5 Talent Management Healthcare Tips

Bersin & Associates, one of the leading talent management analyst firms, recently published some interesting research connecting talent management initiatives with real business objectives.

According to their research, organizations with better talent management processes, gain significant business advantages such as 26% higher revenue per employee, 40% lower turnover of high performers, and 156% improved ability to develop great leaders, and more.¹

Pretty compelling stuff, but it can be tricky to figure out how to achieve these results yourself. To help, we developed “5 Talent Management Best Practices” to help healthcare organizations prioritize their talent management approach in 2010. Our 5 recommendations are:

1. Focus on quickly filling critical positions with top talent to improve the quality of care
2. Improve “talent visibility” in the organization
3. Increase employee engagement and overall retention
4. Develop the next generation of leaders now
5. Drive performance improvement initiatives throughout the entire organization

We think the right combination of recruiting and performance management initiatives can be an effective way for healthcare organizations to prepare for the recovery and achieve significant bottom-line results.

Interested in learning more? The full version of “5 Talent Management Best Practices” is now available on our website at www.healthcaresource.com/bestpractices

¹Enterprise Learning and Talent Management 2010, Bersin & Associates, Cecember 2009.

Social Media and Recruiting in Healthcare

At the HealthcareSource User Conference in Boston yesterday, we had a series of roundtable discussions among Healthcare HR professionals on various topics. One of the more interesting discussions was on the use of Social Media in recruiting. Of the thirty or so people who participated, only two hospitals had a formal social media strategy for their recruiting effort. Most of the other partipants not only lacked a strategy, but also lacked knowledge of what to do.

We can empathize with them. The economy has created a huge surge in applications in healthcare, as workers retreat to "safer" industries. It has created a hiatus in the war for talent (albeit temporary). So the focus of healthcare HR professionals has been more about keeping their head above water than it has been about incorporating new innovations in recruiting like social media. Many of the roundtable participants said their IT group bans all access to Twitter and Facebook. Some commented that senior management does not want to encourage social media, for fear that something negative might be posted about the hospital. They spoke how every communication needs to be approved by the hospital's marketing department. These are issues that most in other industries have moved past in the last few years.

But most also agreed that Healthcare HR needs to have a formal strategy for social media and needs to have access to these tools. Social media is not going away. Nurse Grads and others twenty-somethings, an important labor pool, view these communication vehicles as the norm. There is no getting around it.

With some great input from people with expertise in this area, like Erin Perry of Pinstripe, Matt Casey of Campus RN, and Matt Adams of NAS, we left with a few social media "starters" for healthcare HR.

1. Have a policy and discuss social media, even if that policy is to do nothing. For example, answer questions like "can recruiters or hiring managers search Facebook or Twitter when evaluating candidates? Who should respond to negative posts that will undoubtedly appear? Should HR have access to Twitter and Facebook even if other hospital employees don't?"

2. Get started. We discussed the importance of setting up a LinkedIn profile and "owning" the corporate profile and alumni group. It was recommended that hospitals at least monitor, if not participate, in social media. We discussed a need to collaborate with the hospitals marketing department.

3. It was recommended that if you are going to use social media recruiting, hire or develop social media recruiting competency. One hospital said that social media recruiting is now a required competency for recruiters. They train and evaluate people. They have had 6 new hires sourced from social media. The other hospital with experience in this area hired people with expertise and interest in social media. Other strategies discussed were to hire marketing interns, who live and breath this stuff and are readily available. Or hire one of the big recruiting communications agencies who can help.

4. And we all agreed, don't get started if you don't set aside the time to do this right. It is time consuming and requires a real effort.

It’s not what you say …it’s how you say it!

At the recent NAHCR Image Conference we heard Beverly Jacobson of Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters Health System speak about the power of positive communication with respect to employee recruiting. This excellent presentation started a lot of dialogue about how candidate touch points, yes even the rejections, should be positive and engaging. It also got us thinking about how the timeliness and frequency of candidate communications can highly impact both a positive or negative result.

Think about your standard letters, if you were a candidate what impression of the organization would they provide? Are you asking for information or providing it? How do you respond to candidate that submits an application that is incomplete? Do you thank them for their application and politely inform them that they missed a few fields or do you reject the application outright? Every touch point with your candidate provides a lasting impression of your organization, positive or negative. The ability to not only attract top candidates but ensure that they stay with you during your application process is an integral part to any recruiter’s success. The selection process can be a long and tedious and those positive and engaging messages may be just the piece you need to get that highly desired candidate.

Another thought provoking question is how long do your candidates have to wait to hear back from you? The timeliness, tone and frequency of communication say so much more about an organization than many of us may think. If a candidate applies for a job and has to wait several days before even getting an acknowledgment, they have already had a frustrating experience…not a good first impression. On the flip side a warm, welcoming and timely response can create a positive impression and may be the thing that makes you stand out from the competition.

Most applicant tracking systems have the ability to produce communication to candidates. Using the document and template features within HealthcareSource Position Manager®, these positive messages can be created and utilized by all recruiters to assure messaging is timely, consistent and positive. Good candidates have choices. You want them to choose your hospital. So don’t let those great candidates get away. Create or refine your communications and make a good first impression with a smooth application process and status update. It really can give you a competitive hiring edge.

How a Performance Management System Can Help with Urgent Employee Training and Communications

It’s no secret that training and communication in healthcare organizations are essential to delivering quality care to patients, and protecting the health and safety of workers and patients. The ongoing swine flu (A/H1N1) pandemic reminds us of the importance, due to the severity of the outbreak and the means by which the disease spreads.

Naturally, all healthcare organizations have pertinent influenza policies and procedures that employees are required to read and follow. But when policies change or are amended, and awareness needs to be refreshed or heightened, how are these communicated in a timely and effective manner?

One creative solution is to use your computer-based training systems. The advantage of using such a system, over simply posting or distributing documents, is that the organization can require, schedule and track the completion of tasks for all employees. And using a training system that is part of a broader performance management system provides the added advantage of being able to tie completed training into competency assessments and performance appraisals.

Performance Manager™ from HealthcareSource, for example, allows you to upload materials, require signatures, and even create tests related to subjects such as respiratory protection, social distancing, cough etiquette, and patient quarantines. Or perhaps, you just want to ensure that everyone has seen the updates to the hospital’s pandemic influenza plan, and operational changes that will occur once the plan is implemented.

In any event, tasks with due dates, can be scheduled for employees, and they can access these materials, review them and even take tests online. All they need is a web-browser. The results of these tests and the status of these tasks can easily be tracked and monitored through reports, and the system will even alert managers to overdue tasks.

Even the greatest plans, policies and training materials are of no value if they are not implemented and communicated in a timely and effective manner. And some developments, such as worldwide pandemics will test your organizations ability to respond. It’s not too late to make a performance/learning management system part of your plan and an integral part of your employee communication strategy for the future.

The Correlation Between Job Descriptions and Better Organizational Performance

A few thoughts on the connection between job descriptions and employee performance appraisals, and the associated risks and rewards.

The Joint Commission requires that job responsibilities be clearly communicated to employees. In most industries, this is not a problem. But in healthcare – facing the ever-present shortage of talent – many employees are working far outside the parameters of their formal job description.

As an employer, do you see this as a fact of life, and believe that people need to pitch in? Or do you see this as a serious risk, where consequences could far outweigh the benefit?

It’s a no-win situation that brings up a lot of different questions:

Is the employee okay with this, or would they rather be doing what they were hired to do?
· How do managers appraise employees effectively when they may not fully understand what they’re doing?
· How do healthcare organizations create training and development plans for these employees?
· What is the overall effect on employee satisfaction and retention?
· Does this have an adverse effect on patient care?
· Are we increasing the risk of a sentinel event?

And on and on and on.

One way to address all these questions is job descriptions. It’s believed by many that even if you have to expand a job description, that’s better than one that isn’t accurate or none at all. Effective performance management solutions enable healthcare organizations to define performance and skills at the very beginning of the process. The employee is presented with a better understanding of what is expected of them and how they will be measured. Managers and educators can build and assess competencies that are aligned with the work employees are actually performing.

You may be surprised how something that seems so small can lead to big results. Improved productivity and performance. Increased employee satisfaction. Even better patient care.

So if improving job descriptions is the first step in achieving all these benefits, what are you waiting for?

What’s Your Competency Strategy?

Sometimes we get a little too close to competency management – it is what we do, after all – so we have a hard time imagining healthcare organizations NOT using job competencies or doing competency validation.

But at the same time, we realize competency management in healthcare is fairly new, so we recently dug a little deeper to understand how hospitals and healthcare organizations are using them, some of the most significant benefits, and the reasons many companies still aren’t using them.

Some of the findings were very interesting:

• The practice of competency management is fairly new. Many organizations aren’t using them yet, or if they are, they’ve only been using them for three-five years.



• A competency management system is an effective business tool. Healthcare organizations of all sizes have had great success using job competencies to improve candidate selection, training and development, and even the entire performance-appraisal process.



• The benefits are clear – and significant. Organizations report better hiring results and reduced costs; improved insight into what’s needed to maintain the competencies via training development; and a newfound ability to measure employee performance (as opposed to vague job descriptions).



• Most significantly, they report an increase in overall organizational performance, which in the case of healthcare, usually means better patient care.

So if competency management is such a slam dunk, why aren’t more healthcare organizations using it? Here are some reasons as identified by Development Dimensions International (as detailed in their Job/Role Competency Practices Survey Report):

• 54% of participants indicated that the time and expense associated with competency management is the main reason.



• 41% cited a lack of strategy on the part of the entire organization for using job competencies.



• One of the other most common factors was an inability to align competencies with larger organizational strategies.

All are valid concerns and very real in this economic time. Like any other business approach, competency management requires vision, patience, and support – at all stages – to help make it a success.

But with so many potential benefits associated with competency management, the question remains: what’s your competency management strategy?

Congratulations to the #1 place to work in Massachusetts

We'd like to congratulate Winchester Hospital of Winchester MA on being named #1 in the Boston Globe's annual "Top Places to Work" in Massachusetts. Winchester Hospital, in our opinion, is a model for a successful independent community hospital. A Magnet Hospital, they have a long history of being among the top places to work. They are a long time HealthcareSource customer, and because our corporate office is based in Winchester, many of our employees and their families use Winchester Hospital for their healthcare.

As mentioned in the article, "Operating just miles from big-name teaching hospitals, squeezed by rising costs, and outgrowing its main campus, Winchester's survival depends on its ability to be an attractive employer". As an early adopter of HealthcareSource Position Manager for applicant tracking, Winchester invested in technology to find and hire the best talent. And with nearly 100 percent of employee's surveyed saying they're proud to work for the hospital, they are clearly doing the right things to keep this talent.


Congratulations to Winchester Hospital from HealthcareSource.

See a video on Winchester Hospital: http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1185143625/bctid1902498805
Read the article:
http://www.boston.com/jobs/news/articles/2008/11/09/the_caring_community/