How Healthcare Mergers Can Affect Your Hiring Practices

Hospital mergers are exploding in healthcare. In 2017, 115 hospitals and health systems announced M&A transactions. The trend toward M&A in healthcare has been rising since 2010, with a 70 percent increase in these transactions. With the M&A trend taking hold within the healthcare industry, how does this affect hiring practices by employers?

Just Merged? What Does This Mean for Hiring?

When health systems merger, it can be a very challenging situation. Both internal realignment and resulting personnel changes can decrease staff levels. For example, according to Christina DePaquale, a professor at Emory College and author of “The Effects of Hospital Consolidation on Labor Market Outcomes,” the “number of RNs (12 percent) and LPNs (18 percent) decrease after a true hospital merger.”

What’s worse is that after the initial decrease, refilling these vacancies may prove difficult. Reasons for this recruitment difficulty range from former nurses finding other positions or leaving the labor market to difficulty attracting top talent due to perceived corporate disarray.

Help Wanted: How Does a Merger Impact Hiring and Recruitment

For healthcare systems, hiring and recruitment after a merger can be complicated. First and foremost, it may be necessary to do an intake of all current employees, since all are now part of a newly merged organization. This can be a stressful process for all parties involved (administrators and medical professionals) but necessary to avoid redundancies in personnel.

Once an initial intake of current employees is completed, it is time to reach out and find new hires. During this process, it is vital for a health system to advertise and present a unified front. Thus, branding should be completed to reflect the new entity. With this strategy, prospective employees are less likely to feel the environment is still in flux and uncertain.

Lastly, when looking to recruit, diversity – especially geographically – is critical. It is important for hiring managers to be aware of the pitfalls of recruiting talent from previously competing hospitals. For example, workplace stress levels can increase when employees from former competitors work side-by-side, causing them to become competitive with each other. Thus, it is essential to keep this in mind when recruiting and hiring.

Moving Forward

Mergers are becoming the norm in the healthcare industry. Thus, it is important for employers to evaluate how these transactions affect their recruitment and hiring practices. By following a comprehensive plan that accounts for all merger concerns and issues, a smooth merger can be achieved.

Has Your Organization Recently Merged?

Are you looking for new talent? If so, contact the healthcare recruiting experts at National Recruiters. At National Recruiters, we provide our clients with talented and experienced medical professionals. Contact us today to learn more!

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