A recent article by Bain & Company shows that companies that take key steps to accelerate through a recovery emerge as performance leaders. What steps can your organization take now to stay relevant in your industry? We have a few ideas...
Diversification has helped the staffing industry through downturns
Good staffing and recruitment firms can endure competitive threats and market fluctuations and always bounce back. But what happens when major economic disruptions occur? What happens when whole specialties of providers are temporarily out of work? Do healthcare systems automatically pick up the phone when demand for healthcare providers tick back up? After 15 years in healthcare I can honestly say they wont unless you have stayed in engaged (who remembers 2009-2010?).
In the past 10 years, the healthcare staffing and recruiting industry has seen diversification of services proliferate. As a form of portfolio diversification, ancillary services contributes to a flattening out of demand fluctuations. Top staffing and recruiting firms strategically align themselves by offering peripheral services their client may otherwise outsource to someone else. RPO, Pay-rolling, IC compliance/credentialing services, MSP/VMS and float pool management are becoming more common among the more successful players in the market and have helped soften the blow caused by Covid-19 disruptions. These strategic services may not drive major revenue growth. However, what they do is strengthen relationships with clients as well as the opportunity to provide expertise in addressing provider employment demand swings. There are a variety of ways you can engage with clients outside of traditional staffing. Below are ways our technology can support other service lines.
Offering Less Traditional Strategic Service Lines
Given the dynamic nature of healthcare staffing... 30 day contracts and out clauses, fickle seasonality, reimbursement legislation, turn-over in administration; anything you can do to promote a long term relationship will help you weather any major changes. While these strategic services may not drive major revenue growth. What they do provide is that ongoing relationship with clients as well as the opportunity to provide expertise in addressing provider employment demand swings.
Robert Kiyosaki once said "It's not how much money you make, but how much money you keep."
...The same can be said about customers.
The following are services staffing firms are adding either through acquisition or organic growth that have had a positive net effect on their customer retention.
MSP/VMS: Master contracting has always been strategically aligned with Contingent staffing. But with the explosion of software development and tech investment, cutting edge solutions like Kimedics provide a white label licensed solution. Kimedics scheduler creates collaboration at the shift level that typical VMS systems do not.
RPO: Agencies have large flexible pools of recruiting professionals that are easy to re-deploy to other specialties or recruiting profiles. Plus agencies can be much more efficient with ATS systems and AI candidate searching than a health system can so they will always have that technological advantage.
Credentialing/compliance outsourcing: Agencies that have an internal CVO and have leveraged it to their clients have probably had the stickiest relationship of them all. These are long term low margin contracts that do not fluctuate. Kimedics allows providers to self serve and grant permissions across multiple collaborators reducing administrative work and confusion in storing documents.
Payroll: The process to outsource payroll and underwriting providers when health delivery organizations cannot employ providers may not have large margins. However, these providers they need to run through outsourcing are still valuable to them in the long run. Many times these provider relationships fill more than moonlighting shifts and can be important relationships. Kimedics Scheduler and Roster Management tracks all provider relationships while tracking time & attendance. Integrated Time & Attendance automates payroll calculations.
Float Pool Management: Although the demand for a particular float pool specialty can crater along with a specialty, the health delivery client will want to maintain their float pool database to quickly ramp up when demand picks back up. Kimedics scheduler manages your provider roster, statuses, schedules and time & attendance while providers enjoy a simple mobile scheduling interface.
Staffing firms already have the foundation and experience to adopt these processes. Many times it takes only a small technology investment to automate processes. and create a collaborative environment in delivering these services. Reach out to us to see how Kimedics can support your staffing firm’s strategic offerings.