From Band-aids to Brands
Health care recruitment is coming of age, according to Karen Hart and Sandy Haeberle. Only slowly.
If the state of health care recruitment were an ad, it would be that famous spot for Heinz ketchup, where the boy waits forever as the red paste slowly oozes from the bottle.
Health care recruiting is going somewhere, according to Bernard Hodes Group's Health Care Division front women Karen Hart and Sandy Haeberle. It's just taking its time.
Before winning the war for talent, health care recruiters must first reconcile burdensome processes, new technology offerings, and the murky waters of the marketing world. And they must do so as their budgets are cut and their responsibilities rise.
But they will need to hurry, says Hart. One out of every five nurses will start to retire in just two years, and by 2010, hospitals will be short some 275,000 nurses (that number climbs up to almost a million by 2020).
We reached Hart and Haeberle at their respective homes in Akron, Ohio, and Seattle, Washington.
Q. Give me a snapshot of health care.
A. Hart: An aging workforce among nurses, physicians, RNs, and pharmacists. Diversity in the workforce that is not reflected in health care.
Haeberle: Spending on contract labor rather than having a strong strategic recruitment and retention plan.
Hart: Recruitment processes are a major issue. So is marketing. Health care isn't experienced with employer branding.
Haeberle: We're short in every single job title in health care, and it's getting worse. People are calling it a national crisis.
Q. Is this crisis forcing health care to master recruitment marketing like the tech firms had to in the late ’90s? The “War for Talent” and such?
A. Hart: Not really. Health care in general is uncomfortable with “selling” its services since it's not seen as altruistic or caring. So, there isn't as fast a rush to embrace the heavy-duty marketing that accompanied the IT boom.
Haeberle: Hospital careers websites are a good indicator of the state of the industry. They're poorly designed, there's limited functionality, and you can't search or apply for jobs. It's frustrating for candidates.
Hart: Remember, health care consumer marketing is only 15-years-old or so. There isn't a century of practice to rely on like in consumer marketing. So talent marketing has a way to come.
Q. What's standing in its way?
A. Hart: Process, technology and marketing need to be properly aligned. It's very tricky to get this right, and when it's not right, it can severely impede the work of recruiters and HR marketers. Process is particularly tough. Health care is drowning in process. One of my clients has a five-page requisition form. Another has a committee just to review the output of another committee.
Q. And the process isn't refined to meet the bottom line because the bottom line is a dirty word, right?
A. Hart: Exactly.
Q. If this is rampant, then in any given market there's a big opportunity to dominate recruitment marketing simply by getting your act together.
A. Haeberle: Yes. There is a great power in focus. We have a client out west who understands this. HR is working closely with marketing and really thinking about their brand, process and technology. It's going to pay off for them in a big way.
Hart: I have a client in the south who's pushing hard on their recruitment marketing and leveraging their consumer brand. So it's happening. But, as you say, the door's wide open for someone to step in and clean up. Particularly, I might add, someone from the outside. My southern client is shaking things up because they brought in an executive from the private sector. He knows how to move, how to get results and how to weed out bad process.
Q. He's not burdened by the “play nice” mindset.
A. Hart: No. He gets things done.
Q. What are the people who “get it” doing right?
A. Hart: To start, they're strategic. They have a plan. They know how to do the assessment piece, the external and internal demographics, workforce planning, future trends--the big picture.
Haeberle: They know that in five years they're going to lose 10% of their OR nurses because they're going to retire.
Q. And if they've got their strategy?
A. Hart: Then it's process. Requisitions, requisition signature, posting, position control--all the things that feed into speed. You're too slow if it's taking you two weeks to get your requisition signed, and then you have to post the position for a week. The same is true for applications. Speed is key.
Q. How fast are we talking?
A. Hart: Most people are saying you need to respond to an electronic application in 48 hours.
Q. Are you seeing people with a talent database, something to make them less reactive?
A. Haeberle: Some have, but not many. And having one is not the same as using one. I asked a client the other day how they respond to a req for a rad tech--hoping they'd say “go to my database.”
Q. And did they go to their database?
A. Haeberle: [Laughs] No.
Hart: We see a lot of things at the extremes with technology. Either they're not using it, like Sandy's example, or they've invested heavily and focus on it too much. Almost all of their energy is used to feed and analyze it. In the meanwhile, they ignore other aspects of their recruitment marketing. So, it goes back to that original strategy and having the big picture in mind.
Q. You've mentioned issues related to recruiting active candidates--people who are looking for a job today. But the majority of the market is a passive audience, and getting on their list takes a long-term branding commitment. Are you seeing anyone pay attention to this?
A. Hart: Not many.
Haeberle: We have a client on the west coast who did a great job of aligning their consumer and talent marketing, and made a huge push two years ago that is paying off for them today. They've done everything right, with demographics, testing and refining.
Hart: A southwest client did well with our “100 Nurses” concept. Interestingly, they had their VPs of Marketing, HR and Nursing at the table when they made their plans. That's what we need to see more often.
Q. In consumer marketing terms, “100 Nurses” would be considered a promotion, though. While that adds to the brand, it's still fairly transactional and aimed at active candidates.
A. Hart: True. But the idea of long-term, passive-candidate marketing is still a tough sell. Time is not something hospitals have much of. And there isn't much experience with broad-based, long-term marketing. So, the default is short-term promotion or help-wanted advertising.
Q. Really?
A. Haeberle: Many people don't run ads to build brands. They run ads to satisfy an internal client. They're not worrying about “how does this affect my brand?”
Q. Wouldn't internal communications--explaining the value of a longer-term strategy--help improve the process with the line managers?
A. Haeberle: Yes. In fact, we're frequently asked by our clients to help them explain the recruitment marketing process to the management group.
Hart: It helps with specific issues, too. When you hold up an ad and explain the expense, they get a better appreciation for their website, direct mail, and other techniques that aren't as costly.
Q. Shouldn't HR build a relationship with marketing? They have many issues in common.
A. Hart: Yes. But HR and marketing don't always share a common language. Which is a shame, because HR needs marketing and marketing needs HR. Marketing can help with brand management and process, and HR can help clarify the differences between the consumer market and the talent market.
Q. If things are so dire in the market, and hospitals aren't strong on recruitment marketing or branding, isn't it conceivable that some will simply have to close their doors because they can't adequately staff? I mean, what happens when you push the system even further without getting better at recruiting?
A. Hart: You get Mike Wallace in your lobby with his camera crew.
Q. So it could be that disastrous?
A. Hart: Yes. We call it a “negative patient outcome”, and it's a possibility. Also, a system could get closed down because it can't properly staff, and thus, it can't get accredited.
Haeberle: If it's a for-profit group, investors might simply walk away.
Q. So it's innovate or die?
A. Haeberle: Innovate and prosper.
Hart: No dying. We're nurses.
Karen Hart is senior vice president of the Hodes Health Care Division. A nurse and nurse recruiter for much of her career, she is also the past Executive Director of the National Association for Health Care Recruitment. Sandy Haeberle is senior vice president of the Hodes Health Care Division and draws on years of experience in nursing, clinical, management and recruitment positions. She is a past Associate Director of the National Association for Health Care Recruitment.
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