Don’t Let Your Hiring Process Go to Waste
You’ve filled your healthcare jobs with the perfect candidates. They’ve signed the contract, and you’ve issued their access card. They begin their new role. If you think this is where it ends, you are making a mistake.
A 2018 study reported that 69% of employees are more likely to stay with an employer for at least three years if they experienced good-quality onboarding. Poor onboarding practices will result in costly staff attrition.
Here you’ll learn how to turn talented candidates into engaged and long-term team members.
Integrate Onboarding into Your Hiring Process
Many healthcare organizations make the mistake of neglecting onboarding. It’s costly, time-consuming, and such resources have already been spent on finding the right candidate. Yet, onboarding begins way before the contract is signed. During the hiring process, you must make sure that you:
- Attract candidates who fit in with your culture
- Ensure your job description is role-specifically written to provide great role and company insight
- Create concise criteria to target the right talent
- Ensure the chosen candidate is assessed accurately for the hard and soft skills needed
Finally, make it policy that the hiring process continues beyond the signature. Schedule and budget for the onboarding required and how it will be delivered. Written policies for onboarding are not enough.
The Introduction
In healthcare, it’s likely you’ve hired for hard skills and qualifications. Now you must welcome your new hire. Set the right tone from the beginning with clear cultural expectations, and workshops on how you as a provider deliver the patient experience.
Explain and coach the communication skills you’d expect to be used, from delivering bad news to managing hand-offs between shifts.
Your healthcare team may expect others to help them if they’re not busy, and vice versa. Lay such unwritten rules out from day one so that cultural expectations and support channels are clear.
Get Your Team Together
Never underestimate the power of socializing your team. Organize a team lunch, introducing the new member to the work family. Give your new and old employees time to gel, find common interests, and create bonds that will support them through communication and morale at work. Employees are also less likely to leave if they work alongside people with whom they’ve developed relationships with.
Provide In-House Mentorship
Allocate a mentor to your new team member/s, allowing them to feel engaged and supported. Ensure the mentor is supportive by nature, and willing and knowledgeable to answer questions, demonstrate best practice, and teach their mentees to be mindful of their own health to avoid burnout.
Allow Time off for Specialist Training
Professional progression is crucial to the industry, but also to motivate individuals who work in healthcare. Provide specialist training that will enhance their onboarding experience and give them an insight into your supportive culture.
Don’t make the mistake of seeing this as a costly process. Yes, you will need to pay out for staff cover during onboarding. But consider you’re investing in a faster progression for your staff to be effective at maximum capacity.
Don’t Forget Locums
Locum and temp-to-perm contracts are great to fill temporary vacancies. Yet many forget that such individuals also need onboarding to reduce disruption to your workforce and patient care.
Of course, onboarding here will not need to be as in-depth; but your locum networks widely, and reputation of great onboarding, strong culture, and a supportive team will be heard about far and wide. You may even discover a new member of your healthcare team in a talented locum.
Review Regularly
Don’t let the welcome lunch be a one-off. Hold regular informal meetings both as a team and manager/employee one-to-ones, to give employees space to voice their concerns and discuss their futures. Left to fester, concerns turn to unhappiness – and unhappiness becomes contagious.
Onboard Loyal Source for the Healthcare Candidates You Need
Onboarding isn’t just about showing your highly skilled candidate your fire drill policy. It’s not even only about keeping your staff for longer. It’s about making sure your new recruits – whom you’ve invested so much effort into hiring – feel they belong, and that they have the tools and knowledge to deliver high-quality care to your standards as soon as possible.
Yes, onboarding starts way before you welcome a new recruit into your team. It starts with finding the best hire. To find highly skilled healthcare professionals perfect for your culture, team, and requirements, get in touch with Loyal Source today.