The more efficiently a hospital runs, the better services it can provide to the public—it seems simple, but anyone in the industry knows it’s a complicated task. Still, it’s worth stating what seems obvious: when the ship runs smoothly and patients receive quality care, metrics like costs, patient satisfaction, and efficiency markers within a hospital will all be improved. Further, the more quality care a hospital provides, the better it is for the bottom line.
But the larger success of a hospital can be directly linked to its quality of hire, which measures how well individuals contribute to the overall success of the hospital. Because many talent acquisitions teams are under time or budgetary constraints to fill positions, this important metric can sometimes fall by the wayside—and it really shouldn’t.
We must begin by stressing that hospitals currently face a bigger issue across the healthcare industry landscape: labor shortages. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, there is a growing population of individuals 65 and over expected to grow by 50% by the year 2030, upping the demand for medical services. They calculate that by 2030, there will consequently be a shortfall of 14,800 to 49,300 primary care physicians.
Beyond clinical workers, hospitals will also face a shortage of support staff in areas like facilities and hospital security. Coupled with high turnover rates within the industry, this creates a near impossible situation for talent acquisition. While hospitals can’t change the growing demand or the consequent shortfall, one marker under their purview is to improve the quality of hire. Improving the quality of hire is a long-term investment to stem turnover rates and ensure that the staff you have is both engaged and operating at a
Measuring Quality Of Hire
But how can you pinpoint how much an individual you hire actually contributes to the health and efficiency of the hospital? Because the concept of quality may appear at first glance abstract, you must develop quantifiable markers, which can vary industry to industry and hospital to hospital.
Some common, helpful metrics critical for hospitals are turnover rates, employee engagement, job performance, and patient satisfaction scores. Turnover attributed to involuntary leaving (i.e. employees who were let go due to performance issues) is also a vital metric to help you audit the effectiveness of the talent acquisition team.
When assessing individual hires, look at their ability to meet employer expectations, score well on patient satisfaction surveys, and perhaps most importantly, assess themselves accurately on employee engagement surveys. Studies show that engagement, particularly an engaged nursing staff, is a critical marker for overall quality of hospital care that correlates to better patient outcomes, patient satisfaction, and lower turnover rates. Once the HR data is collected, assessing areas ready for improvement is the next step.
Predicting Quality Of Hire
Can you predict the quality of hire for a candidate before you actually hire them? A more proactive and often recommended approach for improving quality of hire is to develop a system of pre-hire metrics. Talent acquisition teams must consider the effectiveness of their sourcing, fostering quality referrals, developing metrics that calculate cultural fit for potential candidates, or even establishing candidate surveys to assess potential engagement in a new position. The metrics for quality of hire don’t simply lie with an employee, but also with assessing the practices of talent acquisition teams.
Utilizing Technology When Making Decisions
Talent acquisition technology can help collect and assess data to measure quality of hire, determine the best sourcing channels, or predict turnover. The quality of hire is not an elusive metric; it simply can touch upon so many other factors across talent assessment. Finding a comprehensive data collection system that can incorporate all the variables is important to giving you actionable insight into your hiring—and improving its overall quality.
Creating And Expressing A Solid Brand
Optimizing employer brand is critical to attracting talent in the first place. According to Health eCareers and its 2018 Healthcare Recruiting Trends Report, 84% of job seekers say the brand and cultural fit demonstrated on an employer’s website was a factor in their job search. When competition is so high, engaging in a broader recruitment marketing strategy to attract top talent will be key to improving quality of hire.