Engaging Recruitment and Talent Acquisition Employees in the Anchor Mission
Engaging the individuals at the forefront of recruitment efforts is critical to onboarding an increased number of anchor mission hires from focus geographies into the larger workforce. Talent acquisition managers work to build intentional pipelines of qualified applicants, and recruiters engage directly with those individuals to help navigate the application and interview process. Ensuring a seamless interaction between both departments creates a smoother flow of qualified applicants into open positions.
Training Recruiters to Advance Impact Workforce Goals
After introducing recruiters to the anchor mission framework and building buy-in around local hiring, the next step is to create resources that support recruiters and talent acquisition consultants as they seek to hire local applicants. It is important to distinguish this process as a procedural one based on equitable access to available roles rather than a preferential one that gives priority to certain applicants.
A recruiter toolkit can be added to the general training curriculum for recruiters and should cover the following areas:
Tactical Tools for Local Hiring Success
- Assess yield of applicants from workforce partners.
- Prioritize maintenance, investment, and cultivation for partners referring the most applicants and engaging with Rush HR leads.
- This saves time for talent acquisition professionals as they determine how to engage with partners and prioritizes meetings, events, and general interactions with partners that are the most effective in referring candidates that will complete an application.
- Create designations on Applicants Tracking System (ATS) to identify anchor mission applicants.
- Create website landing pages that more efficiently direct candidates to the application.
- Design webpage that describes different clinical and non-clinical roles so applicants can learn more about them.
Justice-Impacted Individuals
- Identify areas in the application process that have the potential to disqualify individuals with justice-impacted backgrounds, including language that might dissuade these individuals from applying to jobs they are qualified for.
- In collaboration with Legal and Compliance teams, determine the types of prior justice-related offenses that would disqualify an applicant and how much time may need to have lapsed before disregarding the record.
- Employ a case-by-case approach when an applicant shows justice-related offenses in their background check.
Applicants with Disabilities
- Designate a talent acquisition lead to serve as a point of contact for individuals who identify as having a disability. This person can answer questions about access as prospective applicants apply for a role and ensure that there is equity in the hiring process.
- Rush has enacted various marketing campaigns to encourage employees to feel comfortable disclosing disabilities as part of their identity at Rush, which is often an important factor for prospective applicants when deciding to join the health system as an employee.
Beyond justice-impacted individuals and individuals with disabilities, there are other residents who may face difficulty getting through the traditional recruitment process. It is important for institutions to identify opportunities for interventions that can ensure an equitable flow of all candidates through the application process. For many institutions, non-traditional applicants could be closely tied to anchor mission geographies. It is helpful to analyze application trends and observe these connections in order to increase the flow of anchor mission hires.
Formalizing Employee Volunteer Policies
Process of Establishing a Policy for Volunteer Time Off (VTO)
Shaping a volunteerism program as part of community benefit initiatives provides a way to test the idea of volunteer programming before formalizing it as a human resources or benefit policy. At Rush, we have found that aligning employee volunteerism with employee engagement and employee benefits department leads has resulted in the most coordinated approach and has provided momentum to all three initiatives. In our work, we have found that formalizing a volunteer time off policy has financial and organizational implications that should be noted before embarking on the process.
Whether a volunteer program involves a formal policy or not, it is still a worthwhile endeavor that can be coordinated efficiently as a cross-departmental effort. Rush’s volunteer program partners with community-based organizations in the anchor mission geography. Most volunteer opportunities at Rush are with food pantries or with educational organizations operating on the West Side, though Rush has ongoing efforts to expand the variety of volunteer opportunities available to employees as part of the Anchor Mission strategy plan.
Formalizing a VTO Policy
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Employing Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) in Support of the Anchor Mission
Engaging with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives and Employee Resource Groups (ERG) can also strengthen anchor mission initiatives related to employee engagement. At Rush, the West Side Anchor Mission Employee Resource Group was created so that Rush employees could have the opportunity to learn more about community organizations serving the West Side and volunteer to support existing community development efforts. See 6.6 Aligning with Anchor Mission-Adjacent Internal Initiatives to learn more about how to engage ERGs as a tool to advance anchor mission implementation.