16 Ways to Hire Better Employees

“Incorporate real-life scenarios in your interview process. It’s easy, just share a recent organizational challenge and ask the candidates how they would go about solving it.”

-Doug Chaet, chief managed care officer, Cleveland Clinic

“Recruit the #2 or #3 person from a competitor that is under-utilized/appreciated to head up the department in your organization.”

- Perry Cohen, chief executive officer, The Pharmacy Group and the TPG family of companies, which provides services to associations, healthcare and information technology organizations, payers, and pharmaceutical companies

“Most leaders know how to hire someone with the right skills. But it’s just as important-if not more so-to hire someone who is going to work well with the rest of the team and help make your company a better place to work.”

 -Bill Heller, president of Weatherby Healthcare, a healthcare staffing company based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida

“Employee referrals are often the best source of hiring. Not only do your people have their own networks of friends and professional contacts, they often have the best understanding of what skills and traits will help a candidate be successful in the job.” 

-Lisa Grabl, president, CompHealth, a healthcare staffing company based in Salt Lake City

“Give potential employees a glimpse of the human side of your business by posting workplace culture and employee stories on your website and social media.”

-Michele Markey, vice president of training operations for SkillPath, a non-profit professional learning and development provider in Mission, Kansas

“How does your benefits package stack up against the competition? Consider including job flexibility, mentoring, or learning and development opportunities that help employees progress professionally.”

- Markey

“Give candidates plenty of time to interview you. Prepare great responses to their questions about your workplace culture, opportunities for advancement, and learning and development.”

-Markey

“The single strongest factor in identifying and acquiring the right talent for your team is in assessing the whole person-where are they in their journey? How well does their passion, capability, and experience align with your business strategy? Get that right, and the details work themselves out.”

-Caskie Lewis-Clapper, chief human resources officer, Magellan Health, a provider of healthcare management services in Scottsdale, Arizona

“Most organizations understand the importance of candidate engagement and effective communications throughout the recruiting process. Unfortunately, too often the pre-hire experience changes dramatically once a candidate accepts an offer. We are increasingly seeing leading organizations create a set of digital and analog interactions during the period between accepting an offer and the first day of work to engage pre-hires and communicate regarding the onboarding process. Hiring teams are leveraging technologies like chat bots, social collaboration, and consumer-grade portals to create more meaningful interactions throughout the experience and engage pre-hires early on."

-Marc Solow, managing director, human capital consulting at Deloitte Consulting, a management consultancy firm

“New hires are increasingly regretful of their decision to accept positions, up 50% from 2008, and about one-third of new hires leave within six months. To combat this, it’s important to understand the changing candidate journey and to create an attractive job-related employer value proposition, focusing on the needs of the candidate. Shift the conversation from ‘what do I get paid to do and what benefits will you offer me’ to ‘who am I as a part of this organization and how can I leverage the network and tools to make a difference?’"

- Tanya Fish, strategy advisor, ITA Group, a global engagement agency in West Des Moines, Iowa

“If you do this, they will be natural recruiters of both talent and consumers of healthcare. A positive employee experience will create advocates-it’s all about how your employees interact with, feel about and respond to your brand and culture, as well as all the people, places and things in your organization. While technology will play a role in this, don’t stop with technology-help employees connect with each other, celebrate their achievements, identify their purpose within your organization, and connect to the resources and people (mentors) that will support their ongoing growth.”

- Fish

“The 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer revealed that trust in businesses and CEOs is falling; at the same time, there's a marked increase in the credibility of a ‘person like me.’ Hear the voice of employees, share your employee value proposition through the voice of the employee. And don’t stop there, continue to listen to the voice of the employee and adjust strategies based on what you hear throughout the year. When the employee value proposition that you establish and tell aligns with your employee experience, you have a recipe for both attracting talent that aligns to your culture and retaining talent longer.”

-Fish

“This often focuses on recruiting process mechanics-up to and including recruiting process outsourcing (RPO). Additionally, candidate screening and interviewing often emphasizes candidates’ education and experience against role technical requirements. While ongoing focus and improvement on the recruiting process and role technical requirements remain important to foster smart hiring, healthcare executives should consider that smart hiring is also tied to their organization’s strength in areas such as competency guide use, team-based recruiting effectiveness, and performance development culture.”

-Chuck Taylor, principal and human capital solution group leader, GE Healthcare Partners, a provider of outcomes-based solutions in healthcare

“A competency guide is a key component of an organization’s broader Talent System, which includes: Goal Setting; Competency Guide; Performance Development; Rewards and Recognition; and Talent/Organizational Development. A competency guide creates a common language for leaders and staff to use with existing employees and candidates for hire.

“A competency guide is most valuable when purposefully used within key talent system processes and events-especially during recruiting and interviewing and existing employee reviews. So, smart hiring is all about assessing a candidate or existing employee against role technical requirements (the ‘what’) and an effective competency guide (the ‘how’) to ensure a balanced assessment that aligns with desired organizational culture.”

-Taylor

“Team-based recruiting done well allows for candidates to be screened by a cross-functional team of interviewers who bring different perspectives to a candidate’s potential fit and value-add within the organization. During the post-interview debriefing, interviewers often comment succinctly on the candidate’s assessment against role technical requirements (the ‘what’). However, when the dialogue turns to a candidate’s cultural fit within the organization (the ‘how’) debriefing assessments vary widely. Use of a competency guide is most helpful here.”

-Taylor

“Typical interview criteria include: applicable experience, technical knowledge, communication ability, internal motivation, and problem solving. Depending on your team gaps, the primary function of the role, and company culture ... the weight of each in decision making may need to flex. I typically prioritize communication ability and internal motivation above all else, as a candidate's ability to perform well and have a positive influence on others starts here.”

-Cheryl Nagowski, senior director, Federal Markets, D2 Consulting