By Ted Elliott, for HealthLeaders.com
Internet recruiting, or “eCruiting,” is rapidly changing employee recruiting, staffing, and even HR management in the healthcare arena as healthcare providers struggle to cope with an emerging critical shortage of labor.
Changes brought about by the evolution of managed care as the dominant health care delivery model, combined with a reduced pool of available healthcare workers, have brought the situation to a crisis.
Members of the Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals have called the emerging nurse shortage “a healthcare emergency,” and a recent issue of the Journal of American Medical noted that the number of young women entering the nursing workforce has declined as opportunities for women outside of nursing have expanded, resulting in a steadily aging nurse workforce. Today’s nurses are an average of 44 years of age, and less than 10% of nurses are under 30. By the year 2020, we will have 20% fewer registered nurses than projected needs.
As the supply of skilled healthcare workers dwindles, the medical care needs of aging Americans are increasing. In 2010, 78 million baby boomers will begin to reach the age of 65 – the prime years for consuming healthcare services.
While nurses may be in greatest demand, hospitals are experiencing shortages in virtually all areas of their staffing needs – even such non-healthcare specific positions as administrative assistants. With unemployment at an all-time low, hospital staffing has truly become a “sellers'” market, and employers are pulling out all the stops to attract and retain quality workers.
And when recruitment campaigns, bonuses and signing incentives aren’t enough to staff open positions, they must resort to staffing agencies, paying 2-3 times the cost of an in-house staff position and further adding to their labor costs.
Using the Internet saves time and money.
To address this problem, healthcare HR managers are turning to the Internet. With the advent of eCruiting, the Internet is transforming the recruitment process, making it more efficient, more timely, and more cost-effective. Savvy employers have learned that by contracting with industry-specific jobsites, they can fill their openings with qualified people in a shorter time, and at a virtual fraction of the cost of classified print advertising.
For example, last year 90% of recruitment dollars were spent on recruitment newspaper advertising to deliver 11% of hires. Meanwhile, 2% of recruitment was spent on the Internet – to deliver 6% of hires. Clearly, the Internet is the more efficient buy, which in large part explains the rapid growth in Internet recruitment advertising that is currently taking place.
The average cost of an Internet listing is between $150 and $250, compared to $1,500 to $3,000 for a typical two-inch ad in the Sunday employment section of major metropolitan newspapers. In the newspaper, the ad appears once – while on the Internet, the ad can have a shelf life of months.
The Internet is ideal for making contact with college seniors using the web for a job search. And these ads reach the passive job seeker, the employed workers who are cruising the net to see what’s available, just in case they might want to make a switch.
And healthcare professionals are online today to see these ads. According to a poll in the Industry Standard, 26% of nurses were on line last year, and 54% this year – a 200% increase in just one year.
Job sites that are devoted exclusively to healthcare represent the employers’ most efficient means of capturing the Internet job seeker. These job sites will have amassed a database of qualified registrants who have already posted their resumes.
When a registrant emails the site to express interest in a posted job, the site checks through its database to make sure the prospective candidate’s credentials match the advertiser’s criteria, and then zaps an email to the employer. The employer is then free to contact the jobseeker to arrange an interview. In a best-case scenario, the whole operation may be conducted in a matter of hours.
Contrast this with the typical “hurry up and wait” aspects of recruiting the old-fashioned way to quickly see the advantages: no more needless delay waiting for ads to appear, then for ads to be read by jobseekers, then for resumes and letters to arrive in the mail and be opened and sorted by office personnel, etc.
Efficiency and timeliness are not the only ways the hospital is served by e-cruiting. HR departments can slash their costs dramatically by implementing an Internet advertising program. Recruitment fees, along with clerical and HR professional salaries and overtime can be reduced by truly significant degrees. With the click of the mouse, office personnel operations that used to take hours of time, paper, photocopying and postage, can be accomplished in minutes.
While e-cruiting may seem to be an ideal staffing solution, there are still certain things a hospital or health system should consider before contracting with a jobsite. It would be wise to remember these tips:
Make sure you choose a jobsite that specializes in postings for healthcare professionals. You don’t want to waste your time or dollars on a site that’s too generic and doesn’t attract a substantial number of jobseekers in the field you’re seeking to staff.
Read the fine print. Find out exactly what you’re getting, for how long, and for how much. A good jobsite will be happy to answer all your questions.
Be certain the site has a sound technical infrastructure. Does it have strong hosts and a back up? Does it employ adequate firewall security technology?
Visit the site yourself and check it out. It should have an attractive, user-friendly appearance. Sites that offer their registrants a virtual community of shared professional interest are the best, because they promote “stickiness.” Professionals have reason to return to them for the added value of online career guidance, CE credits, and interactive support. The more people who visit the site on a regular basis, the more people will check out your postings.
As healthcare organizations become more and more Internet-savvy, e-cruiting is just one of the ways in which the web can enhance HR productivity and reduce costs. Online CE programs can be an important incentive to help retain key staff. Most professionals must complete these training programs to retain their licenses. Online programs are inexpensive and convenient – people can use them anywhere, any hour of the day or night. Some services even help professionals keep track of their CE certificates online.
Other services available online that will help the recruitment and retention process and attract professionals to a job site include salary calculators, relocation guides, career advice, and industry news.
With labor costs the single biggest expense item that hospitals incur, any opportunities to reduce these costs will be welcomed by beleaguered administrators. Progressive organizations that maximize the resources offered through the Internet can directly impact this budget figure and reap the benefits of lower costs and improved efficiency.