According to a latest report, the staffing and recruiting industry market decreased to $119.4 billion from a market size of $151.8 billion in 2020, owing to the Covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic crisis was one of the biggest challenges faced not only by the MedTech staffing companies (Medical Technology sector), but also by other industries as well.
However, the pandemic isn’t the only aspect affecting the staffing industry, retention and talent acquisition poses greater challenges for the industry too, in this context the MedTech staffing. Top four critical MedTech staffing challenges faced in today’s time are listed below along with a solution to tackle them effectively.
1. Staff Shortage
As per an article on the ‘The Washington Post’, there are more than 11 million job openings and only 6 million unemployed people exist, and employers are struggling for more than a year to hire staff to fill in positions.
The article further highlights that staffing shortages in key industries such as hospitality, healthcare, and education have put unprecedented pressure on millions of workers, sparking a wave of labor disputes nationwide.
According to the Labor Department data, the share of Americans looking for a job or have one is 62.4 percent, which is lower than it was in February 2020. The reasons for staff shortages are broad and complex, starting with early retirements, increase in the geriatric population, Covid-related ailments, and deaths.
Additionally, the Great Resignation in 2021 where around 47 million workers quit their jobs in search for flexibility, work-life balance, and increased compensation has impacted staff shortages as well.
Solution:
Adopt a new corporate model where employees can fulfill their personal needs such as work-life balance and job flexibility. According to Gallop, 45 percent of the full-time US employees who worked from home hoped to continue to do so as it offers greater flexibility and reduces burnouts as home provides certain comfort level.
Further, consider improving company culture by organizing quarterly all-team meetings, lunches, field days, etc., as fresh talent are attracted to positive and lively work culture.
2. Talent Retention
Retaining top performers is hard, they tend to jump the ship constantly. Difficulties in talent retention can be due to varied reasons. Dissatisfaction in salary is one of the key issues in talent retention. Absence of right incentives pushes employees to look for new opportunities in the market, thus hampering the turnover rate.
Retention poses a bigger issue if employee quotes an exceptionally high salary, which is out of range for a company. Furthermore, cut-throat competition in the job market to attract the best talent adds on to the MedTech staffing challenges.
Hiring the wrong candidate for a role affects retention as well, and for a company a bad hire can cost 30 percent of the employee’s first year earnings, as per the US Department of Labor. Additionally, no job rotation and unrealistic expectations from employees also results in decrease in talent retention.
Solution:
Effective practices to increase talent retention are to ensure periodic increments, compensations, and rewards. Additionally, fair treatment by managers or supervisors is an essential determinant of retention, as this helps to build trust amongst teammates and in between managers and employees.
According to a Harvard Business Review, companies wanting to address roadblocks to retain employees can look into cognitive technology that tracks sentiment analysis.
3. Healthcare IT Talent Gap
Healthcare IT talent gap is one of the key MedTech staffing challenges. Rapid advancements in technology, along with absence of reskilling or training opportunities in companies has resulted in IT talent gap.
Additionally, lack of mentorship and career advancements results in losing top employees of the company, thereby widening IT talent gap even further. As per the US Labor Department, software engineer shortage in the US is likely to increase to 1.2 million by 2026, and LinkedIn reported that the demand for IT and software skills has augmented by 30.7 percent since 2015.
Solution:
Instead of training new employers, which adds on to the overhead expenses, consider training existing staff for new technologies and with skills necessary for them to be productive.
Additionally, upskilling staff from different work backgrounds to use coding languages or giving them knowledge of medical technologies gives them a chance to seek out different career paths; and to discover new talents. Furthermore, to attract a broader talent base, turn to flexible working environments and remote working options.
4. High Turnover
Employee turnover has a direct impact on company’s profitability and revenue generation. Facets contributing to this are training, hiring expenses, lost sales, etc. The impact on revenue is much higher depending on employee’s salary and position.
Further, a high turnover rate results in low workplace morale. Increased responsibilities and workloads due to lack of trained and active workforce leads to low motivation. Continuation of this work environment fails to attract high-quality talent.
Low number of staff hampers daily operations, lowers productivity rate, and quality of work. This can also hinder customer satisfaction and delayed product deliveries, which eventually results in loss of clients.
Solution:
Employee engagement and satisfaction are effective ways to tackle turnover problems, and thereby counter MedTech staffing challenges. Identifying critical areas of employee engagement supports companies to place resources in key areas to produce the best result and assure retention of high-quality talent.
Further, transparent communication is important for a team and organization to work efficiently and discuss what’s lacking, and improve upon it.
Open communication channels in an organization helps to tackle employee issues better, thus preventing them from leaving. This also improves job satisfaction and decreases turnover rate.
If you’re looking for MedTech staffing or healthcare IT staffing services for your organization, then connect with Arkenea, a top-notch healthcare software development, which also offers staffing solutions. Arkenea specializes in recruiting, acquiring, and retaining top-quality talent to augment the success of clients.