals that feel will perform well when back to the company (Cocca, 2015).
To eliminate complicated and slow screening process, there is the need to offer candidates more control, as well as visibility into the screening process, which can make it easy and quick to follow firm’s hiring process. A full-featured screening solution may permit candidates to check their standing, finish tests, see awaiting activities, as well as electronically sign documents (Gearon, 2013).
Conclusions
The health care industry has continued to face many challenges in the contemporary health care environment. This has greatly impacted the industry to the extent that there is a great shortage of health care professionals given the fact that there is a huge exodus of baby Boomers who are retiring from the profession. There is the need for the recruiters to develop comprehensive approaches that will be used to streamline their processes and close the gap on talent shortages in the health care industry. Thus, the cost of a pitiable recruit in the health care industry is muddled, because poor worker conduct will impact hospitals standing and it is too proportional to a patient’s care. This puts all of the negotiating power into the hands of applicants and places health industry in a hard line spot. To ascertain the recruiting marketplace in the health care industry, organizations must stay ahead of the competition and utilize innovative means to draw talent.
References
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