May, 2001 SEARCH Newsletter
Recruiting and Retention Best Practices
The seasonal shift in the labor pool is upon us, as students enter the workforce for summer, senior citizens start looking for part time summer work and employees take those long dreamed-about summer vacations. It's time to revisit some of the basics of getting and keeping good people as these shifts happen, in both the labor market and average daily patient census. Here's a checklist of some tried-and-true strategies that still work and some newer ideas that may merit a test in your community.
- Recruit your patients and their families. Include employment applications in discharge planning materials.
- Put job opening ads in patient billing statements.
- Give your ideas to the media. They're always looking for feature article material.
- Rehire former employees ("boomerang employees"), including the recently retired. Keep that re-hire door open during the exit interview.
- Look to the service sector for good customer service-oriented workers whose benefits may not be as good as yours. Recruit them when you see them.
- Recruit "moonlighters" who are willing to work second or third shift to get experience in health care and make your tuition reimbursement available to them.
- Profile the top 10% of your employees. These are the ones you want to keep. Ask yourself, "how do we find more of the people we want to keep?"
- Sponsor a training session at your organization of the people you're trying to recruit.
- Harvest your throwbacks. Keep resumes of your "rejected" candidates and build an applicant database.
- Pay for the college tuition of your employee's children, with a longevity requirement.
- Pay a "finder's fee" to both the employee and the new hire.
- Use separate (and higher) tuition reimbursement for hard-to-fill positions.
- Health insurance coverage for less than full time. (free health care at your hospital?)
- Flexible scheduling (i.e. seven days on, seven days off).
- College recruiting: use current employees who are alumni of specific schools and target needed skill-based curriculum at those schools.
- Stay in touch with former employees ("alumni clubs") as referral sources.
- Use sign-on bonus money as a student loan forgiveness incentive.
- Become an accessible organization.
Have some of your own innovative ideas that work in your community? Email them to Steve O'Connor at
soconnor@lans.mha.org and we'll get them printed in future issues of SEARCH.
Pre-Employment Screening
Each year health care employers unknowingly hire individuals with a criminal background, an incorrect social security number, a false employment record or other history that could put the organization at risk. Pre-Employment Screening Inc. (PES) is a company that conducts background checks on prospective employees and offers a variety of other services in this area. PES, founded in 1992, is the largest pre-employment screening company in the Midwest. The Michigan Health and Hospital Association Service Corporation (MHASC) has entered into an agreement with Pre-Employment Screening Inc. that will bring this service to the clients of the MHASC at a special discounted price.
PES provides the following background checking services:
- Social Security Verification
- Criminal Background (state and national)
- Motor Vehicle Report
- Credit History
- Previous Employment Verification
- Education Verification
- Drug Screening
- Workers’ Compensation History
- Federal Criminal Docket Search
- Medicare Fraud Sanction Verification
For more information on this highly responsive and cost-efficient service contact Kreg Gunter, Vice President, PES Inc., St. Louis, MO at 1-800-298 8344 or (314) 638 3600, fax (314) 638 3999 or Steve O’Connor (517) 485 3240 or Neil MacVicar (517) 886 8331 of the MHASC staff.