By Jeff Jurinak, Director – Business Development & Jen Mattocks, SVP – Strategic Accounts
Forecasts show that healthcare occupations will add the most new jobs through 2029 compared to other occupational groups, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. This growth, along with the events of the past year and the complexity of today’s hiring environment, provides healthcare organizations with a unique opportunity to assess their current talent acquisition approach to prepare for near-term and future talent needs.
The right evaluation delivers valuable insights into your TA function and analyzes for effectiveness, efficiency, and opportunities for improvement. With any assessment, the goal should be supplying you with actionable and impactful feedback, helping you look at your TA process both granularly and holistically, and typically involves review of:
- External benchmarking against your own data to beat competition
- Process mapping & examining technologies to ensure optimal TA efficiency
- Workforce planning followed by total talent mapping to meet targeted number of hires and contingent labor mix
- Employee value proposition, company culture, & brand reputation to meet candidate demands
While there are many healthcare TA assessments out there, no two are the same – and who conducts the assessment matters. Working with a third-party partner, such as a recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) organization, has many benefits, like bringing a proven process and unbiased perspective to benchmark your current state while creating an actionable plan for your future state.
Here are three key qualities to look for in an external partner that performs a talent acquisition assessment for your healthcare organization, including why RPO is uniquely positioned to deliver the best results:
1) True partnership mentality
The best talent acquisition processes in the industry are the ones designed specifically for you. That requires a partner that involves you and your stakeholders in the process, evaluating all angles of your TA strategy to uncover your greatest opportunities.
Leaning on an RPO partner provides your TA team with best-in-class examples and proven methodologies, molding them to your targeted needs so they work for you. They can deliver detailed and fresh views into your existing talent acquisition strategy to pinpoint opportunities for growth.
2) Clear understanding of TA and healthcare
The events of 2020 resulted in new expectations as people experienced unforeseen shifts in workplaces across industries due to the pandemic and absorbed national headlines calling for equity. Since healthcare organizations are complex and face unique challenges compared to other commercial businesses, you need strategies targeted to healthcare candidates and employees to adequately capture and deliver on their demands.
Working with an assessment provider with broad experience in talent acquisition is not enough. To maximize impact, find one with expertise in healthcare talent acquisition. Whether your goal is cost savings or creating a more modern recruitment process, a healthcare RPO partner is best positioned to assist you on your talent acquisition assessment journey. They are equipped with the necessary background knowledge and expertise – in both healthcare and talent acquisition – to conduct a thorough evaluation quickly so you can achieve your TA and business goals faster.
3) Prioritization of efforts and resources
To get the most out of your evaluation, seek an expert that provides a prioritized approach. An assessment will undoubtedly reveal a multitude of opportunities for you to make an impact on your organization’s talent strategy, but you cannot – and should not – make all suggested changes at once.
After evaluating your business and talent acquisition goals, a worthwhile partner will help establish what can wait and what you should immediately address to put your available resources to good use. They should also be able to adequately determine and diffuse anecdotal feedback from stakeholders versus proven pain points.
A roadmap can be a great culmination of an assessment. For example, if utilizing a TA assessment to rethink your recruitment process, you can turn insights into a roadmap that highlights what needs to be done and when. This helps ensure the priorities are known so efforts and resources are allocated effectively, paving the way for long-term operational excellence.
The world has changed, so you must adapt your hiring approach if you hope to earn more than your fair share of top talent. Discovering the strengths and opportunities in your healthcare organization’s talent acquisition strategy will help you build on what is working and identify areas for growth.
