Healthcare facilities sending urgent needs for help. Scribbling notes, while calling and texting to try to reach an available nurse. Having spent most of my career in the healthcare staffing industry, I know firsthand the limits of traditional staffing models and the reality of the nursing shortage. Thanks to a college-age son who was a frequent Amazon shopper, in 2016, I saw how technology could help solve the problem and better address worker needs.
What has changed? What is today’s talent looking for?
As the gig economy grows larger — especially as we emerge from the pandemic — more workers are saying, “No, thank you” to traditional ways of working. They’re looking for different options that better meet their needs, such as flexible scheduling, location choices and more immediate access to pay.
They are demanding changes that are difficult for many staffing firms and clients to adjust to. Most of us resist change. It’s understandable. We’re already so busy — who has time to learn a new approach? But if your business is providing supplemental staff, you may not have a choice.
Fortunately, easy-to-use technology is available to help — tools that align with the needs and preferences of an increasingly techsavvy workforce, supporting hiring, paying and other business functions with far greater efficiency and scale.
Seeing the writing on the wall in terms of talent expectations and technology’s power to make life easier, I set Gale Healthcare Solutions on a new path — developing an app that connects fully credentialed healthcare workers with healthcare facilities in need of staff — at the click of a button.
Since launching, our technology-based staffing model has attracted 40,000 healthcare professionals and enabled us to expand on a national scale. It offers two key features that are increasingly important to today’s workers:
More flexibility. Some of our staff work with us on a full-time basis. Many have permanent jobs elsewhere, or want part-time work, and so they only accept assignments that fit their schedule. Because their skills are in such high demand, others opt for travel assignments that allow them to experience new places. No matter their situations, what they all want is more flexibility to choose when and where they work. Our technology provides that. Our staff get notified in real-time of work options they might not otherwise even know existed. The result is more control for the nurse, more shifts getting covered, and ultimately, more patients getting the care they deserve.
Same-day pay. In an era when people can pay bills or send money to others anytime and anywhere with a smartphone, why should someone have to wait days or weeks to get paid by an employer? With today’s technology, we can track time and attendance in real time and pay caregivers electronically right after they finish working. We’ve been a leader in offering same-day pay, and it’s why many of our nurses say they choose Gale Healthcare. No matter what type of staffing you provide, expect that workers will increasingly be looking for a same-day pay option. Companies that fail to provide this will likely find they are being passed over in favor of companies that do.
If your staffing model is still based on phone calls, paper logs and other traditional staffing approaches, make 2022 the year you embrace the sea change underway. And you don’t have to start from scratch. There are many technology options available in the market today — our own is available via license agreements. No matter what solution you choose, the important thing is that we, as an industry, adapt to the demands of today’s workforce so we can continue to deliver for the clients we serve.
Do it right and well and you will be in a better position to attract today’s talent to your team.
