After months of hiking, cycling, mountain climbing and searching for a position to get back into the medical staffing industry, someone closer than a brother was contacted, interviewed and hired by a privately owned medical staffing company. The company worked with numerous vendor management companies which had travel assignments in all 50 states plus the Virgin Islands for nurse practitioners, registered nurses, licensed nurses, surgical technicians, therapists, imaging and more.
The owners were excellent healthcare providers but lacked a "common business sense" business model.The owner's inner circle were box thinkers. A business mind would have provided a diversified and balanced leadership team. Conformity to this "boxed-in" business model was the law regardless of one's personality, talents, strengths and/or weaknesses. As a result, creativity was stifled.
Having owned and grown two medical staffing companies, he was unable to overlook the inefficiencies and the same unrealistic expectations required by each recruiter. Requiring every "in and out" phone call and text to be documented, entering leads rather than implementing available database parsing tools, and completing daily non-essential and unproductive tasks. These time consuming, motivation draining, energy depleting tasks minimized front office creativity and opportunities to build strong relationships with working caregivers and pipeline prospects. Rather than being a results-oriented company, completing a high number of daily tasks was the measuring stick of one's success. This micromanagement business model lowered morale, restricted proper screening and most importantly, prevented recruiters from developing strong relationships with their caregivers (aka travelers) and prospects. As a result, 40% of the "travelers" contracted by hospitals and/or healthcare facilities over his last 3 months were terminated. Field staff retention was low and referrals lower. Unless a significant paradigm shift occurred, the company's demise will come sooner rather than later.
Witnessing people working 12-15 hour days plus being assigned weekend call without pay created a deep "silent" resentment. The "give up everything for love of company" mentality had been programmed into the minds of revenue producers as an "expectation." Guilt was thrown around like baseballs during team warm-ups while incentives to hit home runs was like going to the plate with plastic bats. Occasional joking, laughter or humorous comments was frowned upon or considered taboo. This created a static, unenthusiastic working environment.
His six-month experience with this company reminded me of a recruiter from a previous company. This recruiter lacked organizational skills, had a GED and a retail sales background. His computer skills were weak and the thought of getting his paperwork in on time rocked his world. However, he was the best relationship builder I've seen perform in my 25 years of being in the medical staffing industry. This guy was always on the phone and had the highest retention and referral rates in the company. So I made a way for him to utilize his strengths to the fullest by hiring a part-time assistant to handle the data entry and paperwork requirements. He soon became our top producer and never let up. Healthcare Traveler Magazine recognized him as a Top 100 Recruiter for 2 straight years and became a multi-million dollar producer with the best profit margins on an annual basis. It paid dividends to focus on his strengths rather than force him to perform tasks that took him away from his gifting. God made us all unique. Be prudent enough to find one's uniqueness then provide them with the tools and encouragement to develop it to the fullest.
The moral of this story is to focus on a person's gifts rather than trying to force a square peg into a round hole. Encourage and assist individuals to develop their strengths and provide them with the necessary tools. Everyone is created differently and all recruiters have different personalities. Owners must be keenly aware of their employee's gifts and do everything in their power to create and acknowledge their successes rather than focus on trivial tasks that stifle production.
Adios for now,
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