The coronavirus pandemic has flipped healthcare delivery on its head. The crisis has brought into focus two key talent management (TM) priorities moving forward: ensuring that the right people are in place and building sufficient institutional flexibility to address emerging challenges and changes.
As TM leaders in healthcare grapple with rapid changes to the industry, there's a strong signal for these leaders to go beyond a desire to “return to normal.” This signal calls for talent acquisition (TA) to become agile, broad in scope, holistic, and work with partners who bring industry expertise and access to top talent.
AMN’s white paper HealthCare Talent, Now and Next shows the current long-term challenges TM leaders in healthcare face today. And it provides insights about a wide-ranging performance-based TA approach that can drive effective change to talent management.
Download white paper: Healthcare Talent, Now & Next white paper
Challenges in Talent Acquisition and Management
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted hospital and health system workforces. Widespread furloughs have caused short-staffing, complex shift scheduling, process inefficiencies, and concern about how best to return to a whole workforce. Overall uncertainty, varying regional and local government guidelines, and patients’ comfort level make decisions to bring back clinicians, staff, and administrators difficult. Continuing employees have had to adapt fast to new work-from-home routines, and managers faced challenges adjusting policies and maintaining current levels of productivity and patient support. Unfortunately, pre-COVID-19 talent management seems scant in managing these once-in-a-lifetime issues and keeping the organization poised for growth.
One positive of the coronavirus pandemic is the rise of Telehealth. Telehealth has become a primary driver of immediate and long-term change for health systems, showing significant patient satisfaction. For example, the white paper states that 75 percent of hospitals say their usage is “substantially above” previous levels, and 90 percent of hospitals expect to use telemedicine at increasing rates in the future.
To support remote care at scale, roles and responsibilities of the healthcare workforce have evolved, and new ones are forming. Two new skills highly desirable to support the growth of remote care are:
- Working knowledge of advanced software
- Effective remote patient communication techniques
The authors of the white paper state, "To capitalize on this transformative, industrywide shift, institutions will want a strategy in place to define Telehealth roles and secure optimal talent with the right competencies to fill them."
The white paper points out that the four prominent talent trends that existed before the pandemic intensified during the pandemic. Those trends are:
- Burnout
- Importance of candidate experience in the talent acquisition equation
- Reliance on contingent talent
- Continued expansion of outsourcing
Performance-based Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) Solution
When looking to conquer these new and old challenges in the hospital and health system workforce, it's essential to use a solution designed for a crisis environment that demands exceptional flexibility, cost control, and cash flow optimization. Performance-based RPO is that solution. It's a solution grounded on accountability for performance, and as the authors note, "organizations trust that their outside support teams are invested in positive, transformative outcomes."
Performance-based RPO is an integrated model that embodies four vital dimensions that give your talent acquisition team a new and smart recruiting strategy. Those four dimensions are:
- Holistic: Using a solutions platform encompassing the complete talent acquisition process, HR and TA leaders gain a bird’s eye-view of total management operations. An RPO partner using a holistic model will help you capitalize on profitable differences between you and your competition, which is extremely important in the war for talent.
- Agile: A performance-based RPO engagement is not a one-size-fits-all solution. It's a flexible pathway to meeting your organization's specific needs and allowing you to scale rapidly. This total workforce management approach promotes the ideal balance between the nimbleness of contingent professionals and the stability of best-fit permanent hires.
- Prudent Financial Management: The performance-based model aligns with sound financial management. A practical strategy that seeks a TA mix in which the organization minimizes direct hard cost outlays while efficiencies maximize return on soft costs. It's also an agile strategy that positions your organization well to determine the most cost-effective level of furloughed staff to return.
- Innovation: A forward-thinking RPO partner will take action derived from quick response technology and data analysis. This kind of effort will provide and recommend to TA leaders technologies that can drive meaningful change throughout the most vital aspects of the talent acquisition process. Those critical areas include:
- Infrastructure
- Candidate Experience
- Intelligence
- Performance Improvement
The AMN white paper shows TM leaders in healthcare how performance-based RPO can help them conquer the complex challenges facing hospitals and health system workforces.
Download your complimentary guide to performance-based, agile total management today.
