Over the past several years, most senior living organizations have realized that our communities need to be highly competitive with wages and benefits, as workers today have many more options available to them. But while compensation is important, we’ve also learned that pay alone will not solve our workforce challenges. To do that, we need to be competitive with the best talent acquisition programs in the marketplace.
According to SHRM, the top five challenges facing organizations remain consistent from last year. They are:
- A lack of candidates with required skills and experiences.
- Reactive hiring approaches.
- Compensation/total rewards that are below market rates.
- Lack of funding, resources or headcount to support a strong recruitment program.
- Uncertainty about future talent needs.
- These are largely the same challenges that senior living organizations face. So how do we overcome them?
First, Close the Back Door
To be successful, we can’t just recruit more team members. We have to retain them. And the key to retention is strong leadership and a positive workplace culture.
A good example of this practice can be seen through one of our clients, Edenwald, a Life Plan Community in Towson, Maryland. Edenwald’s President and CEO Mark Beggs shared that the community had little turnover or staffing issues during or after the pandemic, and he credits it to the organization’s culture. Edenwald’s leadership truly fosters a sense of belonging that makes employees feel valued through regular employee feedback, affinity programs and other employer benefits that help employees reach their career goals.
This is why Love & Company urges senior living organizations to focus on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives: to create a workplace in which team members feel recognized and valued for who they are and how their perspectives can bring significant value and growth to the organization. This sense of belonging not only keeps employees working for the community, but it also makes them much more likely to refer others to work there.
Love & Company urges senior living organizations to focus on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives to create a workplace in which team members feel recognized and valued for who they are and how their perspectives can bring significant value and growth to the organization. This sense of belonging not only strengthens retention, but also leads to more employee referrals.
Be Proactive, Not Reactive
It often feels like our human resource (HR) teams are in a mad race to fill a host of open positions, with little time to think ahead. High employee attrition rates can oftentimes point to low employee morale and engagement. In fact, if we strive to have a positive culture and put measures in place to effectively close the back door, HR teams can move to a strategic recruitment approach that is complemented by employee development, succession planning and internal mobility.
Ultimately, the goal is to nurture a pipeline of talent, both internally and externally, so that the community has a steady flow of candidates to minimize the amount of time that employees need to take on more work due to attrition. You can achieve this in many ways.
- Partner with local colleges, universities, places of worship, local community centers and other organizations to provide job opportunities (with career paths!) for new graduates and experienced talent.
- Participate in college recruitment fairs.
- Partner with local association chapters to increase awareness.
- Start your own CNA certification program.
- Offer a college tuition program or other professional development opportunities for career advancement.
- Develop programs for transitioning military.
- Host open house career events.
- Sponsor employee referral programs (where your positive culture can really pay off!).
You can also elevate the capabilities of your HR recruiters by providing comprehensive training on hiring skills and current recruiting tools (such as AI to support job description updates and performance reviews) and by fostering collaboration between the recruiters and your departmental hiring managers.
Ensure You Address All Stages of the Talent Acquisition Funnel
Just like your marketing program for residents, your recruitment marketing needs to address all stages of the talent acquisition marketing funnel.
- At the Awareness stage, your goal is to begin building awareness of your organization as a desirable place to work. This can be done on social media as well as in targeted digital marketing. Highlight core values and establish transparency to attract talent that shares the same values as your organization.
- At the Attraction stage, your goal is to encourage potential team members to visit your careers website and learn more about your community, culture and work environment. Many candidates characterize company culture as one of the major deciding factors when applying to and accepting a new position. Showcase your culture through employee testimonials on your career website and social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook.
- At the Interest stage, people begin looking at specific job openings that could appeal to them. You want those job descriptions to be carefully crafted to be succinct and compelling. For nursing talent, go beyond job posting boards and search marketing to locate skilled nursing and other talent where they consume their news, information or details on continuing education or professional development. Also consider offering a monthly careers e-newsletter to build a candidate pipeline and keep leads interested and engaged.
- Finally, you reach the Apply To be most effective, the initial application needs to be short and easy to complete on mobile devices. Also, this is when your applicant tracking system kicks in, quickly beginning ongoing communications with the prospective team member.
Of course, throughout this process you need to pay close attention to review sites, such as Google, Glassdoor and Indeed, and actively respond to negative posts that decrease your employer rating and brand appeal among targeted candidates. Unresolved negative comments can be enough for someone to not submit a resume.
You need to pay close attention to review sites, such as Google, Glassdoor and Indeed. Unresolved negative comments can be enough for someone to not submit a resume.
Implement a Strong Applicant Tracking System
The last piece of the puzzle is to ensure you have a robust applicant tracking system (ATS). Just like your marketing team needs a good CRM to manage interactions with prospects, your HR recruiting team needs a strong tool to manage communications with prospects.
An effective ATS and recruitment process needs to be:
- Mobile-ready as that’s where most people will see your ads and social posts.
- Able to push messaging out to candidates.
- Succinct with job descriptions that use words that fit with the values of your organization to attract applicants.
- User-friendly. The initial resume submission or career application should be short and easy to complete on a phone.
- Able to respond to applicants immediately, letting them know the application was received and thanking them for their interest.
- Able to send continuing career-oriented messaging to further build brand awareness and to make prospects aware of additional career opportunities.
- Metrics-based to understand lead source conversions. Track candidate leads throughout the talent acquisition process and provide feedback on key performance indicators (KPIs), such as cost-per-hire data.
Overall, the application process needs to create a sense of urgency for the candidate, and your HR team needs to respond with an equivalent level of urgency.
Put It All Together
One of the best examples of a recruitment marketing campaign that included the recommendations outlined above, but took the candidate experience up a notch to encourage applicants was with Washington, D.C.-based MedStar Washington Hospital Center. Due to a surge in nursing student recruitment by several area competitors, the hospital system was experiencing a significant downturn in the number of RN professionals from local colleges and universities. In particular, MedStar noted that they saw a steep decline in applicants from select diversity groups including Hispanic, Arab and Asian students. To reverse these trends, the organization made an investment in its career website to enhance the user experience and callout employee experiences, as well as launched a grassroots campaign with the goal of shifting employer perceptions through local colleges, universities, places of worship and other diversity-focused forums.
As part of the outreach, MedStar hosted quarterly day-in-the-life discussion groups on site with medical community influencers and employees with their family members to talk about experiences with MedStar. A timeline campaign that shared the hospital’s longevity in market, growth and medical accolades had a positive influence on the target audience as well. Many discussion group participants respected the hospital’s achievements, optimal patient outcomes and commitment to a strong and diverse workforce. After a year of local outreach efforts, MedStar saw a 30% increase in specialty RN applicants from Asian, Arab and Hispanic candidates graduating from target schools such as George Washington University, American University, George Mason University and Trinity Washington University.
In short, foundational tools and tactics won’t always be enough to attract your target audience for hard-to-fill roles. You must be willing to think outside the box to help candidates make a career decision. In-person experiences offer candidates the opportunity to learn about the organization, ask questions and see themselves as an employee through shared experiences.
