Diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) play an important role in healthcare providers’ ability to deliver care that meets their communities’ needs. Building a diverse healthcare system starts with the provider recruitment professionals, their strategies and their processes. With DE&I embedded in workforce strategies, recruitment professionals can help foster more inclusive, representative hiring practices and ultimately, clinical staffs that are more reflective of the communities they serve.
While the ever-changing recruitment landscape requires continuously evolving tactics, these four practices act as a crucial foundation for sourcing, screening and hiring diverse candidates into the workplace.
Develop Equitable & Inclusive Recruitment Strategies
Building a diverse healthcare system isn’t possible without developing diverse and inclusive sourcing and screening strategies. First, it’s important to evaluate your current recruitment strategies, such as where positions are posted and how positions are being promoted, to understand what’s working well and which methods can be improved. By implementing a diverse and inclusive mix of sourcing channels and an equitable screening process, you’ll be able to reach a wider variety of backgrounds and experiences, adding diversity to the candidates you’re interviewing as well as a broader set of skills and knowledge.
Understand Your Candidate
Active listening is a crucial aspect of the recruitment process. One of the first questions you should ask during the conversation should be about the candidate’s motivators, their interests and what is important to them – both professionally and personally. The answers to these questions will allow you to better understand your candidate and how they fit into your community and the organization. It will also help recognize potential barriers as well as any implicit and unconscious bias types. It’s important to hire individuals that recognize the significance of DE&I and ones that will prioritize these practices within their workplace.
Study Policies and Best Practices
Part of leadership’s role is to coach internal hiring authorities and recruitment professionals on inclusion and diversity policies within the healthcare industry. However, it’s also important for provider recruitment professionals to put in time outside of the workplace to stay up to date on DE&I industry standards and best practices through opportunities like conferences, memberships and certifications.
Complete a DEI Certification
Professional certifications can give recruitment professionals added credibility within their organizations and the expertise to create more effective strategies. Certifications typically represent a higher level of expertise and require meeting specific standards, often set by professional associations (such as AAPPR). Typically, certifications require continuing education to maintain the certification and require those who hold the certification to periodically renew it.
In April 2022, AAPPR launched the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Micro Certification Course, specifically to help recruitment professionals advance their DE&I strategies. This advanced certification for those already holding a current CPRP certification provides recruiters with tools they need to create a more diverse and inclusive environment within their respective organizations.
Recruitment professionals have the opportunity to help shape the future of healthcare and advance diversity and inclusion within our community. With a national physician shortage continuing to create challenges in recruitment, it’s crucial to invest in building a diverse healthcare system, and these four approaches are a great first step in doing so.
If you’re an AAPPR member, our organization offers various resources to support your recruitment strategies, and if you’re not an AAPPR member, you can become one today by visiting https://aappr.org/join-now/.