Centralized Recruitment

Background

Hubbell Realty Company is a real estate company in West Des Moines, Iowa, that recently decided to enter the senior housing market and operate seven Highmark Senior Living (Highmark) communities, with plans to expand throughout the central Iowa market. Historically, the company’s recruiting efforts were decentralized, with each community and department managing its own hiring processes. This led to inconsistencies in recruitment practices, inefficiencies, and difficulties in tracking and analyzing recruiting data.

Highmark faced several challenges with its decentralized recruiting approach, including:

• Inconsistent Processes: Each community and department had its own recruitment practices, leading to inconsistencies in candidate experience and hiring standards.
• Inefficiency: Communities and departments independently managed recruiting, resulting in duplicated efforts and fragmented communication.
• Data Fragmentation: Recruitment metrics and candidate information were scattered across communities and departments, making it hard to analyze overall recruiting performance and identify trends.
• Resource Allocation: Recruiting resources were not utilized optimally, with some communities and departments struggling to fill positions while others had excess resources.

Solution

In response to these challenges, Health Dimensions Group^® (HDG^®) was engaged to provide centralized recruitment services to Highmark Senior Living. The key steps in this initiative were:

Creation of a Central Recruiting Team:

• A dedicated central recruiting team was established by HDG to handle all recruitment activities across the senior living locations within Highmark.
• This team consisted of experienced recruiters and compliance coordinators.

Development of Standardized Processes:

• Standardized recruiting processes and best practices were developed and implemented across all communities.
• These included the use of standardized job descriptions, a streamlined interview process, and candidate evaluation criteria.

Implementation of an Applicant Tracking System:

• Highmark adopted a centralized applicant tracking system (ATS) to manage all recruiting activities.
• The ATS provided a platform for job postings, candidate applications, interview scheduling, and tracking of recruitment metrics.

Training and Support:

• All department heads and hiring managers were trained on the new centralized recruiting processes and the recruiters’ use of the ATS.
• Ongoing support was provided to address any issues and ensure smooth adoption.

Communication and Change Management:

• A communication plan was developed to inform all employees about the changes and the benefits of centralizing recruitment.
• Feedback mechanisms were put in place to gather input from communities and continuously improve the process.

Results