Securing Top Physicians: Strategies for Retention and Recruitment
Quality patient care and a strong medical workforce aren’t about numbers as much as patients themselves. When offices and hospitals successfully onboard and retain staff, they ensure care continuity. This, in turn, improves patient satisfaction, and reputational improvement. With staffing shortages at the forefront and physicians leaving the workforce in greater numbers, it’s more important than ever for organizations to adopt team-building, retention, and recruitment strategies like those listed below.
Using Locum Tenens Providers
Physician recruitment takes considerable effort and time, especially in highly competitive specialties. Not all healthcare organizations have the ability and resources to manage the recruitment process. This can lead to disinterest among candidates and poor choices. Instead of taking chances, facilities should find helpful resources for managing locum tenens. This can help them to build lasting relationships with medical providers.
Offering Competitive Benefits and Compensation Packages
Staffing shortages and a greater demand for healthcare have put providers in a better position, of which they’re aware. To recruit top talent, facilities must monitor market averages, use updated compensation models, and offer pay packages that make physicians want to sign on and stay.
Once your facility’s compensation program has gained attention, find ways to differentiate its offerings by adding benefits. Private facilities, for instance, can offer equity packages that give physicians a stake in the business. By thinking outside the box, facilities draw attention to programs, increase physician engagement, and increase the chances of retention.
Making Families Feel Included
Family considerations are crucial in position selection, especially when a role may require relocation. When recruiting candidates, facilities must consider whether their location offers educational and personal development opportunities to spouses and children. Including family members in the recruitment process will give them an idea of what to expect when the provider accepts a job offer.
Focusing on Job Duties and Technology During the Interview Process
Healthcare job interviews allow facility managers to assess candidates’ fitness for positions, but they’re also a way to promote professional opportunities. When possible, interviewers should relate roles to the applicant’s experience and background. By asking candidates why they applied and using their answers to tailor responses, interviewers can highlight a position’s most appealing aspects.
Technology also plays a role in healthcare interviewing. Automated scheduling saves time, while videoconferencing allows managers to conduct interviews with faraway providers. A greater focus on job duties and interview tech will attract candidates and hold their interest.
Building a Better Reputation
Medical facilities’ reputations play a key role in the success of recruitment efforts. A dubious reputation can be costly at hiring time, and most qualified candidates are reluctant to apply for positions with employers who have poor online reviews.
Reputation matters in the medical field, and most physicians want to build their brands to maximize revenue and bring more patients through the doors. By building better reputations, healthcare facilities give doctors more reasons to choose them over competitors.
Harnessing the Power of Social Media
Using social media is an excellent way to catch up with old friends and faraway family members, but it also helps facilities strengthen community ties and promote programs to candidates. LinkedIn and Facebook are some of the first places physicians look for information on offices and hospitals, and a strong social media presence will do much to convince them that an organization can improve their reputation.
Building External Relationships
The development of collaborative relationships with outside organizations, including medical residency programs and schools, is a reliable way to find a steady source of high-quality candidates. These arrangements help students familiarize themselves with facilities and keep them top of mind when looking for post-qualification jobs.
Getting Physicians Involved on a Higher Level
Everyone wants a job where they feel valued, and doctors are no different. Giving physicians a decision-making role helps facilities avoid issues that can affect retention rates when left unaddressed. If doctors have a say in things that matter to them—like equipment selection and shift scheduling—they’ll feel validated, seen, and heard. Being included in decisions empowers doctors to act when issues arise.
Keeping Hiring Promises
Putting together compelling and realistic employment packages is great for physician recruitment and retention. While lofty promises may attract top candidates, honoring those guarantees will keep them around. When facilities don’t fulfill their hiring promises, physicians often feel disillusioned and misled—which can lead them to look for better opportunities. Medical facilities can retain top talent and minimize the risk of costly litigation by holding up their end of the bargain.
Focusing on Burnout and Building a Better Work-Life Balance
Retaining doctors and nurses isn’t all about keeping them from moving to other facilities. Rather, its about preventing them from exiting the healthcare field. Provider burnout has led thousands of workers to leave their healthcare jobs in the last few years. In fact, almost 20% of clinicians are considering similar moves. By promoting work-life balance and giving providers burnout-minimizing strategies, facilities can help them cope with job-related stressors and keep them in the workforce longer.
Using Broad Approaches to Recruitment and Retention
The examples listed above are specific to the healthcare field. In using these recruitment and retention strategies, facilities must consider other, broader factors, including:
- Opportunities for professional development and career growth.
- Fostering positivity in the workplace.
- Encouraging honest, open discussion.
- Soliciting and acting on provider feedback.
- Acknowledging and showing gratitude for providers’ efforts.
While these tips would work across industries, they’re central to the healthcare field. When doctors and nurses have chances to further their careers in a supportive, welcoming environment, they’re more likely to stick around.
Medical Facilities Must Invest in Provider Recruitment and Retention
Provider shortages started during the pandemic, and they’re expected to go on for the foreseeable future. While federal and state government entities focus on healthcare hiring and retention, their work may take some time to bear fruit.
When medical facilities need instant help with staff recruitment and retention, locum tenens providers offer a fast, viable solution. This can improve productivity, boost revenue, and create a stronger and more reliable healthcare workforce.
