Michael Garron Hospital

Phillip Kotanidis

Workforce Transformation Catalyst

Many sectors and organizations today are working within an ever more challenging landscape from a human capital perspective. For a number of years, the labour market has been highly competitive, experiencing a shortage of qualified healthcare professionals with no end in near sight. This has created added pressure and emphasized the importance for organizations and their leaders to cultivate a positive culture and foster the right opportunities to attract, retain and engage their most valuable resource: their people. There are many and varied tactics or initiatives to address recruitment, retention and engagement, that won’t be captured in this brief article, however, the article will highlight some of the key strategies an organization should consider.

More than ever, it is incumbent on management and Human Resources to work in unison, ensuring that all strategies and initiatives work in concert to deliver an exceptional workplace experience for their staff. Nothing occurs in a vacuum or is accomplished by the sole efforts of one singular department or area of function. As with any complicated and multidimensional issue, enhancing recruitment and retention requires a multipronged strategy consisting of both a top-down and bottom-up approach. In a very competitive labour market, recruitment efforts must begin by effectively sourcing the required talent, which is aided by increasing the diversity and scope of your potential labour pools and the promotion and capitalization of your organization’s strategic advantages. Job duties and qualifications should also be revaluated, removing any unnecessary barriers.

Enhancing staff engagement and retention is a much more complex and protracted process than effectively recruiting. Retention and engagement encompass almost every aspect of the organization and its overall culture. To begin with, it is important to provide realistic job previews, evaluating both job and organizational fit for candidates. This ensures that the candidate can best appreciate what the working environment and culture may be like and how compatible it is with their unique career goals, aspirations and most importantly, their values. Once hired, there must be a thorough and ongoing onboarding process including formal and informal mentorship opportunities. This helps ensure a strong fit on both job-to-person and personto- organization levels and increases employee discretionary efforts and retention. Going “above and beyond” the job expectations each and every day results in stronger organizational performance and organizational citizenship behavior and helps ease overall workload burdens, which are ever-increasing.

To further aid with engagement and retention, organizations must prioritize people leadership attributes and not make hiring decisions primarily based on the tactical skills and experience a potential employee may possess, especially with leadership positions. Alignment with one’s value system and the organization’s Mission, Vision and Values have become of paramount importance, thereby resulting in enhanced levels of career satisfaction, a shared vision and purpose, higher retention and engagement and productivity levels, and within healthcare: best patient care delivery. Attracting and retaining top talent not only strengthens an organization’s performance but also acts as a satisfier and retention tool for all high performers. Working with well-rounded individuals can have a synergistic effect on others and ultimately leads to greater retention.

Creating an environment that retains top talent is especially important today as the healthcare sector is experiencing some of the highest turnover rates. Exit interviews provide insight, but too little and often too late; paradigm switches to “stay interviews” help foster strong relationships between staff and management, allow for proactive course correction, sharing of positive and constructive feedback and build and capitalize on strengths. Stay interviews help demonstrate a genuine interest in staff’s well-being, and caring for the well-being of staff is no longer an option but compulsory in ensuring an engaged workforce.

In summary, it is important that one is clear on what your organization is about: the positives and the areas that require further development. Be clear with what you require staff to perform, hire for values fit, provide the necessary tools to perform their job effectively and without unnecessary burdens, consistently make fair and transparent decisions, show genuine care and compassion, promote the best and most deserving people, recognize and appreciate efforts regularly, seek continuous feedback and hold everyone accountable while supporting growth and career paths.

As mentioned, there is no panacea in recruiting and, more specifically, retaining today’s scarce health human resources, but rather, it is a combination of a multi-faceted approach that begins with the organizational culture, leaders, and the recruitment process and continues for the entirety of the employment relationship. It is part of a much larger and ongoing strategic thrust that is either reinforced or eroded each and every day with encounters staff has with leaders, peers and others. Therefore, it is incumbent on all leaders to consistently live and demonstrate the highest aspects of the values of their organization in every action and decision they make and every interaction they have.