“HR directors in healthcare need to understand what their organization’s employee brand is (compared to their consumer brand), and develop a value proposition of what they can offer, before they invest in any technology or strategy to attract new people,” advises William Marzullo, AVP, Talent Acquisition, Memorial Hermann Health System. “More importantly, it has to be true and they have to fulfill those brand promises. If they are not authentic and real, it will not take long for the marketplace to realize it is not a great place to work. It all starts with understanding what your (employment) brand is,” he adds.

Marzullo is a speaker at the marcus evans National Healthcare HR Summit 2019, taking place in Braselton, Georgia, January 27-29.

What is the current situation with the talent gap in healthcare? What does it mean for HR?

The talent gap has primarily been on the nursing side, but we are now experiencing shortages across many different clinical positions and professions. There is just not enough qualified talent for all the open positions. 

From a recruiting perspective within HR, it means much more emphasis needs to be placed on marketing and advertising, not only of the brand but also the brand promise and the employee value proposition. It is not just a matter of convincing people who are not working to come work for you, but for someone to leave their current position.

Employee retention is now more important than ever. We cannot afford to lose employees.

And lastly, organizations must respond to the labor shortage by creating their own inventory, and having a quality training and learning department, offering classes, reimbursements, anything to help engage employees and gain the knowledge needed to get to the next level, basically creating their next new employee.

What advice can you offer on employee engagement?

Organizations measure engagement on a regular basis, but for me engagement is more than just a survey. It is about understanding the components of job satisfaction. At the end of the day, the goal is to create loyal employees, because loyal employees stay, and loyal employees help find new loyal employees. If you can move from engagement to loyalty, you have actually found a way to retain your employees, and then you can focus on job satisfaction. Too many people measure engagement just for the sake of a survey.

What technologies do healthcare HR directors underutilize?

Many people think the healthcare industry has to be marketed to and communicated differently than in other industries. Clinicians, RNs and physicians use the internet like everyone else, but we have made it too complicated to market to them. We need to utilize the same technology that we use for other positions.

Video is extremely underutilized, not just for face-to-face interviews for out of market recruiting, but also from a static interview perspective, to respond to questions and have video resumes as part of the application process. This is relevant to all industries, not just healthcare.

In this war for talent, could social recruiting give organizations a competitive advantage?

Every organization needs a solid social presence, but recruiting straight from social media does not have the returns you would get from a job aggregator or your own website. The point of social media in a marketing strategy is to create those initial impressions on potential applicants. They may see something on social media, make a few clicks, find a review or even open positions. Those impressions need to add-up for them to ultimately hit that apply button. Social media is necessary to start laying the bedrock of your brand impression.

Most engage in social media branding to some extent, but it has to be done in a sophisticated and systematic way. It should not be done manually, when there are tools to distribute your messages and jobs on various platforms. That ensures brand consistency and integrity, and your brand coming across the way you want it to.

And finally, how do you use workforce analytics for recruitment and retention?

Everyone talks about big data, but no one can really describe what it is. The use of data in talent acquisition is emerging, specifically in how predictive analytics can help determine where the talent is and what is driving their decisions. Where the population is limited, we can partner with schools and organizations to develop that workforce. Data can help us understand what we are doing in our process that generates great employees and people who stay.

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