UVA Health Recruiting Has Filled 1,654 Jobs in 6 Months!
Amidst a nationwide health care worker shortage accelerated by the stress of the COVID-19 pandemic, the UVA Health Talent Acquisition team has restructured itself, hired new recruiters, streamlined and automated processes, and is already seeing a significant increase in new hires for FY23. And there is more to look forward to!
Where We Were
ABC News noted in April in a report about preparing for the next pandemic that “After a grueling three years caring for patients on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic, nurses continue to leave the health care sector en masse, according to state health departments and state hospital associations, sparking widespread shortages nationwide that states warn may lead to an inability to care for patients during a new outbreak.” This warning brings urgency to the task the UVA Health Talent Acquisition team has set itself to: Hire 3,500 UVA Health team members in FY24 and continue to accelerate the trend of net positive increase in hiring numbers.
This task is even more remarkable given the recent history. With one HR Talent Acquisition director previously managing both Academic Division and UVA Health recruiting, and an HR recruiting team too small to impact the post-pandemic trends in turnover at UVA Health, the old recruiting model wasn't working.
Looking at pandemic-era trends in hiring at UVA Health, the hiring numbers were slightly greater each year, but the number of workers leaving UVA was growing. The net change was moving in the wrong direction:
In addition, attracting talent to move to Charlottesville can be challenging despite its charm, particularly for entry-level workers, given the current local cost of living. In addition, many job seekers find the lure of big cities to be more attractive for their future career growth.
UVA HR Restructured to Better Serve UVA Health
UVA Human Resources began an internal transformation process in 2017, and continues to restructure itself to address the needs of the University. Last year it brought in Karmen Fittes (center in photo) to head a new UVA Health HR division within Human Resources.
The team was restructured into two smaller teams, managed by Melynda Zarzyski (right in photo), a former UVA Nurse Manager and now Manager of Talent Acquisition for Nursing & Nursing Support; and Kelly Riley (left in photo), Manager, of Talent Acquisition for Professional & Allied Health. In addition, the job requisition load was restructured for recruiters, with the teams specializing in recruiting for a specific role or specialty. For example, nurse recruitment used to be distributed across the entire team. Now it has seven recruiters who only recruit nurses and nurse leaders - two of whom are nurses themselves! Finally, recruiters used to have up to 200 requisitions to fill at any one time. Now the goal is between 80-100, depending on the area/type of position they’re recruiting for.
Processes Streamlined to Focus on the Candidate
To be more candidate focused, the UVA Health Talent Acquisition team consolidated the application process for some of its high-volume positions. Rather than one person applying to several similar positions, only one requisition is posted now. When someone applies to it, they are routed to an intake team that reaches out to discuss the various opportunities and determine which would be the best position for them to apply to. This has saved hundreds of hours of interviewing time for both candidates and managers!
A great example of this is for New Grad RNs. The clinical intake team reaches out within 24 hours to schedule a time to talk with them. The fact that a nurse is taking the time to discuss open positions, speak to them from a clinical perspective to explain the differences in the units and what their day-to-day routine would really be like, has been tremendously well received!
As our new members settle in, it is essential that we continue to embody the core values that define UVA Health. Our ASPIRE values - Accountability, Stewardship, Professionalism, Respect, and Equity - guide us in our interactions with both patients and colleagues. While we prioritize the well-being and care of our patients, we must also care for, empower, and support our fellow team members. By embracing these values, we create a nurturing environment where everyone can thrive.
Wendy Horton, CEO, UVA Health University Medical Center
Process Improvements Help Recruiters Focus on Recruiting
Several time-consuming tasks have been automated to help the UVA Health Talent Acquisition team spend more time on recruiting and less time on paperwork. These include:
DocuSign Moved to Workday: Workday teams have successfully incorporated agreements using DocuSign which helps to push the document for signatures automatically.
Hiring Grids in Workday: Hiring grids used for compensation workups have now been incorporated into Workday so recruiters do not need to utilize separate excel spreadsheets to do compensation workups.
Digital Dashboard: A digital dashboard has been created to have all resources for the team in one place, rather than having documents stores in shared drives, Microsoft Teams, or emails! It ensures that everyone has access to the most up-to-date information.
Upcoming Improvements:
- Automatically moving a candidate to "Background Check" when they sign their offer letter; this is currently a manual step
- Integration of SkillSurvey in Workday to streamline reference requests
- Automating employee health instructions and onboarding instructions sent to candidates after they sign their offer letter
UVA Health Talent Acquisition Team Expanded
To address the urgent need to fill vacant positions at UVA Health, the team has grown. With ten new team members hired in the past year, the team of recruiters and recruiting coordinators has grown from 13 team members in 2019 to 25 today. This has already led to a significant increase in hires from FY22 (1,659) to FY23 (2,528).
(Above: some of the UVA Health Talent Acquisition team at a recent UVA health event.)
Advertising and New Partnerships Lead to Great Results
Advertising has always been an important part of recruitment efforts, but the need is greater now than ever, as the nationwide supply shortage and the competition from other medical centers means that candidates have multiple offers to consider before deciding on their career path. The result?
CEO Wendy Horton reported in Vision and Voice last month: A recent orientation day, held on Tuesday, May 30, marked a milestone for UVA Health. With the tremendous support of our Human Resources department and an inspiring address from Dr. Reid Adams, our Chief Medical Officer, UVA Health welcomed a record-setting 325 team members — including external travelers and transfers. To date, we have onboarded an impressive 1,439 new team members to fill critical roles across our organization. We have also hired 713 travelers in 2023 to help support our team members across many areas to accomplish our mission of providing excellent patient care 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Some of this success is due to closer collaboration between HR and Medical Center leaders to better understand the needs of the departments, which led, for example, to a partnership with Nursing Leadership to create the Nursing Extern program. It brought in over 80 nursing students to work alongside UVA nurses in a summer program. The program provides hands-on experience for nursing students and helps to fill CNA vacancies for 8-10 weeks. Last year, at least one third of the Nurse Externs applied for a position as a Clinician 1, so this program is strengthening HR's pipeline for nurses.
Recruitment and Clinical Leaders are attending more conferences, hiring fairs, and virtual events than in the past. Partnering with community resources such as Network2Work and the International Rescue Committee, as well as national online platforms like Handshake.com and HBCUConnect.com which has a network of over 1.5 million registered members consisting of alumni, students, faculty, parents and high school students from Historically Black Colleges and Universities, has allowed us to increase awareness about UVA Health opportunities in our community and across the nation.
Where We Are, and Where We Are Going
FY23 hiring numbers speak for themselves, and UVA Health Talent Acquisition is on track to do even better in FY24:
The vision for the future: The UVA Health Talent Acquisition team expects to continue increasing hiring to stabilize the workforce within 2-3 years. The team has filled 1,654 jobs in the past 6 months! While the chart shows that in FY22 more people left than were hired, FY23 ended with a gain of almost 1,000!
Concluded Zarzyski and Riley, The engagement and dedication of our team is making an impact with each new orientation group; we continue to set new records and watch our hiring trends moving in the right direction. It takes a village to accomplish this! We're here to help UVA Health departments, striving to hire great people and support our goal to be the best place to work.
UVA_HR
