Keith A. Reynolds 0:00
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Speaker 1 0:26
There's a lot of bureaucracy there that I think that a lot of healthcare clients and professionals that I've talked to in the TA space, that they're really trying to solve, and they're trying to answer the question, How do we fast track the top talent from hello to higher, I welcome

Austin Littrell 0:57
to Off the Chart, a business of medicine podcast, featuring lively and informative conversations with healthcare experts, opinion leaders, and practicing physicians about the challenges facing doctors and medical practices. My name is Allison Luttrell. I'm the associate editor of Medical Economics, and I'd like to thank you for joining us today. In today's episode, Medical Economics Managing Editor Todd Shryock sat down with Trent Cotton, head of Talent Insights at ISIMS, to talk about what the latest data reveals about healthcare hiring and how physician practices can compete for talent. They get into why clinical hires lag behind application, how a smaller practice can out recruit a big hospital system, and where AI actually belongs in the process. Trent Cotton, thank you for joining us. And with that, let's get into the episode.

Speaker 2 1:39
I'm here with Trent Cotton, head of talent insights at ISIMS, to talk about healthcare recruiting. Trent, thanks for joining me.

Speaker 1 1:46
Excited to talk.

Speaker 2 1:48
So, Trent, the February 2020-six Insights report mentioned clinical roles, so a 10% jump in applications in January. What's driving this shift? Are burned out clinicians coming back? Are we seeing more graduates in the market? What's happening?

Speaker 1 2:06
Well, it's really interesting. So, there was a pretty large jump, however, there was also a really large pullback, not just in healthcare, but aggregately in the market in November. Part of that was seasonal, you know, we typically see a little bit of a decline, but in the medical side, that is a pretty sustained jump. It was pretty notable that throughout the year last year, application volume stayed at a relatively decent level. I think what's driving it, just from being on site with some of our clients, they're starting to see a little bit of an uptick, especially in the clinical side, because they're seeing that, you know, there was a huge bump in turnover right after COVID, understandably, so things kind of leveled out, and I think that what we're seeing is that maybe, maybe some of the candidates on the clinical side are looking for different opportunities, maybe especially considering some of the economic constraints that are going on, maybe looking for this as an opportunity to increase their compensation

Speaker 2 3:14
with clinical openings up 20% but hires only up 5% there's a gap there? What's the bottleneck? Why is that gap in existence?

Speaker 1 3:25
Well, in healthcare, it's a very regulated industry on the recruiting side. Again, I spend a lot of time talking to our healthcare clients, and some of the things that they are hearing is saying is that there are a lot of candidates at the top of the funnel, but trying to get them through the process, and there's a huge dropout rate after the application, so they may go through the recruiter interview, but then getting that candidate live from the recruiter interview over to the hiring manager, there seems to be a little bit of a drop off, and I don't know if that's because the market's moving, and so candidates are just responding to those managers that move quicker, not put off an interview for a week, but actually do it within the first 48 hours, so that's one of the bottlenecks, but then also to just getting approvals for offers, getting some of these things done once the offer is accepted, getting them from accepted into the hiring space, there's a lot of bureaucracy there that I think that a lot of healthcare clients and professionals that I've talked to in the TA space, that they're really trying to solve, and they're trying to answer the question, How do we fast track the top talent from hello to hire

Speaker 2 4:35
for practices competing against hospital systems for clinical talent? What specific strategies are working right now to get those candidates? It is

Speaker 1 4:46
all about candidate experience, and so this is not particular to healthcare, but one of the trends that I am seeing is that one of the ways that the non-enterprise, so I would, I would put hospitals at, like, an enterprise level can. That mid-size, the best way that they can do it is to offer a more personal experience, because if you read the news and you hear back from some of the reports on candidate experience, they feel like there's a huge disconnect. They're blaming AI - it's not necessarily AI's problem, I think it's more of just a recruiting process problem. So, if I were to give advice to a practice, it would be, how do you make that candidate experience seem like an Amazon shopping experience? So, in our frontline hiring report, we actually surveyed over 1000 candidates, and they actually cite that 60% of the time they abandon the application. Number one reason is because it's too long, second is because there's no pay transparency, and then that was followed very closely by the skills and the qualifications didn't really match up, so the more clarity you could provide on the front end and create a more personal experience, I think it's going to give you the upper hand whenever you're competing against an enterprise level hospital.

Speaker 2 5:57
The data shows 25 applicants per opening, you know, does this mean practice owners finally have some negotiating power and compensation, or candidates still commanding premium packages?

Speaker 1 6:10
I don't know that the data really tells us either way. I don't hear anything from the field that is saying that they now have more negotiating power, so I really, really don't have the data to be able to support a yes or in there

Speaker 2 6:27
beyond base salary. What benefits or perks are you seeing that actually move the needle for candidates? Are traditional benefits enough, or do practices need to get creative

Speaker 1 6:39
on the benefits side? We don't really track that. I would answer the question a little bit differently. One of the trends that we are seeing a lot is pay transparency. They want that on the front end, they want to see that in the job description, and quite honestly, I served on both TA and HR, so I kind of understand both sides of the argument, but if you are trying to make sure that you attract the right candidate, sometimes putting that pay transparency on the front end, it helps be able to keep the top of the funnel clean with people who you know, if you can only pay 70,000 and the person that's applying is 100,000 and they don't find out until the offer period, then you've wasted a gregarious amount of time of all three personas involved, the recruiter, the hiring manager, and the candidate, so I don't necessarily have any data that supports this is the benefit that they're looking for, but I can tell you that on the pay transparency that is becoming more and more of a pronounced requirement in the expectations from the candidates that we're seeing.

Speaker 2 7:36
Is there any reason not to list the pay for a position,

Speaker 1 7:42
I would love to say no, but let me put my HR hat on. One of the concerns that's that was usually brought up on the HR side and the hiring manager side is if we post the pay of this new role and our current staff sees it, it may be higher because the market is now commanding higher, so then they would have to right size their workforce, and ideally a lot of them would like to, but they just didn't have the budget, so that was the biggest obstacle or concern that I got from both the hiring managers and the HRP HR BPS that reported to me.

Speaker 2 8:17
Non-clinical applications outpace openings and hires, why is that? What's happening on that side?

Speaker 1 8:28
This is, this is a little bit of a conundrum. I think that what we're seeing at the market level is that a lot of companies are saying, okay, we still need someone to take care of, you know, in this case, patients. There's still a high level of personal touch in this particular industry, so as the openings increase, the hiring is still slow, and it gets back to the bottlenecks, the same thing that we're seeing in the clinical. So we did a survey of our clients, and one of the things that we found is that both candidates and managers say that the screening and the interview process is the most laborious, and they're looking to technology to try and solve that, especially on the interview scheduling. I can tell you, I have lost years of my life scheduling and rescheduling interviews, and it is definitely something that a lot of candidates - they just want ease of use, get me to the hiring manager and push me through the process, and the hiring managers want something equally as easy and informative as the candidates do. So, I think that's a major bottleneck that, as an industry, the healthcare recruiting groups are definitely going to have to tackle.

Speaker 2 9:37
For practices that are understaffed on the non-clinical side, is now the time to move and get those positions filled. Why are there so many candidates out there?

Speaker 1 9:46
You've got to, because if that, if that applicant volume dips even a little for two or three consecutive months, and you haven't built the pipeline, so if you know, if I'm looking at the data. It was pretty high in Q Q of last year. I would strongly encourage anyone that's hiring on the non-clinical side, you need to have a candidate management system, so people have already applied. Go back to your silver and bronze medalist for previous roles and try to re-engage them, while also going through and qualifying your applicant list, I think that's a missed opportunity, but my concern would be if I were sitting in the practitioner chair, if the can, if the openings continue to increase at the rate that they have been, and my hiring continues to stall below year over year, there will come a point where that non-clinical will go and look at other frontline or other high volume outside of industry, and you don't want to miss that opportunity.

Keith A. Reynolds 10:55
Hey there, Keith Reynolds here, and welcome to the p2 Management Minute. In just 60 seconds, we deliver proven real-world tactics you can plug into your practice today, whether that means speeding up check-in, lifting staff morale, or nudging patient satisfaction north. No theory, no fluff, just the kind of guidance that fits between appointments and moves the needle before lunch. But the best ideas don't all come from our newsroom, they come from you. Got a clever workflow hack, an employee engagement win, or a lesson learned the hard way. I want a patron. Shoot me an email at K reynolds@mjlifesciences.com with your topic, a quick outline, or even a smartphone clip. We'll handle the rest and get your insights in front of your peers nationwide. Let's make every minute count together. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the next p2 management minute the

Speaker 2 11:47
report mentions the importance of removing friction from the hiring process. What does friction look like, and what can be done about it?

Speaker 1 11:56
So, the friction is kind of what I was alluding to earlier around certain aspects within the recruiting process where there's a candidate drop off or frustration. So, if I'm looking at the candidate side, they want a more streamlined application process, they want pay transparency, they want to actually, they embrace AI that actually looks at their skill set and offers jobs. That's something that I've seen in a couple of different reports. They also want to be able to show their skills, so what we're seeing in the market is especially in Gen Z, they're entering a market where AI has democratized the the resume building, and a lot of people that go, "Hey, I'm leveraging AI to make myself stand out well, everyone's doing that, so you're not really standing out. Gen Z is kind of taking a step back and saying, okay, well, if I can't compete on the resume side, let me show my skills in a on the on the job skills training, or skills, what do you call it, job simulation, sorry, job simulation, or an assessment, let me, let me offer that up, and that's pretty unique, because for the last 20 years, assessment's been a thing that candidates have just dug their heels in and go, I don't want to take it. We're starting to see that tide shift a little bit, because they want to be matched to the right role, not just get a job. On the flip side, managers want that as well, they want to, you know, they have limited time, especially on the high volume, so that non-clinical side, they're doing a lot of different jobs, and so going in and saying, all right, I've only got 20 minutes or 30 minutes to interview a candidate, which one is the one that is going to be the most skill match to my role. So, having that piece in there helps both the candidates and helps the managers and reduces some of that friction in the screening process, and I would dare say it would probably increase the retention rate of that candidate through the process to offer

Speaker 2 13:44
what separates practices that retain staff from those who have to constantly be hiring?

Speaker 1 13:50
So, retention is usually driven primarily one, you have to make sure that you're selecting the right person. So, this does get into matching the skills and matching the experience directly to the role managers want that candidates want that, so if you have that, it's actually going to increase the retention. The other aspect of it is career pathing, so especially on your high volume and your entry level roles, they want to come in and say, "Yeah, I'll serve my time for a year, but what's after that? You know, what is the company going to invest in me to further my skill set, so that way I can stay a lot of, a lot of candidates, they, they don't necessarily want to move all of the time, but they have to move in order to get the opportunities, because they can't see it internally. I think organizations that can match that expectation and create that, that career path, and even within the first year, I think they're going to see a larger retention rate than those that don't

Speaker 2 14:46
do practices that are not using AI, where they still have that personal touch as a practice manager, maybe the lead physician doing the interviewing, doing the hiring, do. You see them as having an advantage to say, compared to a health system that's using AI in a large staff that kind of sort through people.

Speaker 1 15:09
I think it really depends on where you're leveraging the AI. So, if we're looking at the recruiting process, the first step is you need to go in and say, what are the steps that are uniquely human. So, if I were a practitioner, and I am, I am a avid, avid AI advocate. Okay, so even as much as I want to leverage AI, there are still parts of the process I want a human doing. I want the hiring manager interview to be human. I want there, you know, maybe there's an assessment or something pre-qualification part of the process that could be automation or AI, but then I do want a recruiter to sit down and have a deeper conversation. Yes, they have the skills, but is this actually the career journey or career path that you could see them actually being retained in the role? I want that to be human now. Everything else, and the offer, definitely want the offer to be human now. Everything else could be negotiable, so do I think that enterprise level hospitals that are leveraging an automatic, an automated calendar scheduling are less at a less advantage than maybe a practice who does that from a human. I don't necessarily think so. I don't really think that's the case, so not to dodge your question, but I really think it comes down to how you're using AI and where you're using it in the process is really going to determine who's going to be more successful.

Speaker 2 16:33
Looking 12 to 18 months out, what do you think the job market's going to look like for the clinical and non-clinical sides? A

Speaker 1 16:40
lot of the data that I look at, you know, there is a lot of concern about a shrinking supply of candidates over the next several years. So I was just on the phone today with three medical or healthcare recruiters, and they're already looking at how do we get ahead of that, so you know they're partnering with a lot of local universities to kind of get that early talent in and helping to shape some of the curriculum there. So I do think that over the next probably 12 to 18 months, ta in or recruiting in the healthcare industry, they're going to have to start thinking differently and thinking outside of the box, because if the supply continues to constrict, you're going to have to get creative and go out and create new supply.

Speaker 2 17:28
Is there anything else you think practice managers and physicians need to know that we haven't talked about?

Speaker 1 17:35
My biggest advice, because there is a lot of AI noise out there, it.. I'm going to go back to something that I said before. Map out your candidate journey. Ask yourself the question, what is only going to be handled by a human? Only a human can do this. And then the next, ask yourself, okay, could this be automated? Could should this be handled by AI? And then create a roadmap from that point. Once you have that roadmap, and you start implementing it, making sure that you've got the governance in place. The next once you kind of finalize that, a best practice is to share that with candidates, so once they apply, it's something very simple, just pop up, you know. Thank you for applying, you are here in the process. Here's where we use humans, here's where there's automation, and here's where there's AI. That transparency on the front end is going to save your candidate experience tenfold.

Speaker 2 18:26
Very good, Trent. Thanks for joining me.

Speaker 1 18:29
Thank you. Bye. once

Austin Littrell 18:43
again, that was Trent Cotton, Head of Talent Insights at ISIM, speaking with Medical Economics Managing Editor Todd Shriya on behalf of the whole Medical Economics and Physicians Practice teams. I'd like to thank you for listening to the show, and ask me, please subscribe, so you don't miss the next episode. As always, be sure to check back on Monday and Thursday mornings for the latest conversations with experts sharing strategies, stories, and solutions for your practice, you can find us by searching Off the Chart wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like the best stories that Medical Economics and Physicians Practice publish, deliver straight to your email six days of the week, subscribe to our newsletters at Medical economics.com and Physicians practice.com Off the Chart: A Business and Medicine podcast is executive produced by Chris Mazzolini and Keith Reynolds, and produced by Austin Latrell. Medical economics and physicians practice are both members of the MJ Age Life Sciences family. Thank you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai