Winning the war for talent with technology

Attraction, engagement, retention. Three seemingly simple words. Yet when presented in the context of the healthcare industry, they take on deeper significance.

Fundamental challenges face healthcare employers in 2024, not least of which is an acute shortage of skilled workers.

The 2023 Skills Priority List, produced by Jobs and Skills Australia, revealed the most severe shortages nationwide were seen among health professionals, where 82% of occupations lacked workers. This included specialist physicians, radiographers, general practitioners, and countless others. Also classified as ‘in shortage’ were registered nurses in all specialty areas.

It’s little wonder that healthcare employers are re-doubling their efforts to retain existing talent and position themselves in the best way possible to attract fresh candidates. While these deep-rooted challenges are not easily resolved, a human capital management (HCM) suite can help ease some of these talent pressures.

What is a HCM suite and how can it help?

A HCM suite is used by HR professionals and business leaders to automate, manage, and analyse HR functions and people-related processes. Although the functionality and scope of the various HCM suites on the market vary, their primary function is to help organisations attract, develop, engage, retain and manage their workers — all while improving compliance and overall business performance.

The benefits of a HCM suite for healthcare employers are extensive:

Improvements to the employee experience

Employee engagement is a by-product of a rewarding employee experience (EX). HCM suites play a key role in bolstering communication and connection with frontline employees. Whether it’s improving autonomy with self-service tools, understanding what matters most to your employees with customisable survey forms, or offering benefits that genuinely make a difference to the lives of workers — such as access to earned wages — a HCM suite like Humanforce can help administer, track and support all elements of the EX.

Compliance confidence

As an industry that relies on 24/7 shift work, a range of conditions apply within healthcare awards and EAs, including shift penalties, shifts after midnight, and enforcing minimum rest periods. Humanforce’s award interpretation engine automates complex calculations to ensure payment of employees is accurate and entitlement obligations are met.

Employers must keep records relating to whether employees hold a range of certifications and qualifications to ensure they are eligible to work. Holding qualifications in Humanforce enables not just tracking and reporting but also the ability to send alerts when qualifications expire.

Workforce optimisation

When caring for others is the top priority, it’s critical to ensure shifts are properly staffed and that employees themselves are not over-burdened. HCM suites can help with intelligent rostering based on predictive demand modelling, previous work patterns, staff qualifications and staff availability. Even better, employees are empowered to choose and bid on available shifts. In addition, tracking time and attendance via mobile phones or kiosks can help managers accurately monitor operations on-the-go to ensure the right people are in the right place at the right time.

Data-driven decision making

A HCM suite houses data that is essential for the smooth running of large entities like hospitals. Using workforce analytics and sophisticated reporting tools means trends, threats and opportunities can be identified and solutions formed. Whether it’s tracking labour costs in real time, building out cost-effective rosters based on historical data, or checking agency usage and staff attendance summaries — to name just a few of the reports available from Humanforce — smarter decisions and greater efficiency are the end result.

The talent crunch is not going away anytime soon. For that reason alone, it’s never been more important to provide the right tools and technology to HR and operations teams.

For more information visit: www.humanforce.com.

Image credit: iStock.com/SDI Productions