How top hospital ETZ still manages to recruit extremely scarce healthcare staff
A life-threatening shortage
What do you do if, due to personnel shortages, the continuity of the largest Level 1 Trauma Centre in the Netherlands is endangered? If the current employees are under so much pressure that the dropout and turnover rates are greater than the number of new incoming employees? At ETZ, there was a shortage of A&E, CCU and ICU nurses, anaesthetists and surgical assistants for the acute axis of the hospital.
An insufficient number of available staff meant, for example, that ambulances bringing critical road casualties would have to go elsewhere in the country. The shortage of personnel threatened to close operating rooms and force capacity reductions. As a result, ETZ would not be able to fulfil its crucial regional role in trauma care. The influx of patients would decrease, with adverse consequences ETZ's keeping up its ambition of offering the highest level of patient care.
The difference came down to identifying and approaching that dream candidate. Now that ETZ knew where to find a candidate and how to attract them, they turned words into action. All knowledge was translated into an attractive and convincing hyper-targeted recruitment campaign on social media. With a tailor-made strategy, Jobsrepublic reached a large group of suitable candidates. The first applications followed a few days after the campaign went live. The candidates turned out to be more than suitable, the recruitment procedures were started, and the ETZ team was able to take a careful breath.
Inflow in order, outflow stopped
By deploying the hyper-targeted campaign, the ETZ has drastically adjusted and improved its labour market position in a few months. Not only has the inflow resumed after difficult years, but the outflow has also been halted. "What we hadn't thought of is how much the campaign would contribute to internal pride," says Corina Eijgelsheim, chair of the Acute As task force at the ETZ. "With a very structured approach, Jobsrepublic has involved employees in developing our story for the outside world. Thanks to the positive approach, our employees remembered how great their work was and the value they bring to the hospital and the patients."
The outflow from the departments was almost completely stopped, partly due to the internal operation of the campaign. Moreover, the quality of the new candidates turned out to be much higher than ETZ was used to from the previous recruitment methods. Of the 63 qualified candidates who responded in the first phase of the campaign, 23 were immediately invited to a day of job shadowing. After rigorous selection, 17 candidates were hired as specialist nurses, operating assistants or anaesthesia assistants.
Sustainable cooperation
After the pilot phase, ETZ extended the collaboration and chose to use the campaign power of Jobsrepublic for other hard-to-fill roles, such as doctors.
Due to the large amount of data collected, ETZ now has an optimal campaign machine that is always running.
The hospital has gained a foothold in the labour market, which can easily be adjusted as needed.
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Coen Kooyman