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Why OnShift Employ is the go-to hiring tool for one EMS provider

In one case study, the talent acquisition platform helped an EMS provider reduce shift vacancies and recruit more qualified EMS personnel

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Talent acquisition software can help EMS agencies make the recruiting and hiring process smoother, faster and more efficient.

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Sponsored by Medline

By Margarita Birnbaum for EMS1 BrandFocus

It takes more than a well-designed website, snazzy testimonial videos and a strong presence on job boards to run a well-oiled recruiting and hiring operation for an EMS agency. These days, human resources professionals have to work smarter to attract and retain good people, and that means they have to stay on top of their tech tool game.

Those who don’t, ignore the changes in technology at their peril. That’s why recruiting and hiring managers at SeniorCare EMS took a hard look at what the company had been doing for years.

Soon, they were learning the ins and outs of OnShift Employ, a talent acquisition solution designed by healthcare software company OnShift. The decision to ditch the painfully slow and labor-intensive hiring culture that relied heavily on employees to manually process job applications and vet potential dispatchers, paramedics, EMTs and other EMS personnel paid off for SeniorCare EMS in significant ways that went beyond saving big on their marketing budget.

“The greatest thing about OnShift Employ is that it is a one-stop shop for our recruiting and hiring needs,” says Ross Terranova, human resources manager of SeniorCare EMS, a medical emergency transportation provider based in the Bronx.

Considering that agencies are competing for the same top-notch candidates in an increasingly tight labor market, it’s critical that EMS providers stay on top of the latest, most effective hiring tools to get in front of more qualified EMTs, paramedics, dispatchers and other EMS professionals. But there’s another reason why agencies have to stay ahead of the pack when it comes to hiring technology.

By now, millennials represent a significant portion of the American labor force, and they expect their employers to be at least as tech savvy as they are and embrace digital technology as much as they do because they want to live their lives more efficiently. And the generations coming after may be even more demanding about the use of cutting-edge tools at work. EMS organizations who don’t get on that tech train risk losing ground to competitors in a field that in the coming years is expected to see faster-than-average employment growth of EMT and paramedic jobs than those in other occupations.

CUSTOM FEATURES, MORE EFFICIENCY

Recently, SeniorCare EMS assessed the effectiveness of OnShift Employ on its operations. One of the more notable results of that review suggests that the medical emergency transportation agency improved its brand reputation, in part due to features that allow EMS providers to tailor workflows to their needs.

Since using OnShift Employ, SeniorCare EMS saw more applications coming in for jobs it had posted. In addition, it now takes them just hours instead of days or weeks to present an offer. “OnShift Employ allows us to communicate with the employee or the prospective employee on all steps of their application, as well as that being documented in their individual profile,” said Terranova.

Given that EMS agencies are competing for the same small pool of quality paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers and other professionals, it’s critical for recruiters to quickly get in front of as many of them as they can. OnShift Employ makes that possible because it allows agencies to simultaneously post vacancies on multiple popular job boards such as Indeed, Monster and ZipRecruiter.

BENEFITS RECRUITERS AND CANDIDATES

Terranova didn’t measure his department’s success using just efficiency metrics.

Results from the platform’s efficacy evaluation suggest that SeniorCare EMS recruiters and other human resources staff were also happy with OnShift Employ, in part because the behavioral assessments incorporated into it allowed them to identify quality candidates. As the recruiting and hiring process became more efficient, SeniorCare EMS human resources personnel shifted 20 percent of its recruiting budget to strategies and marketing campaigns that helped them attract talented, newly-certified EMTs and gave them more bang for their buck.

The consistent workflows, automated processes and candidate assessments in the early stages of the vetting process also had short- and long-term benefits for hiring managers.

Because OnShift Employ collects information in more efficient ways, they had more comprehensive insights that helped them hire the right people for the positions they had to fill, lower turnover rates and have better shift coverage. In fact, the data from the assessment suggest that OnShift Employ helped SeniorCare EMS reduce its shift vacancies by 35 percent.

There are other OnShift Employ features that may have helped SeniorCare EMS create more positive recruiting and hiring experiences for their staff and candidates applying for jobs at the company.

For example, the platform can create a database of candidates that human resources staffers can use to reach out to desirable candidates when the company has open positions. Hiring managers can see how far along candidates are in the vetting process and send them reminders about what the next steps will be. The platform also makes it easier for managers and their new employees to keep up with onboarding responsibilities, local, state and federal regulations and background checks, among other new-hire requirements.

SeniorCare EMS’ review suggests that OnShift Employ also hit the mark with potential employees who sought jobs at the medical transportation company.

While that was evident in the increased number of applications SeniorCare EMS received, the results of the company’s evaluation suggest that the job candidates were happy with their experience because the communications with the hiring staff and managers was sufficiently constant and convenient. And that suggests that OnShift Employ’s user-friendly interfaces and communications tools work just as well on mobile devices as they do on desktops and laptops, meeting or exceeding the expectations of candidates who expect their employers to keep up with the latest advances in digital hiring technology.

In the end, Terranova said, the long-term benefits of having better recruiting and hiring processes and standards to hire the cream of the crop among, EMTs, paramedics and other EMS professionals trickle down to the people EMS professionals serve.

Learn more about OnShift Employ EMS hiring software.

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