Similar to all other business sectors, the healthcare industry will likely see a boom in growth and in hiring over the coming year, according to the 2015 HireRight Health Care Spotlight report.
"It's been years since healthcare organizations could easily find all the qualified personnel they require — and the problem is getting worse," said Rachel Trindade, vice president of marketing at HireRight. "In this year's report, we see great emphasis on factors such as improving the candidate experience in the hiring process, enhancing the organization's brand and culture, offering tuition reimbursement and accommodating flexible shift scheduling as ways of meeting the talent challenges."
Highlighted below are six takeaways from the 2015 report.
1. More than half (58 percent) of healthcare organizations expect to grow their workforce in the coming year, and nearly a quarter of those anticipate hiring increases of more than 6 percent.
2. The top two talent acquisition and talent management challenges for the healthcare sector are finding qualified job candidates (55 percent) and retaining good employees (51 percent), according to the Spotlight survey respondents.
3. Other challenges cited by respondents include making human resources processes more efficient (33 percent), improving the candidate experience (31 percent) and maximizing employee engagement (31 percent).
4. Almost half of respondents indicated that all of their growth would come from direct employees, whereas 36 percent reported that some increases in staff would come from temporary workers, contractors and other non-employee extended workers.
5. Like many other business sectors, the top types of background checks healthcare organizations perform on new hires are criminal searches (94 percent) and identity verification (78 percent). Previous employment and references are uniquely emphasized by healthcare organizations (78 percent versus 68 percent among other industries), however.
6. Healthcare organizations conduct professional license verifications at more than twice the rate of other industries (74 percent versus 36 percent).
HireRight provides on-demand employment background checks, drug and health screening, and electronic Form I-9 and E-Verify solutions to help employers automate, manage and control background screening and related programs. The company also conducts surveys to gauge the hiring outlook of various industries.
Update: Participants in the survey included individuals who work in hospitals or acute-care facilities, long-term care or assisted living homes, ambulatory care centers, hospice, medical staffing, primary care, behavioral health, the pharmaceutical industry, health insurance or medical device manufacturing.