Seven innovative methods for hiring in a tight market
Try Internet, employment services
For access managers, one of the side effects of a robust economy has been a growing struggle to attract and keep qualified staff for frontline registration positions. With miniscule unemployment rates in many areas of the country, these traditionally low-paying jobs are becoming harder and harder to fill.
Soon after John Woerly, RRA, MSA, CHAM, became director of patient intake at St. Vincent Hospitals and Health Services in Indianapolis in December 1997, he faced a major staffing challenge. Expansion had created 12 new positions in his department, and there were another six existing vacancies.
With a facility located in an affluent area with a very low unemployment rate, there was little or no response to the usual methods used for finding job applicants. This was true despite a pay scale higher than he'd seen in any of his previous work situations.
"We put ads in the paper, but because the unemployment rate here is one of the lowest in the nation, the normal track didn't prove beneficial at all," Woerly says. "It was a waste of money."
Brainstorm for creative hiring
With an imperative to staff a preregistration program that had been slated to start a year ago, Woerly and his management team sat down to strategize. They brainstormed to devise creative ways to find employees and came up with the following ideas:
1. Don't limit the search. "A lot of human resources departments will screen only those applicants who say they're interested in admitting," he points out. "I said, `Screen all candidates requesting like positions; those with similar job functions and skill sets. Home in on those who mention medical records and patient accounting.'"
2. Be aware of local companies that are laying off employees. There was a major insurance company in the area laying off hundreds of people. St. Vincent contacted the insurance company's outplacement service for referrals.
3. Contact community colleges for information on upcoming and recent graduates.
4. Explore college or university programs that require students to complete internships and consider becoming a site for these. Consider the interns for future permanent employment.
5. Create partnerships with employment services. Woerly arranged for St. Vincent to use the staff provided by three different employment services for 60 days. When the assignment was over, the health system was allowed to hire the temporary employees full time.
"One [staffing] company heard about what we were doing and called to say, `Can we send you applicants?'" he recalls.
Although this wasn't something the employment services companies normally did, the fact that it could lead to full-time employment for a large number of their temporaries made it an attractive proposition for them.
6. Review Internet postings for job prospects. "Go to America Online, or another Internet provider, and look under categories that say `people' or `employment' to find where people have put their resumes," Woerly advises. "You can review the resumes and then e-mail [job seekers] to set up an appointment. You can also buy into services that you pay to review [potential candidates] for you."
7. Send listings of your available positions over the Internet. "What I've seen so far," Woerly says of the new methods, "is that the applicants have been excellent." In the case of the employee services partnerships in particular, "The benefit is that instead of one set of eyes looking [for job candidates], I've got three sets of eyes."
[Editor's note: Have you developed some innovative ways of attracting and keeping qualified staff? Please share your ideas with Hospital Access Management by calling Editor Lila Moore at (404) 636-9264 or e-mail to [email protected]. Or call Associate Managing Editor Hannah Kamenetsky at (404) 262-5509 or e-mail to hannah_ [email protected].]
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