How To Recruit A Passionate Workforce

How To Recruit A Passionate Workforce

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In many industries, it can be tough enough to find people with the hard skills needed to fill your most urgent job openings. So how much harder is it when you're looking for candidates who can also bring passion and empathy to the workplace?

This is the challenge Franciscan Health Inc. faced as a faith-based, integrated healthcare system serving patients in Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan.
"About four years ago, we were having big issues," says Ellen Page, Corporate Director of Recruiting at Franciscan Health Inc. "We had a lot of openings and not nearly enough candidates."
In fact, Page estimates the healthcare system was running close to 1,600 unfilled positions. "We take care of patients," she says, "we have to have enough staff."
For Franciscan Health, the remedy was relatively straightforward -- come up with a new approach to employee recruitment that gave the organization a greater opportunity to find exactly the kind of qualified people it was looking for.
A Global Shortage of Healthcare Workers
Franciscan Health's dilemma was understandable. There has been a growing shortage of healthcare workers in the United States for some time now. The American Association of Colleges of Nursing, for example, cites studies forecasting an expected shortage of registered nurses across the country between 2009 and 2030. And it isn't only a domestic problem. The World Health Organization predicts the world will be short 12.9 million healthcare workers by 2035.
In light of such sobering statistics, Franciscan Health decided to implement a multi-pronged HR strategy. First, the organization rolled out SAP SuccessFactors solutions to establish a standard process for employee recruiting and onboarding across its network of hospitals.
"We have 14 hospitals, and we probably had 14 different processes," notes Jeremy Shultz, a human resources manager at Franciscan Health.
As Shultz explains, job postings were done manually and the application process was often cumbersome. At some facilities, job candidates had to literally walk in the front door to hand in their applications. And once a person was hired, the onboarding process was inconsistent and paper-based.
More than a Numbers Game
That all changed with Franciscan Health's new approach to HR.
With a recruiting system that now automatically posts job openings to major employee websites, the number of job candidates has sky-rocketed. "The numbers are staggering," Page says. "We were getting about 20,000 applications a year in the past. Recently, we had over 75,000 in just seven months."
But boosting the number of applicants has only been part of Franciscan Health's strategy for nurturing a passionate workforce.
"Our new career site helps build the Franciscan Health brand and communicate specific values to potential candidates right from the start," says Shultz. And today, the healthcare system's job postings explicitly emphasize words like "mission," "family," and "empathy."
Franciscan Health also benefits from a more streamlined and consistent onboarding process at its various hospitals. Most of the necessary tasks and associated information are now readily accessible online. "And all new hires are getting the same messaging," says Shultz.
Two Good Examples
In many respects, Shultz and Page themselves seem to represent exactly the kind of employees that Franciscan Health seeks.
"It was Franciscan Health's mission and values that first attracted me to this job," Shultz says. "Now my main goal in HR is to attract job candidates who will best fit within these ideals and to help create a better employee experience for our people."
Page clearly agrees with such sentiments.
"For me personally, recruiting is a passion," says Page. "When you find the right candidate -- someone who will take care of our patients like they would their own mother or sister -- there's nothing better than that."