Collaboration is Key to Recruitment

The last three years have been challenging for health care. Broad workforce challenges, increasing patient complexity, economic uncertainty, and technological transformation have dominated the industry. Now more than ever, it is imperative to understand workforce pathways, preferences, and candidate-centric approaches. At its core, health care is centered on humanity. Patient care is a beautiful combination of art and science that can never be accomplished without connection, empathy, and relationships.

Those in practice and with experience in direct patient care understand the distinguishing factors that set an organization apart. They can speak to the demonstration of values with tangible examples around workload and performance expectations. They can articulate what makes an organization different and how staff engagement in practice decisions and professional development are supported. In today’s recruitment atmosphere of competitive salaries, sign-on bonuses, and educational incentives, it is important to differentiate what makes your organization unique. Having a direct link between recruitment and practice elevates the candidate’s experience, gives information in the applicant’s language, and helps guide efforts to determine where candidates can be found. An extra benefit to infusing health care professionals into recruitment allows for retention and job satisfaction in those roles.

Chief Nursing Officer roles include strategy development, operational execution and effectiveness, nursing practice quality, a voice to represent nursing, and being a leader for the organizations. Leveraging and supporting our staff to speak about our organization, share expertise in their practice, and interact with candidates has been a long-standing satisfaction of our applicants and staff. Additionally, the creation of a leadership role within the Department of Nursing dedicated to recruitment and retention has provided nimbleness in student engagement, translating the language of recruitment and sourcing for practice and building initiatives that truly meet the needs of our workforce and the organization. 

Teamwork and collaboration are strong values at Mayo Clinic. The Department of Nursing has a robust partnership with our Human Resources Department. Prior to 2020, the Department of Nursing created dedicated roles to help drive initiatives and build that relationship further. When the pandemic arrived, we were positioned to ensure that innovation, flexibility, and strategy could be influenced in the recruitment space. Continued leadership support and engagement of practice and Human Resources have ensured efforts are strategically aligned, and progress is made to help fill recruitment needs.

Our Nursing staff is experts on the profession, practice, student experience, and career growth. Our Human Resources teams are experts in the art and science of recruitment, marketing, sourcing, and talent acquisition. Working together to interact and deliver messaging to potential candidates ensures that we have the right people readily available to answer questions and share information.

Today, while we face many of the same challenges as other organizations, our partnership has helped in providing candidate-centric approaches to recruitment, employment, and onboarding. We continue to refine these processes and build out initiatives to help support the candidate life cycle.