Hiring the right talent is important in healthcare, as the industry requires specialized knowledge and skills. While many organizations handle their recruiting and staffing efforts on their own, you can improve your hiring process by working with a healthcare staffing agency. This gives you access to top talent and key insights into the industry that can inform hiring processes.
From getting help with key employment decisions to having extra assurance that all hiring efforts adhere to legal guidelines, there are countless ways that a healthcare staffing agency can provide valuable help when hiring new staff. Here’s more information about the role of a healthcare staffing agency and the many advantages of working with one.
What Is a Healthcare Staffing Agency?
A healthcare staffing agency is an organization that specializes in recruiting, hiring, and onboarding talent for organizations such as hospitals, clinics, and other medical facilities. The American Staffing Association outlines the key services that a healthcare staffing agency can provide: “Healthcare sector staffing firms offer a wide variety of services, including, but not limited to, recruitment of viable candidates for open positions, technology-on-demand to review credentials of candidates and employees, tracking of continuing education, license verification, skills validation, clinical assessment testing, certifications, and background checks and other screenings.” (1)
Advantages of Using a Healthcare Staffing Agency
Here are a few of the key benefits for your organization when you use a healthcare staffing agency during your next hiring process:
Saving Time
Many of the top staffing struggles in healthcare and health insurance involve wasting time. This includes spending too much time searching for qualified candidates, filling specialized roles, and training new hires in updated policies.
Another huge issue that causes organizations to waste time during the hiring process is recruiting the wrong candidate, which can result in high costs for restarting the hiring process when the recruit doesn’t fit the position. That’s why a healthcare staffing agency is so valuable, as it will do all this work for you, only sending the best candidates for your open roles.
Complying With Labor Regulations
Complying with laws is especially crucial in healthcare, as these professionals work with patients and sensitive data. A staffing agency specializing in healthcare can verify that applications meet all legal eligibility requirements. It will also help you when making job offers, ensuring all contracts, compensation, and benefits packages comply with labor laws.
Accessing Specialized Skills
Healthcare jobs often require specialized skills, especially in patient care and care management. This is another area that a healthcare staffing agency can help with, as it can access wide talent pools with the technical skills you need. Healthcare staffing agencies also stay on top of market trends and emerging skills in the industry. This keeps your organization’s staff qualified and updated about key innovations and helps improve patient experiences by offering the most cutting-edge care and reducing the potential for errors such as malpractice and burnout.
For example, when recruiting for healthcare IT positions, a staffing agency focused on healthcare will have access to candidates with training and education in IT for the medical industry. This means you wouldn’t have to worry about whether your new IT hire knows how to use healthcare software and programs, as the staffing agency will ensure they do before you even meet them.
Reducing Hiring Costs
One of the most significant advantages of partnering with a healthcare staffing agency is the substantial cost savings it can offer your organization. Staffing agencies specialize in efficiently sourcing, screening, and presenting qualified candidates, which can significantly reduce the time and resources your organization would otherwise spend on recruitment. By outsourcing the hiring process to a staffing agency, you eliminate the need for in-house HR personnel to dedicate extensive hours to recruitment, saving on labor costs. Additionally, staffing agencies often have access to a broad network of candidates, allowing them to fill positions quickly, minimizing costly downtime associated with understaffing.
Maintaining Flexibility
With volatile job markets and fluctuating patient demand across different seasons and healthcare sectors, flexibility is key when hiring new talent for jobs in the medical industry. This is another huge benefit to working with a healthcare staffing agency, as it can adjust recruiting and hiring processes to your exact needs.
For example, if you require a few seasonal workers in one part of the year and later determine that your organization needs another full-time employee in the same year, a staffing agency will make it easy to adjust recruiting efforts and find your ideal talent, even when your needs change.
Optimizing Onboarding
In the face of ongoing talent shortages within the healthcare industry, partnering with a healthcare staffing agency becomes even more invaluable. These shortages can result in increased workloads for existing staff, decreased patient satisfaction, and ultimately, compromised quality of care.
However, healthcare staffing agencies maintain continuous pools of qualified candidates, ready to fill open positions at a moment’s notice. This proactive approach ensures that your organization can maintain optimal staffing levels and deliver uninterrupted patient care. By leveraging the extensive networks and resources of staffing agencies, you can quickly access a diverse range of skilled professionals. Whether you’re facing seasonal fluctuations in patient demand or struggling to fill specialized roles, partnering with a healthcare staffing agency provides a reliable solution to address talent shortages and uphold the standard of care within your organization.
These are some of the most exciting benefits you’ll experience when you work with a healthcare staffing agency. From saving time to accessing more specialized talent, a staffing agency focused on healthcare can be a huge advantage to your organization. Whether you’re staffing temporary positions or looking for new full-time nursing or care management employees, a qualified healthcare staffing agency such as Medix will help optimize your recruitment efforts. Reach out to our team today for more details about how to get started with us and secure the top talent you’ve been looking for.
- “Health Care Staffing Frequently Asked Questions for Staffing Clients,” American Staffing Association, 2020, https://americanstaffing.net/workforce-solutions-for-staffing-clients/health-care-staffing-frequently-asked-questions-for-staffing-clients/#panel:accordion-panel-4.
- “Don’t Underestimate the Importance of Good Onboarding,” Society for Human Resource Management, August 10, 2017, https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/news/talent-acquisition/dont-underestimate-importance-good-onboarding#:~:text=69%20percent%20of%20employees%20are,the%20organization%20after%20three%20years.
