Recruitment - It Is Not All About the Ad

Recruiters, HR Director Needs Your Advice!

Here's the deal. We are an 1100 person medical center with about 80-90 positions open at any one time. About 10-15% of those positions are critical or key positions such as physicians, psychiatrists, and nurses. Our recruitment is being done by my 3 HR generalists who already have a full plate with the regularly occurring non-critical positions in addition to the myriad of other activities.

Within the total market, there is a niche looking to work for the government and working with veterans. I need to locate that niche. I need to be able to source them, recruit them and once here, retain them. I need to develop a bench strength. I need to create a recruitment program that will make a difference and will truly be a critical key business process that produces. It is so much more than a updating a job ad.

We have a passive, low technology approach to recruitment and really, beyond our student programs for nursing, have developed little in terms of sourcing. The talent is there, we are not getting to them. Our current methods are clearly not getting the job done.  Dr. John Sullivan struck close to home when he wrote in his ERE post, You Can't Find Talent. . . . You Must Be Kidding , that "during the current period of low unemployment, you must use multiple approaches to proactively seek out people that are no longer looking for you. Shift resources toward "low unemployment" tools that are more effective in attracting currently employed individuals. Those tools include employment branding, proactive employee referrals, recruiting at professional events, targeting boomerangs, professional networks, and yes, even resource-intensive direct sourcing. "

Electronic recruitment? I want some of that. I posted about it here and have not really progressed any closer to the goal. It is even more clear to me now that I am the "idea girl" in this one and I need someone with the technical expertise, internet savvy, and more critically, the time to take this on.  We are  building organizational support for the concept of a dedicated recruitment effort for critical or hard to fill positions.

Describing and defining that effort is going to take some thought. Do I outsource all or parts or do I keep it all in house. Do I separate sourcing from recruitment?  Should this position be part of HR or Public Affairs? What are the required skill sets for success? The deliverables? How do you set reasonable goals and measure success? This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of questions. For those that have wrestled with these questions already, do you have any advice, tips or tools to use to best determine what is best for the current state of my organization? For what is the most cost effective? We have an active discussion at work going on now about this and I value any new perspectives. 

In the meantime, our awesomely creative public affairs officer and my super supportive boss are taking a shot at the ad and we are updating and refining our current tool box of techniques. This low hanging fruit will make some impact I expect, yet I am desperately seeking to develop so much more.

Shuffling off to St. Louis

Houston, we have a problem. A proportion of the discipline actions being prepared for Title 38 employees (physicians, nurses, PAs etc) nationwide are being downgraded or overturned at the disciplinary appeals board level for technical reasons.

Fortunately, we have few to no actions of this type locally but if we do, they are a big deal. We need to be sure, for the employee, that actions are only initiated on valid causes and for the agency, that initiated actions are sustainable. So, off I go with my HR Manager colleagues for training. The training is being conducted by members of an awesome group and one that I am confident will make a what could be a VERY dry topic, VERY engaging.

For those non-federal readers who are interested in an HR primer: there are basically two types of employees governed by two different Titles, or Codes of Federal Regulations: Title 5 and Title 38.

• Our physicians and independent health care providers are governed by Title 38 and everyone else by Title 5.
• Title 38 and Title 5 differ in personnel systems, so the systems we use to hire, promote,  provide benefits for, evaluate, set pay, reward and discipline etc employees are very different.
• A little twister:  most dependent health care related occupations, such as pharmacists, social workers, audiologists, LPNs etc are not purely Title 5 or Title 38, they are Hybrid Title 38. So we use Title 5 rules for basically everything but hiring, pay setting and promotion and use Title 38 rules for this.
• Discipline actions, and associated processes, procedures and rights of review and appeal are very, very different for each title  and that is not even considering bargaining unit status and whether or not, if Title 38, the issue being addressed is related to professional conduct or competence.

Yeah, I know what you are thinking and you don't need to say a word. I am shuffling off to St. Louis for the week to learn more about the little niche we call Title 38 disciplinary actions. Have a great week!