Houston Behavioral Healthcare Hospital finds more clinicians using Workable

The challenge: High-demand, low retention rate

Houston Behavioral Healthcare Hospital provides specialist mental health and psychiatric care to 80+ inpatients and 30+ outpatients. Success is measured in the quality of provision they provide; and demand for their provision is high. But, like many healthcare providers, they struggled to find and retain enough qualified nurses and support staff to meet demand.

Yvonne Castillo joined the hospital as HR Director in July 2014. She quickly formed an effective team for the hospital’s opening at the end of that year. But, as the business grew and bed numbers increased, filling new posts became more of a challenge.

“The whole process involved a lot of manual labor,” says Yvonne. “We’d print off and store resumes and rejection emails in expandable files and in cardboard boxes. Each one would be labeled by the month and year.”

Working with just one other HR colleague, and no recruiting software, their hand to mouth approach to hiring wasn’t sustainable. The catalyst for change came when plans to build a new 80-bed hospital were announced.

“It was clear we needed a more efficient, automated process; to be proactive, rather than reactive,” says Yvonne. “Our remit had doubled. As well as finding high volume, qualified candidates for our day-to-day hiring needs, we also had to start building a specialist team ready for our new facility.”

The solution: Automated hiring software with a powerful reach

With high-volume candidate sourcing a priority, they needed recruiting software that came with powerful reach. Word of mouth recommendations from colleagues working at other hospitals in their Signature Healthcare Group, led them to Workable.

“The HR team in our Dallas hospital had been using Workable for a while,” says Yvonne. “They told us how great it was in general—intuitive, collaborative and streamlined. But what stood out was hearing how far-reaching the job board exposure was and how many candidates they were finding through this alone.”

Keen to put this to the test with their own open roles, they signed up for a free trial.

“I could see immediately how powerful the job advertising was with Workable,” says Yvonne. “In one click you can post a job to multiple job boards and reach a wider pool of candidates.”

Beyond her direct HR team, Yvonne works closely with the hospital’s CNO and 8 department heads. To meet their goal of greater efficiency, they needed a new way of collaborating and communicating their recruiting workflow. Workable provided the solution.

“With Workable I can locate the resumes I like and forward them to the department head on the hiring team for that post,” says Yvonne. “They can comment and I can see what they need me to do and take action straight away.”

“The customizable pipeline inside Workable is also great for transparency and time-saving. I can see in seconds what stage we’re at for each requisition, and add or remove stages depending on the role I’m hiring for—clinical, admin or leadership.”

The outcome: Big savings and a growing pool of talent

As the launch date for their new unit gets nearer, the hospital’s talent pool is growing.

“Using Workable I’ve built up a large pool of highly qualified clinicians—particularly Licensed Vocational Nurses (LVNs) and Registered Nurses (RNs),” says Yvonne. “Most of those are on per diem statuses, but once we open up our new facility we’ll transition them over to full or part-time slots.”

The hospital’s time to hire process is faster and also a lot smoother.

“Being able to reach out directly to applicants through Workable is a big time-saver. I get an immediate response from candidates and can start moving forwards with the next stage faster. Having notifications that feed straight into my Outlook email account also helps.”

There are cost savings too.

“In the past, we used a nursing agency to get us through periods where our staffing levels were too low. But we’ve stopped using the agency now. There’s also no need to pay for premium job boards. We get access to thousands of qualified candidates through Workable’s great range of integrated, free job boards.”

The future: A long-term strategy and better brand recognition

With rich pools of talent growing by the day, the hospital can now shift focus to their long-term hiring strategy. Top of their agenda is reducing the high turnover rate which continues to put pressure on their day-to-day hiring.

“Posting jobs to so many different job boards and sharing on LinkedIn has really helped with our brand recognition,” says Yvonne. “And having access to more candidates gives us a better chance of finding people whose values better match ours, people who are more likely to stay.”

“High turnover is common in our industry. But, using Workable, we’re confident we’ve got the tools we need to make a difference.”