Fall 2014
The Healthcare Landscape is Changing: Are You Ready to Follow? Bryan Bassett, Managing Director, HEALTHeCAREERS Network From expanding insurance coverage to shifting demographics, numerous forces are altering the health care industry landscape. Some are increasing the demand for health care providers; others are decreasing their supply. A few—such as baby boomer retirement—are actually achieving both simultaneously, making the job of America’s health care recruiters more challenging in the process. Fortunately, this challenge is surmountable—provided you’re prepared to evolve your recruiting methods to address the changes at hand. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the U.S. Health Care and Social Assistance sector employs more than 18 million professionals—and the sector is expanding. Between 2012 and 2022, they expect employment within it to grow at an annual rate of 2.6 percent. This will account for nearly one-third of the total national increase in jobs over that period—or 5 million new positions between 2012 and 2022. They attribute much of this growth to expanded insurance coverage and the nation’s aging population. According to the RAND American Life Panel, the first enrollment period of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), President Obama’s signature health care law, resulted in a net gain of 9.3 million insured. The uninsured U.S. population decreased from 20.5 percent to 15.8 percent as a result. Because health care is more affordable and accessible under the new ACA-compliant plans, these new patients are increasing the demand for both preventative and elective health care services and it’s likely to continue. The Congressional Budget Office expects the number of newly insured Americans to grow to 24 million by 2023. With its focus on preventative care and essential health benefits, analysts predict that the ACA will increase the need for primary care practitioners including family medicine physicians, general medicine physicians, pediatricians, physician assistants and nurse practitioners to perform annual wellness exams as well as frontline support staff (from nurses to health aides) to assist them. We’ve already seen this trend taking shape at HEALTHeCAREERS Network, where our analysis of first and second quarter recruiting found physicians and surgeons, nurses, NPs, PAs, therapy professionals and allied health professionals accounted for the greatest number of job postings. An impending national shortage of providers within some of these occupations has been highly publicized. For example, the AAMC Center for Workforce Studies estimates the primary care physician shortage will increase to 45,000 by
2020, accompanied by a shortfall of 46,100 surgeons and medical specialists. And in 2013, the American Academy of Physician Assistants stated that 95 percent of the PAs who wanted employment had jobs, indicating supply had nearly reached capacity. The American Association of Nurse Practitioners expressed similar views regarding NPs. While their numbers grow each year, the organization is skeptical that there will be enough to fill rapidly increasing primary care needs. One of the demographics most in need of primary care is America’s baby boomers. This generation—comprised of individuals born between 1946 and 1964—began turning 65 in 2011. According to the Federal Interagency Forum on Aging-Related Statistics, the number of Americans over the age of 65 will increase to 72 million in 2030, accounting for 20 percent of the total U.S. population. This group is more likely to develop chronic conditions that require continued management—such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and dementia—increasing the demand for health care services. Naturally, some of these baby boomers are also in-demand health care providers such as physicians and registered nurses. According to the Federation of State Medical Boards, the average age of actively licensed physicians was 51 years old in 2012. Twenty-six percent of actively licensed physicians were 60 years of age or older. And per the BLS, our nation will need to replace 525,000 retiring nurses between 2012 and 2022. Recruiting or retaining a variety of jobseekers—from millennials and near-retirees to those already in retirement— requires a targeted approach. Millennials—those born between 1980 and 2001 and also known as Generation Y—often have different career expectations than the generations before them. For example, they highly value continuing education opportunities and work-life balance. They will account for 40 percent of the U.S. workforce by 2020, according to the BLS, so it’s essential to find ways to attract them. Baby boomers, on the other hand, put the most value on meaningful work and employee benefits, according to Millennial Branding, a Gen-Y research and managementconsulting firm. They currently account for 31 percent of the workforce according to research conducted by Gallup, an analytics company. Benefits that Boomers find particularly appealing include reduced-time schedules and job sharing, retirement planning, eldercare assistance, fitness
NAHCR • P.O. Box 14365 • Lenexa, KS 66285-4365 • Phone: 913.895.4627 • Fax: 913.895.4652 • Email: nahcr@goAMP.com
Fall 2014 reimbursements and wellness programs. Some health care organizations have had success luring retired professionals back to the workplace with flexible schedules and part-time hours that allow them to continue to receive Social Security. Whatever generation you’re targeting, social recruiting is a must if you want to keep up with competitor health care organizations. According to a recent social recruiting survey conducted by Jobvite, a recruiting technology company, 94 percent of recruiters use or plan to use social media in their recruitment efforts. The most popular social media site for recruiters is currently LinkedIn, with 94 percent utilizing it to search for and vet potential candidates. Sixty-five percent use Facebook and 55 percent use Twitter, primarily to showcase their employer brand and generate referrals. Of course, integrating social media into your recruiting strategy takes time. Fortunately, there are new tools in the marketplace to make doing so simpler and the benefits greater. For example, organizations including Amazon. com, Cisco and Adobe are using Open Web, an online software platform from Dice®, to gain a 360-degree view of job candidates. This innovative product aggregates a jobseeker’s social media profiles, allowing a recruiter to assess background, interests and community involvement for cultural fit without visiting multiple websites. It also contains a feature that instantly integrates links to your online job postings within your Tweets, making it easy to broadcast opportunities and drive jobseeker traffic where you want it to go.
Mobile recruiting is as important a tool for today’s health care recruiters as social media is. Smartphone adoption has grown faster than any other consumer technology in history, and more jobseekers are conducting their job search online. In fact, 35 percent of the traffic on HEALTHeCAREERS Network is from mobile users. It’s a common trend. A survey conducted by LinkedIn found that 72 percent of active jobseekers had used their mobile devices to view a company’s career site. Forty-five percent had applied for a job on a mobile device, while 43 percent had used their device to upload their resume for a job application. Unfortunately, only 20 percent of the talent acquisition leaders surveyed had mobile-optimized career sites. And only 18 percent had optimized their job posts for mobile viewing. Failing to do so greatly reduces your candidate pool. According to The Hiring Site, 50 percent of mobile jobseekers think less of employers who don’t have a mobileoptimized website. Forty percent of mobile candidates abandon the application process if they find it non-mobile friendly. Health care recruiting is always going to have its challenges; that’s a given in any industry where demand is likely to outpace supply. Fortunately, adapting your approach to address the changing industry landscape—with targeted benefits, social media and a mobile-friendly interface—can have a significant impact on your recruiting success.
NAHCR • P.O. Box 14365 • Lenexa, KS 66285-4365 • Phone: 913.895.4627 • Fax: 913.895.4652 • Email: nahcr@goAMP.com