| The Changing Face of Healthcare Talent |
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By Greg Moran, President, Chequed.com
Three shifts are driving the changing type of talent that's required by provider-based organizations:
Team Based Delivery Hospitals, physician's offices and long-term care facilities will probably define this differently. Regardless, it will determine the type of talent that will drive your organization forward. Whether you are leading HR / recruitment for a hospital which delivers care in a unit combining physicians, specialists, pharmacists, nurses, etc. or you are long-term care facility staffing a group of nurses and attendants working together, the competencies required of your talent will be dramatically different from today. Do clinical skills matter? Of course. But so do competencies such as a candidate's ability to work well on a team. It goes beyond simple teamwork though. One’s ability to complement the team is also imperative. Ever work with too many dominate personalities in one place? Imagine being a patient receiving care from a team with that dynamic. In addition to the dynamics of a team, a willingness to change and flex matters more than ever. A personality willing to accept change as necessary and healthy is always a good thing in incremental environments. Nothing in healthcare today is incremental. The healthcare ecosystem of tomorrow will look nothing like that of yesterday. An embrace of real change such as the increasing dependence on information technology and patient involvement will define personal and organizational success. Lastly, one’s willingness to place organizational knowledge at least equal to individual expertise will have a large impact. Of course, any provider organization will continue to benefit greatly by recruiting the best practitioners in the field, whether general, specialist or other clinical staff. But, like any team based environment, individual excellence is only one factor. A willingness to enhance the whole by sharing unique knowledge will make true team based delivery a reality. Does your organization screen for these personality characteristics? Are your hiring managers even aware of their need? If so, are they skilled in identifying these attributes in potential and current talent? Preparation for a team-based environment require strategies around these questions.
Transparency / Service Recovery
Attend any conference or take a quick look through a journal and you will undoubtedly find the topic of service recovery. It only makes sense … the more dissatisfied patients that we can turn into happy customers means repeat business and referrals. It applies to every other industry and no less to healthcare. On a process map, it all seems fairly simple. A patient complains and you listen and then act to remedy the problem and then track the results for quality improvement. A willingness to listen actively, with empathy, is step one. Most providers have a glut of skilled practitioners whose job is to know more than their patients. One’s ability to actively listen to a patient is another story. A care provider’s unwillingness to slow down and really listen is the unfortunate expectation among patients. Dramatically exceeding this expectation is a clear opportunity for differentiating your facility. However, the ability to hear a story and empathize is a set of personality characteristics for which HR organizations and hiring managers must recruit and then rigorously screen. Without proper candidate screening procedures and a clear identification of the competencies required, it's a service reovery plan with no real action. Healthcare Reform
Anyone care to guess how this will play out? I would think not. Regardless of the changes that are ultimately enacted in the healthcare insurance system, HR organizations will be impacted greatly. After all, we know some of what's around the corner. First, the public will be more value conscious, particularly if no government run option is included in the final plan. A demand to understand the specific benefit of a procedure and the expected results will be norm. Combine this consumer awareness with an increasing amount of knowledge (either real or perceived) on the part of the patient, and you have the ingredients for either a very frustrating or invigorating experience for your clinical and service providers. The bottom line is that patients will be far more demanding of knowledge and service and the most competitive organizations will be prepared to respond and excel. “What is the level of business and service instinct among our team?” is a critical question that healthcare HR professionals must explore. Are your institution’s providers and staff ready to deal with a demanding public prepared to challenge and assert control? Clearly examining the personality characteristics and competencies to lead in such an environment is required. Building this into your recruitment and screening strategy must follow. Clearly, the face of healthcare delivery is changing. This should not come as a shock to any HR professional. The pace of this change may be a bit unsettling. But keeping up will require a clear headed analysis of the new competencies and behavioral attributes among your talent that will be required to retain or enhance your organization’s position in an increasingly differentiated and competitive environment. About Chequed.com Founded in 2008 by some of the foremost experts in employee selection and development, Chequed is an emerging leader in the rapidly growing market for Predictive Employee Performance™ technology. Chequed’s revolutionary Performance EngineTM delivers rapid, accurate predictions of a new hire’s performance through fully automated, web based and scientifically validated reference checking and behavioral assessment. Chequed has commercialized innovative research developed in partnership with The Research Foundation of The State University of New York and The University at For more information on Chequed.com, here are a few options:
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