Allied health professionals make up over 60 percent of the health workforce, yet they’re often underappreciated, underpaid, and overworked. The impact of their jobs and contributions is insufficiently researched and talked about, pushing them to the margins. 

These practitioners provide specialized expertise, which is essential for comprehensive patient care and healthcare delivery. They ensure each individual receives a personalized experience, as well as that the overall operations flow smoothly. 

However, organizations and hospitals worldwide struggle with recruiting and retaining allied health professionals. The 2022 AMN Healthcare survey found that 34 percent of facilities are experiencing a great deal of allied health shortage, especially among therapists, laboratory technologists, and imaging technologists. 

The most common problems they encounter are:

• The current labor shortage
• Longer times to fill positions
• Staff burnout
• Candidate quality
• High turnover
• Low morale

Even though many facilities are implementing different strategies to address these issues, such as additional hiring incentives, they still struggle with recruitment. This article analyzes what it takes to mitigate these problems and attract and retain quality allied health employees.

Why Does the Candidate Cultural Fit Matter with Allied Health Professionals?

Whether an employee is compatible with a company’s goals, values, missions, and workplace culture is crucial, regardless of the industry. The same applies to allied health. 

The candidate’s cultural fit impacts the healthcare team’s success and whether the new employee will integrate smoothly into the work environment. It’s necessary to assess whether the perspectives and qualities a candidate holds highly align with the facility’s value system. 

That alignment will also influence the day-to-day interactions in the workplace and employees’ commitment to cultivating patient trust and yielding superior outcomes.

Having opposite or misaligned objectives and expectations negatively impacts both the candidate and the employer. According to Robert Walter’s study, 73 percent of professionals have left a job due to a poor culture fit. Moreover, 82 percent have worked for an organization where they disliked the workplace culture, and 67 percent feel they’ve been misled during their onboarding. 

And while it’s always possible to find a more compatible candidate, this can be an expensive process. – Replacing an employee can range from one-half to two times their annual salary.

A poor cultural fit doesn’t only result in worker’s job dissatisfaction and high costs for the company. It also impacts performance and the quality of care. 

Employees who feel at ease in the workplace achieve better results and are less likely to resign. Moreover, workers have a higher respect for the company and are happier when interacting with coworkers and other individuals they come in touch with. 

Challenges in Allied Health Recruitment: Beyond Hard Skills

The hiring process in the allied health sector isn’t solely about assessing technical qualifications; it’s about finding the ideal spot between competence and compatibility. However, recruiters face multifaceted challenges, going beyond the traditional boundaries of skill assessment, which demands a deeper evaluation of candidates.

Cultural Fit as a Pervasive Challenge

One of the critical challenges in allied health recruitment is finding candidates who not only possess the fundamental technical skills but also seamlessly fit within the organizational culture. Allied health organizations and facilities increasingly recognize the importance of cultural alignment in achieving optimal patient care outcomes. 

But identifying this elusive cultural fit can be highly complex. – It requires assessing values, behaviors, and interpersonal dynamics to ensure candidates excel professionally and integrate seamlessly into the team.

Balancing Diversity and Cultural Fit

The cultural fit is crucial, but recruiters must strike a delicate balance between it and the healthcare organizations’ broader diversity and inclusion goals. The challenge lies in celebrating diversity while ensuring that new hires align with the core values and objectives of the medical facility. 

Achieving this equilibrium is vital to fostering an inclusive environment that values differing perspectives without compromising the unity of purpose. Moreover, it’s necessary for a smooth continuation of patient care and delivery. 

The Hidden Costs of Poor Cultural Fit

Recruiters must also grapple with the hidden costs associated with poor cultural fit. When a candidate does not align with the organization’s values and culture, it can lead to conflicts, reduced team cohesion, and higher turnover rates. 

These repercussions disrupt the work environment and may affect the quality of patient care, making it imperative for recruiters to recognize and address these potential issues during the recruitment process.

Evaluating Adaptability and Resilience

Allied health professionals often work in dynamic and high-pressure environments. Recruiters must gauge a candidate’s adaptability and resilience beyond their technical proficiency. 

How well can a candidate navigate unexpected challenges or swiftly adapt to new protocols? These qualities are essential in ensuring that healthcare teams remain agile and can deliver high-quality care under varying circumstances.

How to Assess Whether a Candidate is a Good Cultural Fit for Allied Health

Assessing a candidate’s cultural fit is highly challenging, involving a complex evaluation. It requires more than mere technical competence, delving into values, behaviors, and their resonance with the organization’s culture.

Here’s how medical facilities and recruiters can do it:

Behavioral Interviews

Behavioral interviews are critical for cultural fit assessments. Recruiters should craft questions that tell how candidates have navigated challenging situations in the past. 

By analyzing their past behaviors, recruiters gain insights into how candidates might handle similar scenarios within the allied health environment. For instance, a question might inquire about a situation when a candidate had to balance the patient care demands with ethical dilemmas, revealing their clinical acumen and moral compass.

Values Assessment

A candidate’s alignment with the facility’s core values is paramount. Recruiters can gauge this aspect through surveys or structured interviews that explore their beliefs and principles.

For instance, an organization with patient-centered care should prioritize the candidate’s commitment to this ethos. Hence, recruiters should ensure that the organization’s values are transparently communicated throughout the recruitment process to attract candidates who resonate with its mission.

Team Compatibility

A candidate’s potential for team compatibility could impact overall performance, job satisfaction, and retention. That goes beyond their individual capabilities and extends to their capacity to work harmoniously within diverse healthcare teams. 

To evaluate this, recruiters might employ scenarios or role-play exercises that simulate real-world interdisciplinary interactions. Assessing a candidate’s ability to communicate effectively, collaborate, and resolve conflicts within a team context is essential.

Reference Checks

Reference checks offer a valuable lens into a candidate’s cultural fit. Conversations with former colleagues and supervisors can reveal how a candidate’s values and behaviors have manifested in their previous roles. Recruiters should seek specific examples of how candidates have contributed to team dynamics and upheld the organization’s cultural principles. These insights provide a nuanced understanding of a candidate’s potential fit within the new allied health setting.

Continuous Evaluation

Cultural fit assessment should not be confined to the initial stages of recruitment but should persist throughout the candidate’s journey. Frequent check-ins and feedback loops, both during the probationary period and beyond, ensure that candidates align initially, adapt, and flourish within the allied health sector. This ongoing evaluation promotes cultural sustainability and a sense of belonging among the healthcare team.

5 Strategies for Improving Recruitment in Allied Health to Ensure Cultural Fit

Medical facilities and recruiters must assess and enhance their overall recruitment processes to ensure each employee is a good culture fit. The following five strategies will help accomplish that objective.

1. Prioritize Honesty

Even though the allied health workforce shortage is an alarming problem, recruiters shouldn’t force recruiting any candidate that meets the technical skills criteria. Instead, they should be transparent about the medical facility’s goals, expectations, workplace culture and values,

Moreover, recruiters should encourage honesty and ask candidates whether the job role and work environment match their lifestyle, needs, and aspirations. That transparency should remain throughout the contract, allowing employees to express their concerns and address issues before they exacerbate.

2. Foster Cultural Diversity Through International Recruitment

In an increasingly globalized healthcare landscape, embracing cultural diversity is essential. Recruiters should actively seek talent from diverse cultural backgrounds. 

International recruitment can infuse fresh perspectives and broaden the cultural spectrum within the healthcare team. It’s a strategy that enhances cultural fit and enriches the organization’s ability to provide patient-centered care to a diverse population.

3. Develop Comprehensive Assessment Tools

Crafting assessment tools that encompass both technical competencies and cultural alignment is essential. Recruiters should design interview questions and evaluation methods that dig deeper into a candidate’s values, adaptability, and collaboration skills. 

Assessments should gauge a candidate’s individual prowess but also their potential to thrive within an interdisciplinary healthcare team.

4. Leverage Multidisciplinary Panels

Recruitment panels should comprise a diverse array of healthcare professionals from various allied health disciplines. Their collective expertise can offer multifaceted insights into a candidate’s cultural fit. Panel discussions can reveal nuanced aspects of a candidate’s disposition, ensuring that their values align with the organization and the broader healthcare ecosystem.

5. Provide Professional Development and Growth

Beyond assessing cultural fit during recruitment, healthcare facilities should invest in ongoing professional development and growth opportunities. This strategy ensures that employees continue to align with the organization’s evolving culture and values. 

Fostering a culture of learning and improvement allows healthcare organizations to retain and nurture talent that contributes to a harmonious and patient-centric work environment.

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Allied health workforce shortage has been plaguing the sector even before the pandemic but likely won’t slow down in the following years. That may push recruiters to hire any job applicant that meets at least some criteria, but that’s not the best solution. In fact, it could result in a poor cultural fit, job dissatisfaction, and turnover. 

Instead, medical facilities and recruiters should focus on improving recruiting processes and assessment tools to identify the most compatible candidates. These efforts and strategies should encompass analyzing soft and hard skills, but more importantly, whether the job applicant shares relevant objectives, values, and expectations.