How COVID-19 is changing healthcare staffing

“Now we have formalized this huge redeployment pool that we can tap into during a crisis.” Maxine Carrington, deputy chief human resources officer, Northwell Health

As the pandemic continues to test and strain health systems, leaders are adopting new approaches to staffing and finding ways to better use their own workforce.

At New York-Presbyterian, that has meant reevaluating what is important to the system and how employee performance is judged, David Crawford, vice president of talent acquisition, said during a conference session.

“You may have the technical skills to get the job done,” Crawford said. “I can’t teach you empathy. I can’t teach you compassion. I can’t teach you what it means to be a New YorkPresbyterian employee.”

The system is focusing more on internal mobility and hiring from within, he said. Right now, New York-Presbyterian hires 35% of its employees in-house but wants to bump that number up to 60%.

The pandemic also has forced systems to learn how to better move employees around to cover needs, said Maxine Carrington, deputy chief human resources officer at Northwell Health.

Northwell created a skills database of all of its employees to see who could move to different locations to better respond quickly to staffing needs.

“Now we have formalized this huge redeployment pool that we can tap into during a crisis,” Carrington said. 

Toward a better workplace Creating trust between employers and employees has always been critical to building a positive work environment. See Data Points, p. 31, for insights on how some of this year’s Best Places to Work in Healthcare are performing. Buy a recording of the conference at: ModernHealthcare.com/WorkplaceRecording