Recruiting under normal circumstances can be difficult but recruiting and retaining clinicians during a pandemic comes with its own challenges, which is why spending the time to find the right candidate for our clients is so important in today’s world.
At Medical Solutions, we focus on finding the perfect cultural and clinical match by evaluating candidates on a professional and personal level, while considering their past unit experiences and working styles. A strong candidate who’s in alignment with your facility and care needs ensures the highest level of patient care.
So, what’s more important, hiring for skills or hiring for culture? We believe the answer is both.
Hiring for culture fit
When we recruit based on culture fit, we’re identifying how travelers fit based on the type of unit or center they will be assigned to—in conjunction with their past and/or most recent professional experiences—and how they personally fit with the specific delivery model of care.
In healthcare facilities, each unit has its own culture and it’s important that our travelers are the appropriate fit for the unit to which they’re assigned. When clinicians are working up to 40 hours a week in the same unit with the same people, ensuring they feel supported and are happy in their role leads to better team camaraderie and overall staff well-being—which, in turn, improves patient experience and increases satisfaction.
And while a candidate may look great on paper, they won’t always be a strong clinical or cultural fit. A poor fit means more turnover, more time spent finding replacements and risking your ability to meet patient care needs. At Medical Solutions, our extensive knowledge and history with our clients, coupled with our large network of travelers, gives us the ability to place travelers in jobs and positions for which we know they’ll be the right fit. And our 95% assignment completion rate proves that our recruiting process works.
Hiring for skillset
Traditionally, health organizations have a thorough vetting process based on skill set and training of an individual—but a successful recruitment strategy should include both a clinical fit and cultural fit. A nurse or clinician who has worked only in the emergency room may not have the right, or same, skills as someone who has spent their career in labor and delivery—and that’s okay, as long as they possess the skills required for the position. By hiring based on skillset, we know that the person we place will have the knowledge and background to do a job and do it well.
We also know that culture can be learned, whereas learning a new skill during an assignment is harder to do, which is why mentoring is so important. Offering mentorship programs is a great way for more junior level staff to learn from seasoned professionals in their facilities and can
provide helpful guidance to the nuances on a specific floor or unit. Mentoring is also beneficial for travelers who may be seasoned in their skill but new to a facility and still learning the culture.
By partnering with a Managed Services Provider (MSP) like Medical Solutions, you’ll find that we focus on finding the “perfect fit” when evaluating candidates. This saves our clients valuable time so they can focus on delivering excellent patient care.
If you’re interested in learning more about how Medical Solutions places clinicians based on both culture and skillset for travel assignments, please contact our team here or call us at 866-633-3548.