Predictive Hiring: Planning for the Future
Predictive Hiring is using the data you have to predict when staff turnover will occur and proactively recruit, hire, and train new staff in advance.
You do the best job you can. Work hard. Follow processes and keep compliance. But each shift, you are welcomed with backlogged trays and requests for quick turns you feel you can’t possibly meet. It’s no surprise, because the department is short-staffed. With Predictive Hiring, you might have avoided this situation.
Predictive Hiring is a must for any business where the volume of work stays constant no matter how many staff members are present. In sterile processing, the difficulty in finding qualified candidates or training new hires from scratch makes the hiring process even more daunting and time sensitive. So, let’s look at the best practices of Predictive Hiring.
First, let’s explain the need with a hypothetical situation. Our current process to bring on a new SPD technician with no experience includes approximately three months of HR recruiting and hiring followed by three months of training. This is a six-month process. If we wait until an employee resigns or is terminated to begin this process, we could go six months until a replacement is on-the-floor working. Six full months of being short staffed! If your SPD loses one employee a month, that adds up to six new hires needed by the time one new staff member is trained and ready to come on-board. You’d forever be short-staffed in this scenario.
Predictive Hiring is simply using the data you have to predict when staff turnover will occur and proactively recruit, hire, and train new staff in advance. In our example above, losing one staff member a month with a six-month hiring process means you’re recruiting today for six months in the future. If the numbers work out as planned, you’ll be right-staffed all the time. How nice would that be?
To be successful though, you’ll need to ensure your budget allows for the hiring and training of new staff before the predicted staff turnover. For a recent budget we created, we built in two full-time FTEs to cover our predictive hiring needs.
Remember, the work must be done no matter how many staff members you have. Be proactive and ensure you have the right amount of staff. Predictive Hiring is an HR must to ensure success! Contact SPDSurveyReady@steris.com for a comprehensive Staffing Assessment.
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