5 common staffing mistakes to avoid in healthcare

No one is perfect, and recruiters are no exception. Even the most experienced managers make mistakes when it comes to staffing their teams. There are a lot of things that go into making a successful staffing strategy, and making even one mistake can lead to negative consequences. 

In this blog post, we’ll take a look at some of the most common staffing mistakes that healthcare companies make and how to avoid them. By understanding what these mistakes are, you can put yourself in a better position to succeed with your staffing plan. So without further ado, let’s get started!

Five common staffing mistakes to avoid in healthcare

1. Hiring too quickly

The more you rush a job, the less likely it will be done well. This is just as true for hiring people. If you end up making a bad hire, your healthcare company’s productivity and reputation can plummet.

To be on the safer side, it’s important to take your time whenever you’re hiring employees. Rushing the process can lead to problems down the road. Listed below are some of the problems you may end up facing if you don’t vet your candidates properly.

1. You could end up with someone who is not a good fit for the job
2. The new hire might be under-qualified to perform their duties
3. You could end up hiring an employee who has a criminal record
4. You may hire someone who puts your company’s reputation at risk
5. Your new hire may cause tension within your existing 

To avoid these awkward situations, make sure that you don’t hire anyone without taking the time to get to know them first. As an HR manager of a healthcare company, your patient’s safety is in your hands. 

So, make sure you ask all the tough questions and get a sense of who they truly are. Don’t ever circumvent the steps in your hiring process to speed up your hiring cycle. You don’t want to end up regretting your decision later. 

Also, check our complete guide to hiring for startups

2. Lack of proper training

Another common hiring mistake is failing to train your healthcare staff properly. Investing in training upfront can save you a lot of headaches down the road. To solve this, companies like Smoothstack offer custom-trained healthcare professionals tailored to meet the specific needs of your organization.

Employees who are not trained properly may cause problems for their healthcare company, such as unhappy patients and an unsafe work environment. 

Without proper training and health knowledge, healthcare staff cannot be expected to provide the best possible care to patients. This can lead to a decrease in the quality of patient care. In some cases, it can even put patients at risk. 

For example, if you don’t sit your staff down for some HIPAA video training, they could frequently break HIPAA regulations, which hurts patients.

The lackadaisical approach toward training new hires can cause an array of troubles and listed below are some of them:

• Data security concerns
• Improper documentation
• Non-compliance to policies
• Patient safety problems
• Little to no staff morale
• Skyrocketing staff turnover 
• Increased business expenses

There is a pressing need to keep employees updated with the changing environment. It is not just the insurance norms and soft skills training that needs to stay up-to-date anymore. 

The pandemic has left a lasting impact on the healthcare industry and the staff needs to be brought up to speed on the ever-changing restrictions and norms. These are some of the reasons why proper training is essential for anyone who works in the healthcare field. On top of that, when involved in healthcare training it is important to have a healthcare coaching contract template for reference.

3. Staff burnout

Healthcare is a stressful job. The long hours, irregular shift scheduling, and lack of family time make it difficult for healthcare staff to maintain their mental health. 

Additionally, most healthcare staff are overworked from being constantly on call or working late nights because there isn’t enough staffing available. While some of these issues may be solved by employing a reliable clinical workforce management solution, it’s not surprising that, over time, healthcare staff can experience burnout.

So what is burnout? Burnout is a state of physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion. It often happens when people feel like they’re not in control of their work or their environment. Staff members start feeling disengaged, and hopeless, get lower back pain, and are often cynical about their work.

This is where a work schedule maker can come in handy and help HR managers balance employee expectations with staffing needs. Flexible scheduling has been proven to work well in many different industries and it can do wonders for the healthcare sector. 

Supervisors or the workforce management team can then create schedules based on demands and requirements but allow their staff members to pick their shifts themselves or trade their scheduled shifts with another staff member. 

The benefits associated with this type of system are numerous including 

• Competitive advantage in recruiting
• Reduced employee absenteeism
• Increased worker productivity
• Improved customer service
• High employee morale
• Improved staff retention and engagement

Flexible scheduling is powerful and healthcare companies don’t need an arduously developed internal approach to offer that advantage to their staff. With the right scheduling software, they can roll out the self-scheduling feature in a matter of weeks.

4. Not hiring seasoned professionals 

Hiring a seasoned professional will save healthcare companies time and money. You don’t have to train them, since they already know how things should be done! Once you bring them up-to-date on your unique process, you are all set. 

However, there may be instances where you have to hire a fresher. Hiring a fresher is not a disadvantage if you find the right person. However, selecting the right candidate for an overflowing pool of candidates is anything but easy.

Missing out on hiring a qualified candidate is an expensive mistake that healthcare providers often make. To be successful in the healthcare industry, you need to stay ahead of your competition and bag the right hire before your competitors do. 

That means tapping into top talent from around the world and using innovative tools for recruiting them! Automated recruitment tools like Recruiterflow can speed up screenings and help them find the perfect candidate in minutes, not hours or days.

Here’s how Recruiterflow can power up your recruitment process and help you identify the right candidate:

1. One-click sourcing to tap into healthcare-obsessed talent pools
2. Chrome extension that helps you reach out to the sourced candidates on time 
3. Effective pipeline management to track a candidate’s entire journey
4. Powerful resume parsing to cut down the time HR managers spend on screening
5. Robust automation to quickly schedule interview calls with candidates and your team 

Recruitment software like Recruiterflow can help cut down the time taken to find the right candidate. This is achieved by providing a tool for quickly and easily sorting through applications, as well as by matching candidates to available positions based on their skills and experience.

5. Having an inefficient recruiting workflow

The recruitment process has never been more automated thanks to artificial intelligence and recruitment software designed exclusively for healthcare businesses. Modern technology, such as recruitment software can be a major asset to recruiters when it comes to streamlining the recruitment workflow. 

This is great news, as it means that candidates will be sourced faster than ever before! Furthermore, these recruitment tools improve accuracy by keeping track of all candidate information at once which saves time for every individual involved in making the hiring decision. 

A recent study by Capterra reveals that 94% of recruiters believe investing in recruitment technology aids their hiring procedure.  So, successful businesses are using recruitment software to shortlist potential employees quickly. Did you know? 98% of fortune 500 companies use recruitment software.

Here’s how recruitment software like Recruiterflow can help you streamline the hiring workflow:

• Move candidates through different stages in the hiring process with ease
• Send automated email campaigns to candidates tailored to their recruitment stage
• Build strong relationships with both active and passive candidates 
• Make data-driven decisions with granular data and automated reports
• Ensure accurate documentation and easy accessibility of recruitment data

Recruiting automation can aid you to speed up the process especially when you are having a recruitment drive or performing high-volume hiring. With the automation of monotonous (but important) tasks, you can hire more quickly and efficiently. 

Automation can help reduce bias in the recruitment process. By automating certain tasks, such as monitoring social media platforms and job boards, organizations can identify a greater pool of qualified candidates. 

Additionally, automated systems can help keep recruiters accountable by maintaining transparency and an unbiased approach throughout the recruitment process.

Conclusion

Healthcare staffing mistakes will ultimately only make the patients suffer and cause bad press for the healthcare provider. Being aware of the most common staffing mistakes is the first step in avoiding them and keeping your team running smoothly. 

Hire slow, offer proper training to your new hires, provide your employees with a flexible schedule, hire seasoned employees, and streamline your recruitment workflow to ensure your company’s longevity. 

Recruiterflow is an innovative recruitment agency software for healthcare providers that will help you find, connect, and engage with qualified candidates. It offers a clean user interface so it’s easy to navigate as well as powerful recruiting automation tools like email sequences or triggers in order to make your workflow more efficient!

Sign up for a 14-day free trial of Recruiterflow or book a free demo and see how effective your recruitment process can be with the right tool.