HR rapidly hires to strengthen hospital team during pandemic
This team of eight contributes to the care you receive if you come to the Hospital. Without Human Resources hiring the right people – who embody our core values of compassion, respect, accountability and teamwork – the high-quality care you expect would not be delivered.
The pandemic presented a huge challenge to HR who modeled different scenarios of staff absenteeism due to COVID-19 and a potential increase in critically ill patients. Working with leaders at the hospital, HR rapidly recruited and hired 90 staff in six weeks. To put this effort into perspective, the HR team typically hires around 200 staff in any given year.
This recruitment process involved a large ad campaign to the general public and to post-secondary health care students who had some experience here already. Instead of in-person interviews, they did hiring over the phone or by video call. Most of the new staff were hired as Health Care Aides, however staff were also hired in other support areas such as Environmental Services, Dietary, and Facilities.
The new staff also needed to be trained and oriented as safely and as efficiently as possible. Traditional group orientation was not an option as a result of COVID-19 and the need to bring in staff quickly. The team made the switch to doing almost everything remotely, using the phone and online training modules. They also worked with clinical educators to provide in-person training in small groups to maintain physical distancing guidelines.
We are so grateful that Human Resources found us the extra talent we needed for the pandemic and for supporting our staff. Healthcare is only as good as those who provide it and our HR group does a fantastic job of finding the best.
Missing from photo are Sabrina S.and Ann Marie S.
