It is well-documented how much a physician vacancy can cost a hospital or health system. Using those same metrics, it would be fair to say that making a bad hire is just as costly financially as a vacancy incurred by a physician retirement or other reason. Whether it is due to poorer quality, as evidenced by negative patient reviews or reduced productivity from disgruntled co-workers, a physician who doesn’t fit is never good for business. And now, with a tight physician job market, it is all the more critical for administrators to find and hire physicians that are a good fit within the culture of their organization.
With the prospect of making good hires more important than ever, what tools are at the disposal of hospital and healthcare administrators to ensure physicians who can fit and succeed in their organizational environment, are brought into the fold. One avenue available to any healthcare organization, and even more important for organizations that have placed a priority on culture, administering a personality assessment to potential hires can help reduce the risk of making a bad hire. Here are three reasons why a personality assessment can benefit your recruitment and hiring process.
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Develop a Successful Candidate Persona
When an organization places the appropriate amount of emphasis on developing a brand and creating a positive workplace culture, it becomes clear as to the type of candidates who can be successful in that environment. Not only the physician staff but everyone throughout the organization. Administrators can improve their hiring success rate by first understanding the traits, skills, and qualities of the most successful physicians on the staff. Using this approach, you can effectively create a candidate persona as a framework for determining which physician candidates have the best chance to succeed and stay.
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Improve Retention
Armed with the information gleaned from your assessments and benchmarking against your top-performing physicians gives your recruitment team a better understanding of the traits and type of physician candidate who is best suited to fill your vacancy. When you hire for fit, you are proactively improving your retention at the same time. Studies show that physicians who are already aligned with your corporate mission, values, and culture are more engaged in the workplace. Another important piece to consider is that when organizations search for candidates who are a cultural fit, overall retention is improved because physicians are engaged and suffer fewer symptoms of burnout.
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Identify Physician Leaders
Not every physician wants to work their way up to the C-Suite, and that is perfectly alright. However, others may want to follow a natural progression and take incremental steps toward becoming a physician leader. A personality assessment administered during the recruitment process can be a valuable tool in identifying each candidate’s individual personality traits, leadership qualities, and other skills identifying which physicians can be groomed for leadership positions in the future, and which have no interest in following an administrative tract. In the end, understanding more about a candidates’ motivations and future plans can be very helpful to ensure you are providing them with opportunities to develop new skills, head up an organizational project, or become a mentor to younger physicians on staff.
It is important to keep in mind that a personality assessment is not a magic wand that can solve all of your recruitment and retention needs, but is it a valuable tool that, when used correctly, can provide insight and information that leads to better physician candidate hires.
If your organization needs help developing better digital recruitment strategies or reaching candidates who are a good fit, contact the experienced professionals at Jackson Physician Search. Our team is ready to be your trusted search partner who can find physicians who fit, succeed, and stay.
