3 Tips for Finding Healthcare Professionals That Fit Your Company Culture

Matt Brewster

Culture matters. While a clinical or administrative new hire needs hard skills to complete healthcare tasks, they must also fit well with the team their joining. Given the healthcare labor shortage, it’s harder now to find talent with the right mix of hard skills let alone those soft skills that allow them to fit in with your teams. But holding out for the right candidate means you won’t disrupt those teams and your patients when you add someone new.

Poor culture creates dissatisfied employees. Unhappy workers lead to frustrated patients and lower satisfaction scores. For hospitals these days, that affects their bottom line.

So, how can you hire for cultural fit in healthcare? We have three tips that can help.

Tip 1: Emphasize Culture in Your Hiring Process

Every healthcare organization has its own unique culture. Making culture a key requirement for each job you hire for is important. Sure, you have a list of clinical skills and experiences you’re screening for, but how are you screening for cultural fit?  90% of current employees say that employers should screen for the right fit, but we often forget that the potential hire wants to know that they’ll fit in  too.

Begin by analyzing and thoroughly understanding the cultural characteristics not only of the organization but also of the team you are hiring into.  You can’t hire to culture if you don’t intimately know it.  Once you Identify five to 20 drivers, values, or motivators, relate them to the company culture and translate them into core competencies that the facility requires. 

Then highlight those cultural drivers to the organization’s social media platforms, all marketing brochures, website content, and in the write-up of every job advertisement.  Continue with a strategic behavioral-based interview process.  Addressing culture at every point of the hiring process is the only way you can ensure a good match.

Tip 2: Hire for Culture from the Top Down

To strengthen the culture you’re trying to build and reinforce, make sure you’re applying these same principles of culture all the way up to the executive level. From your c-suite to the doctors and on down the value chain, make sure you are living and breathing the cultural imperative that is unique to your organization. Identify the cultural touchpoints that the organization wants to foster and improve upon. Use those touchpoints to hire at every level of the organization. Behind all these efforts is a key focus on the values and mission of the organization. Having these core tenets and strong culture will ultimately improve your efforts to hire. Candidates and employees want to belong to a mission greater than themselves. Give it to them and you will attract a better caliber of talent to your organization.

Tip 3: Develop a Strong Brand

When you hire for cultural fit, you’re ensuring a greater chance of success.  Seek the advice of a marketing professional and business consultant to help you define and expand upon your existing culture. Build your brand, and they will come. Then, make sure HR and any outside vendors you have hired to recruit for your organization know how to find the right mix of hard and soft skills in every healthcare candidate.

Contact Our Team Today

At MedSource Consultants, we understand the importance of hiring to culture and skills and the effect a poor fit can have on your entire organization.  Talk with MedSource Consultants today to find out how we can help you meet your hiring goals at every level of your organization.  Contact us today.