Navigating Healthcare's Talent Crisis: Trends, Challenges, and Tech Solutions

ASHHRA’s Best Practices for Creating A Resilient Workforce

For over 60 years, ASHHRA has been a trusted partner for HR professionals in the healthcare industry, helping them navigate the complexities of their roles. By addressing challenges unique to healthcare, ASHHRA aims to enhance the HR experience and positively impact the quality of clinical care nationwide. “HR is a very complex role and industry to work in, and we at ASHHRA are there to meet the needs of those professionals,” said Jeremy Sadlier, Executive Director & CEO.

So, what are some of those healthcare-specific challenges? According to Sadlier:

• Financial support: Economic times are tough, resulting in less revenue available to compensate employees.

• Labor shortages: The bottom line is that without employees, patients suffer.

• Competition from other industries: Candidates are being poached by finserv and tech companies all over the country due to quicker recruitment processes, better compensation packages, and more enticing benefits.

Sadlier believes that in order to combat these issues, HR leaders need to have the courage to speak up and help other leaders understand that their people are their most precious resource. You “can’t put margin over mission,” he said.

Problem-Solving Opportunities

Current employees are aging out of the industry and there aren’t enough graduates to replace them, which is going to affect almost everything within healthcare. So, how can we attempt to mend this problem?

With AI and HR technology. Sadlier doesn’t believe technology will ever replace humans, but it can help create new opportunities and make current employees more efficient.

Here’s how AI tech can positively impact the industry:

• Always-on chatbots that can source, screen, and recommend personalized jobs to career site visitors, directing them to open roles fit their criteria and/or experience

• Automating interview scheduling and phone calls for initial screenings, allowing recruiters and hiring managers to spend more time on in-person interviewing and relationship-building

• Boosting onboarding efficiency by automatically recommending actions or trainings that new hires can complete

According to Sadlier, 43% of hospital leaders feel like the first place they want AI to impact the system is through administrative, repetitive, transactional, and manual tasks — all things that take up the majority of recruiters and hiring managers’ time.

Related reading: How Franciscan Health Put the “Care” Back in Heathcare Hiring Future Healthcare

Future Healthcare Trends to Watch Out For

“AI is going to play a role in everything that we do moving forward,” said Sadlier, including the competition for talent, adaptation of current roles to AI-centric roles, performance evaluations, talent pipelines, and more. He predicts healthcare companies will use AI to make sure we have a stronger workforce, not a less-personalized one.

In addition to AI integration, here are three other trends Sadlier suggest we look out for:

1. Rising Unionization: There’s a notable increase in unionization among interns, physicians, residents, and fellows — signaling a shift in the healthcare labor landscape.

2. Changing Workforce Dynamics: Understand that new hires may bring union experience, impacting organizational dynamics and necessitating adjustments in HR strategies.

3. Addressing Autonomy and Work-Life Balance: The rise in unionization is driven by reduced autonomous and burdensome tasks affecting work-life balance and highlighting the need for HR leaders to address the issues proactively.

Sadlier wraps up his thoughts by reminding us that “We are here as stewards of the people who ultimately make healthcare what it is and we need to treat those folks with respect and understanding… and advocate for them.”

Baylor Scott & White’s Formula For Success

Baylor Scott & White Health (BSW) is grappling with several significant challenges in today's competitive healthcare landscape. Candidates now expect a personalized and seamless interview experience with rapid turnaround times, putting pressure on recruitment processes, and the demanding workflows within the organization necessitate the ability to scale quickly to meet evolving business needs.

BSW's recruitment team faced a trifecta of challenges: the need for speed, talent pool shortages, and cross-industry competition, with financial services and tech sectors increasingly targeting healthcare workers. As Yvette Hansen, Director, DEIB & Talent Attraction, said, "It makes recruiting that much more challenging."

Additionally, she shared that BSW, along with everyone else in the industry, is also vying with other hospitals for top talent. The prevailing question in this high-stakes environment is: Who will secure the best candidates first?

Top Strategies to Meet Demands

BSW implemented several innovative strategies to address their recruitment challenges and meet the demands of the current healthcare labor market.

• Reimagined Interview Process. With a focus on speed and efficiency, BSW completely reimagined their interview process, considering it from both the candidate's and hiring manager's perspectives. Recognizing the importance of time to candidates, they streamlined the process to prioritize quick, competitive offers. As Hansen noted, the goal is "getting an offer that is top notch, that they can't say no to, that's competitive in the market." Their new approach involves a single interview, not always conducted in person, with hiring managers given just 48 hours to respond with or without an offer.

• Employee-driven Content. BSW showcases authentic video experiences of working there — highlighting career growth opportunities and the day-to-day realities of various roles. The organization takes pride in its authenticity. "Not a single image that you'll find on our career site isn't truly an employee at Baylor," said Hansen.

• AI-powered Expedited Hiring Process. Their “Fast Track” program utilizes an AI bot to pre-screen candidates, allowing suitable applicants to bypass the recruiter stage and proceed directly to a hiring manager. This innovation significantly reduces wait times and accelerates the hiring process.

The urgency of these strategies is underscored by a striking statistic: 65% of candidates will accept the first offer they receive, even if it's not their ideal job. This data point highlights the critical importance of BSW's efforts to streamline their recruitment process and make competitive offers quickly.

Tech Tips That Impact Recruiting

The impact and implementation of technology has affected BSW positively, and Hansen shared three tips for other recruiting teams:

• Reduce interview rounds: When you can pre-screen candidates with a recruiter, your application completion rate increases, they found.

• Redefine job postings: This improves readability score, reduces bias, and helps recruiting teams gain competitive insights. The BSW team has over 2,000 templates. They can compare them to competitors and make changes to one template that will automatically change all templates.

• Reimagine referrals: Employee referrals help raise transparency with employees and connect them with other teams within the organization, ultimately keeping top talent there. Since implementing a referral program through their ATS, BSW has seen a 200% increase in referrals — and it consistently remains one of their top 5 sources of hire at the company.

Future of AI and Healthcare Recruitment

The future of AI and healthcare recruitment at BSW is focused on efficiency, human-centric processes, and innovative approaches to talent acquisition.

Hansen recognizes that AI and automation can help her team do more with less, allowing them to optimize their resources and streamline operations. However, she emphasizes that the goal of these technologies is not to replace human interaction, but to enhance it.

By automating routine tasks, BSW aims to give time back to their staff, enabling them to focus on what's most critical: meaningful human interactions.

"We love piloting. We'll pilot something to understand if it can augment a process and give back time to recruiters to do the things it can't do," said Hansen. This approach demonstrates BSW’s commitment to thoughtfully integrating AI into their processes, always with an eye toward supporting and empowering their human workforce.

Looking ahead, Hansen stresses that there’s no “magic bullet” to solve all your recruiting challenges, but they’ve seen success so far in continually developing strategies for engaging and attracting talent:

• 3 minutes average time spent pre-screening

• 57% improvement in interview-to-hire ratio

• 92% reduction in recruiter screening reviews

• 200% increase in employee referrals

• 85% improvement in time spent screening candidates (from 20 minutes to 3 minutes)

Related reading: How Personalized AI-led Processes Helped a Major U.S. Healthcare Company Meet Chronic Staffing Demands

Navigating Talent Shortages & Supporting Healthcare Workers with AI & Automation

With challenges like a shortage of skilled professionals, competition for top talent among industries, regulatory compliance and credentialing, and staff turnover affecting healthcare, the need for AI and automation is critical.

Phenom for Healthcare helps attract and engage the top talent you need to deliver world-class patient care and experiences through:

• Enhanced candidate experiences utilizing a personalized career site and 24/7 chatbot assistance.

• AI-powered matching that connects candidates with the right roles, streamlines the recruitment process, and reduces time to hire.

• Automated screening and scheduling technology that automates manual and repetitive tasks, freeing up recruiters to focus on relationship-building.

• Optimized events and engagement that leads to effective lead generation, moves qualified candidates through the funnel faster, and keeps candidates informed and up to date.

To learn more about how Phenom can improve your healthcare goals, book a personalized demo right here.