Three in four healthcare organizations plan to hire additional IT staff in 2014, according to the HIMSS Workforce Survey.
Increasingly, the most desired employees are those with IT skills such as big data analytics, programming, enterprise resource planning or data warehousing, the skills that will help hospitals and health systems tackle accountable care, take advantage of data stockpiles and prepare their IT systems for a technologically changing world.
"Our technology needs increasingly require a multidisciplinary IT workforce," says Eric McIntosh, a director of human resources at Pittsburgh-based UPMC. This growing need stems from UPMC's interest in expanding its IT capabilities both to develop in-house solutions to best meet the system's needs, as well as develop solutions to help other providers meet changing industry demands. "Providing the best possible care to our patients continues to be at the heart of everything that we do, but we have also seen a significant increase in interest for us to be able to commercialize those efforts into products that can be deployed in other healthcare systems both domestically and internationally," he says.
However, healthcare organizations like UPMC are not the only ones looking to add more programmers, developers and data analysts to their staffs. A recent IT salary survey from Dice shows these skill sets to be some of the most in-demand skills across industries — and those that command six-figure salaries. For example, IT staffers with NoSQL database knowledge earn an average annual salary of $114,796, and those experienced in big data take home an average of $106,542 per year.
Recruiting these employees, then, begins with salary. "The number one thing is to pay them the right way," says Tim Low, vice president of marketing at compensation data and software provider Payscale. "You have to understand that high demand jobs will require more money… different things make people happy with their job, but pay is a baseline that establishes an understanding of fairness."
Beyond salary, what else can healthcare organizations do to lure the IT employees who could be working almost anywhere?
The athenahealth example
For best practices on recruiting top IT staffers, hospitals can look to electronic medical record vendor athenahealth. The company has recently chosen Austin, Texas, as the site of a new research and development facility that will eventually employ more than 600 people, the majority focused on software development, product innovation and user experience. According to Payscale data, Austin is currently one of the most popular destinations for technology companies and employees alike, ranking fourth on a list of the top cities for IT.
To find these new staff members, athenahealth will compete directly with other technology companies in the area, as athenahealth is intentionally looking to pull in employees from other industries. "One of the things we state as a health IT company is that we're actually looking for folks without healthcare experience," says Tara Griesbach, senior manager of recruiting for athenahealth.
To find them, athenahealth has similar recruitment strategies as other technology companies in the area. "We're on the tech job boards, we attend career fairs targeted at tech folks, we get involved with [technology-focused] community groups," says Amber Jackson, senior technical recruiter at athenahealth. The company also employs several more creative strategies. "Our outside-the-box thinking includes asking employees where they're hanging out and going there," she explains, or attending on-campus recruiting events to find junior employees that have the potential to grow with the company and become valuable members of the team.
Recruiters at athenahealth also know to act quickly when they've found a talented worker. A strategic hiring plan and a clear idea of the ideal employee allows athenahealth recruiters to snap up the most promising potential staffer before another company does. Ms. Griesbach would advise hospitals to "be prepared to move quickly and make quick decisions." Ms. Jackson agrees: "This is a fast moving market… if you make a candidate wait two weeks, they could leave the [hiring] market."
To help entice desired recruits to accept job offers, and then stick around once hired, athenahealth is also focused on offering more than just a competitive salary. "Great perks make a community unique, and they have also become more commonplace [among technology companies]," says Ms. Jackson. "Fun activities and a sense of community is something a lot of people look for."
To help develop a fun, enticing culture at athenahealth, the company has a small team dedicated to planning events and other activities for employees. A few years ago, athenahealth's CTO hired a new manager that would devote all her time to planning employee events across the company, says Ms. Griesbach. "We now have four people focused on this, they plan fun holidays like Pi Day or Talk Like a Pirate Day," she says. "People love it."
The overall goal is to make athenahealth a place employees want to work and play, says Ms. Griesbach. From the sponsored events to free snacks to space to play games after-hours, athenahealth tries to offer employees "everything they could want from work," she says. The company's efforts have seen positive results — companywide, employee turnover is low, and "it's a testament to what we've done that employees spend their free time here hanging out," says Ms. Griesbach.
For hospitals looking to recruit IT employees, both Ms. Griesbach and Ms. Jackson recommend emphasizing the organization's mission and the rewarding aspects of working in healthcare. People who could earn a high salary at a variety of organizations will often look for someplace that is doing good, with a mission they can get behind. "The strongest performers don't worry about getting a job with good pay. All things being equal in salary, what they're looking for is something they can be proud of," says Ms. Jackson. "And the healthcare space is something people can get excited about, they can go home feeling like they contributed."
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