‘Securing Workforce Management Buy-In—The INs and OUTs of Before and After
If your healthcare organization is looking to improve locums processes and you’re considering a new workforce management system, it cannot be overstated that buy-in is crucial to success—both before and after purchase.
There’s no denying that change management is hard. But it’s a lot harder if key stakeholders are left out of the selection and evaluation. We’ve seen time and again with our clients: who you involve in decision-making at the front end directly impacts adoption post-purchase.
Decisions made at the systems level in a silo are inevitably harder to justify, and not considering the motivation driving the decision leads to the wrong stakeholders involved pre-purchase. Both can impact downstream adoption.
It takes a village to reach a consensus (or does it)?
Let’s face it, it’s not possible to have every person who wants to weigh in on the decision involved from the get-go. But there are certain parameters you can follow to ensure the right internal decision-makers take part at the right time.
- With an investment of this scale, it’s common for higher-level leaders to be the first to reach out to a solutions provider—this can include a VP of Recruitment, a Senior Finance Director, a System Director or even a System Physician.
- Once an initial meeting is in place, if possible, you’ll want that same leader to attend.
- You’ll also want to designate an “evangelist” to be involved. This person does not necessarily have to be a final decision-maker, but should be someone who is aware of which stakeholders (credentialing, finance, practice leaders, etc.) need to participate in the pre-purchase evaluation process.
- It’s also important to ensure any additional individuals involved in the process at a leadership level are identified from the start and part of the preliminary meetings.
In this way, you establish a small core group with specific roles and can then leverage your evangelist to share feedback “up the ladder” from a larger target audience.
The straw the broke the locums process: persistent challenges force a breaking point
To help you know your “who” of a new solution even better, be sure you know your “why.”
It’s a bit like the wild, wild west
The reality is that many healthcare organizations are set up in a way that makes the locums process burdensome at best and downright painful at worst. It’s this dynamic that prompts them to finally consider another option.
What makes this so onerous? To start, the person in charge of handling locums is typically tasked with the responsibility in addition to their existing job—whether they’re a recruiter, a sourcer, on the recruiting side, or in a full-time position.
Adding to that challenge is the fact that multiple agencies are usually involved, leading to multiple contracts with varying terms, bill rates, and fine print stipulations. This lack of standardization makes it frustrating and time-consuming to stay on top of available talent, locums charges, and paperwork trails.
The difficulties don’t end there. Locums management is further complicated because most communication comes through a disjointed patchwork of email correspondence and phone calls, making it impossible to have one source of truth for provider work dates, contract records, and credentialing.
When “anything goes” there goes the budget
The result of a disjointed locums process is a lack of visibility and loss of control.
This directly impacts budgeting, with organizations usually realizing (often far too late) that locums spend has far exceeded budget parameters.
Without a solid recruiting strategy, it’s not uncommon for systems to over-rely on locums, which ends up being costlier than it needs to be. Lack of reporting capabilities or visibility into locums usage doesn’t help matters.
At the same time, haphazard communication protocols result in a loss of control, especially when dealing with providers not showing up or agencies shifting doctors to the highest bidder.
Understanding these issues, and whether any or all of them contribute to the WHY behind your organization’s desire for change, will help inform which stakeholders are involved at the front end—leading to better agreement on the back end.
Rallying the team around your new investment
Once you’ve signed on the dotted line for your new workforce management system, it’s time to get your internal team on board and reaping the benefits.
If the right individuals were brought to the table from the start (some to weigh in, some just to be informed that change is coming), you’ll find much less friction during rollout.
However, there will always be those who are resistant to adoption if they feel they weren’t part of the initial decision. That’s why proactive change management should start before a new solution is ever finalized.
This includes an initial email sent from the System Director (or similar leader) explaining to all impacted on the team what will happen in the coming weeks, including a detailed timeline. From there, schedule engagement meetings, as appropriate, to talk through who will be on the implementation team, their responsibilities, their contact information, and the plan for the technology build-out.
Follow this plan and periodically do a “temperature check” to determine how things are progressing and whether any plan revisions are needed.
Keep in mind that the technology provider you partner with will also have a significant impact on post-purchase adoption success. So be sure you choose one who can guarantee there will be no disruption to patient care.
Blazing a new locums trail: 3 considerations before making a switch
If your organization is thinking about new technology to streamline locums management, here are three points to keep in mind:
- Smaller organizations may have a harder time getting buy-in. It’s a close-knit group, where more people feel as if they should have decision-making authority. Smaller organizations are also used to operating in silos, which might be hard to overcome.
- Bigger organizations are used to enterprise decision-making, so while there are more stakeholders involved, reaching consensus is often much easier, as is the post-decision rollout.
- Whatever your size, do not underestimate the value of standard processes that can streamline every facet of locums recruiting “from req to check” to give your team more time to focus on the most important parts of their roles. A true workforce solution covers planning and strategy, and provides process consistency for greater efficiency.
At Syncx, we make it a priority to understand your current process and custom build a workforce management solution that ensures locums recruiting seamlessly integrates with your workflows. Instead of taking the industry-common 90-days to stand up your new solution, we have you up and running in four weeks while providing deep implementation support.
If you’re ready to see how green the grass can be with a revolutionary locums management platform at your fingertips, schedule your complimentary 15-minute call with a Syncx customer solutions specialist today.
