Symphony Talent Blog

On June 14, I co-hosted a webinar along with Teresa Pate, Director, Talent Acquisition for Memorial Healthcare System (MHS), on the strategic approach Memorial Healthcare System (MHS) used to find, hire and engage CVICU and CVOR nurses for the system’s world-class cardiovascular service.

If you missed the webinar, you can listen to it on-demand here.

Did you know that today is the second Friday the 13th of 2018? Spooky, right?

Technology is changing at a rapid-fire rate. If employers want to find and keep the right talent, it’s important to be on the cusp of trends — especially when those trends impact on how you do your job, much less how long it takes to do it.

In my last blog, I wrote about how Atlanta, Georgia-based Northside Hospital Healthcare System was redefining its recruitment marketing strategy in order to attract, engage and hire quality specialty nurses in an extremely competitive field.  With three hospitals a stone’s throw from its grounds and healthcare unemployment very low, candidates have options. Current employees do, too.

Having recently opened a cancer center in this competitive market was yet another reason Northside’s TA team had to skillfully use sound, data-driven analytics and a comprehensive recruitment marketing strategy to source and retain talent.

Atlanta, Georgia-based Northside Hospital Healthcare System is on the right track from a talent acquisition perspective. Having recently received a nod from Glassdoor as one of the “25 Hot Companies to Apply for Today,” they’re hard at work on the candidate experience in many ways. As part of a network of medical facilities with three acute-care hospitals, more than 120 outpatient facilities to provide a full range of medical services, however, they know there’s high competition when it comes to hiring quality talent.

Boasting over 20,000 employees, Northside is one of the country’s foremost leaders in patient care, delivering more babies than anyone else in the U.S. Still, they realize finding, engaging and hiring the talent to fill highly specialized roles, like bone marrow transplant nurses, isn’t easy — nor can it be successful without a solid, digitally centric strategy to back it up.

Flexibility. Autonomy. Low employee turnover (a.k.a. employee retention). In 2018, employees want the former two, while employers seek the latter most of all. The thing is, everyone can have their cake — workplace flexibility and of-the-moment recruitment tools — and eat it, too.

Recruitment trends in 2017 saw an emphasis on increasing employee engagement, boosting employee retention and using automation technology to streamline processes, therefore it is no surprise this year will see further disruption to what’s tried and true. That includes non-traditional work arrangements — flexible schedules and remote work opportunities, in particular.

According to the Society for Human Resource Management’s most recent Employee Benefits Survey, in order to remain competitive in the talent marketing sphere, it’s necessary to accept — even champion — workplace flexibility as part of your Employee Value Proposition (EVP). Once considered an impediment to productivity by employers, it turns out telecommuting and variable work schedules are now among the most effective tools for both attracting and retaining employees. It’s why two out of five survey respondents cited non-traditional work arrangements as essential tools in their recruitment arsenal — with 62 percent pointing to telecommuting and 57 percent to flexible schedules, no less.