Hiring and Performance Strategies for Healthcare

I recently came across an Inc.com article that said: "The success of any facet of your business can almost always be traced back to motivated employees. From productivity and profitability to recruiting and retention, hardworking and happy employees lead to triumph." This most certainly rings true for healthcare; employees who are satisfied with their work are essential for healthcare organizations in order to deliver high-quality, patient/resident-centered care. When staff members are happy in their jobs, it has a positive effect on the quality of care being delivered. Remember, happy employees = happy patients and residents. Here are three ways you can motivate employees to boost employee satisfaction thereby increasing patient/resident satisfaction: 

They say the first step is admitting you have a problem, and I have a confession to make: I watch “The Bachelor.” It’s been a guilty pleasure of mine for years that I am often ashamed to admit. I just can’t tear myself away from the drama of this reality mess. I love the fights and the tears that ensue when 25 women ae desperately pining for the attention of one “dream man.”  So the recent dramatics on this season got me thinking that being “The Bachelor” is kind of like being a recruiter, but instead of 25 women competing for the final rose and engagement ring, you have 250 candidates competing for your one open position. Essentially, competing on “The Bachelor” is like a candidate going through recruitment process; recruiters are trying to identify top candidates and determining if there is long-term fit, just like the bachelor himself is trying to identify his potential wife. Here are five lessons you can learn from “The Bachelor” to ensure you’re creating a positive candidate experience for your healthcare job applicants. 

Remember when we learned from Lisa Brock, VP of HR at Overlake Hospital Medical Center, that storytelling is a great way to improve employee accountability? Brock explained how storytelling is useful for increasing employee satisfaction - from healthcare management to staff. Well, lucky for you, the concept of storytelling is also suitable for healthcare recruiters and candidates. According to Kathie Sandlin in Storytelling and the Candidate Experience, in addition to employee accountability, storytelling principles can help recruiters create a positive candidate experience. Here are three principles to ensure job seekers are informed and engaged during the application process. 

Last week I attended the Healthcare Service Excellence Conference and the word "Lean" came up quite frequently. More and more hospitals are implementing Lean initiatives to achieve efficient processes throughout their organization, from patient intake to housekeeping, in order to improve patient satisfaction. If you're not an expert in Lean (I'm certainly not), here's a good look at the opposite of a Lean process: Lucy and Ethel at the chocolate factory. Poor Lucy and Ethel aren't equipped to get their job done, and they probably shouldn't have been hired to begin with, but it's pretty hilarious. Real-life inefficiencies aren't so funny. If you truly want to become a Lean hospital, recruitment and hiring practices cannot be exempt. When it comes to employee development, it's not about cutting your workforce, it's about re-purposing it. For example, one of the main Lean principles is harnessing "Intellect" -- any failure to fully utilize the time and talent of your people is considered waste. But that model should start pre-employment, beginning with healthcare recruitment.

Physician recruitment is only going to become more and more difficult as the demand for physicians increases each year. According to the Annals of Family Medicine, the United Stated will need 260,687 primary care physicians by 2025, which is an increase of 51,880 more positions to fill in about 12 years. That number is a little intimidating. So here are some ways to make your physician recruitment process a bit easier.

Henry Ford once said, "Don't find fault, find a remedy." In healthcare, great managers and supervisors don't look for people to blame, they look for solutions. But the problems managers have to deal with often involve relationships - interaction between staff and staff satisfaction. Sensitivity is critical. Unfortunately, not everyone is hard wired to think this way, which means that sometimes great clinicians do not make great healthcare leaders. Watch our latest cartoon to see why a long term care organization wishes they'd truly assessed one of their nursing leader before promoting her...

A few weeks ago, we hosted a webinar to share the 2012 HCAHPS Readiness Survey results. We were lucky enough to have several prestigious contributors from the world of healthcare human resources, including Brian Lee, the founder and CEO of Custom Learning Systems Group and the Healthcare Service Excellence Conference, and Susan Grady, former VP of HR at DuBois Regional Medical Center. Susan currently owns and manages SM Grady Strategic Human Resources, a consulting firm dedicated to co-creating solutions that assist businesses with establishing effective HR strategies. Dr. Frederick Morgeson joined us, too. As a Professor of Management at the Eli Broad College of Business at Michigan State University, Dr. Morgeson teaches and does research in HR management and organizational behavior.

After reading "Timely Tips for Keeping Employees Engaged this Holiday Season" from HR daily, it got me thinking about how important it is to keep employees motivated throughout the holiday season, especially in healthcare. Hospital and continuing care community employees should always be focused on patient and resident safety and satisfaction, but they might be distracted this time of year. Keep your employees focused (and willing to go the extra mile to improve patient/resident satisfaction - instead of anxious to get out of work and get their holiday shopping done!) by following these strategies: 

At the 2012 Talent Outcomes™ conference, I asked healthcare HR attendees, "Why do you love HR?" And boy, do they LOVE HR. Our clients get to do different things every day, make a difference in their healthcare organization's overall success and match the right people to the right jobs. Watch our video and see why they do it all "For The Love of HR!"  If you're on a smart phone or tablet click here to watch!