HCA Healthcare carries off Innovation in Recruitment Award at the Personnel Today Awards 2023

HCA Healthcare was the winner of the Innovation in Recruitment Award at the Personnel Awards 2023. The judges were particularly won over by the the group’s ‘Fall back in love with nursing’ campaign, which used stories from real nurses to create an emotional connection with its target audience. Here we profile the winner and the runners-up in an extremely competitive category. Sponsored by EY.

WINNER

HCA Healthcare UK

Private hospital group HCA Healthcare UK has nearly 300 hospitals across the UK and US, employing 87,000 nurses and 37,000 doctors. Like many employers in the healthcare sector, the Covid-19 pandemic presented it with a huge recruitment problem, and there were signs that many nurses were considering leaving the profession.

The company wanted to show candidates and existing staff members that HCA understood what health professionals were going through and could offer a desirable working environment and employment proposition. This meant leaving behind previous messaging about the physical aspects of its working environment, and instead focusing on creating an emotional connection with its target audience. The new campaign was called ‘Fall back in love with nursing’ and used stories from real nurses.

It also focused on attracting staff from overseas, especially in areas including paediatrics, oncology and haematology where it has often struggled to find the right candidates. It is incentivising applications with significant welcome bonuses of up to £10,000, and encouraging referrals through increased referral payments.

In 2021 it partnered with the charity Talent Beyond Boundaries to employ 30 healthcare professionals who had been forcibly displaced from their homes in Lebanon. These candidates have been supported through every step of the application progress and fast-tracked visas and English tests were paid for by HCA Healthcare. It has also carried out two recruitment trips to India, resulting in the hire of 80 clinical professionals.

The company has seen its vacancy rate drop from 10.4% to 7.5%, and is now lower than it was pre-pandemic. The international campaign has had a positive impact on staff retention and its efforts to support disadvantaged groups has been rewarded with staff loyalty.

RUNNERS-UP

Civil Service Fast Stream in partnership with PeopleScout

The Civil Service Fast Stream (CSFS) is one of the biggest graduate schemes in the UK and every year it needs to attract candidates for 1,000 vacancies across 15 streams.

Working with PeopleScout, the CSFS aimed to deliver a branding campaign that would challenge misperceptions and help more people realise that a graduate role in the civil service could be for them. The resulting brand was ‘You, unlimited’.

Activity was focused around an influencer-led social media campaign – an innovative and cost-effective approach that would not usually be adopted by the civil service, in order to challenge perceptions and increase reach among its target audience. The campaign saw student influencer Vee Kativhu spend a day with three Fast Streamers and produce a ‘day in the life video’, which was posted to her YouTube channel and shared on her LinkedIn and Instagram profiles. This was followed up by engaging 12 nano-influencers who reshaped and shared the video.

The influencer video led by Vee received 18,056 views in less than 48 hours, with 799 likes. Over the four-week campaign, the videos by Vee and the other influencers achieved tremendous reach and received comments from people thinking about applying for the CSFS and praising its approach to a more diverse civil service. It has since seen an increase in applicants from ethnic minority groups, lower socio-economic backgrounds, the LGBTQ+ community, and those with disabilities.

Entain in partnership with McLaren F1 Team

Entain, the organisation behind brands including PartyCasino and PartyPoker, recognised that the McLaren F1 team, whom it sponsors, had a shared desire to increase female representation.

They launched a new talent development programme, the Extain x McLaren F1 Team returnship, to help encourage more women to consider a STEM career and to take advantage of the increasing number of women with an interest in F1. The six-month programme places participants in a single role where they are able to gain knowledge and access to networks through their induction, team projects and through a meet the leaders initiative. All delegates have a team buddy, a mentor and access to 1:1 transitional coaching through a digital platform. Work-life balance is supported through home and hybrid working and flexible working is available. Recognising that this audience can be hard to reach, its marketing campaign ran across five pillars: recruitment sites, programmatic ads, press coverage, elevating their employer brands and internal communications.

More than 100 women have applied for a returnship placement. Of these, 39% were Asian and 6% were Black African or Black Caribbean. The applicants’ prior experience ranged from under five years (23%) to 20 years or more (6%), and career gaps ranged from under two years (23%) to over 10 years (4%).

GKN Aerospace in partnership with Dawson Walker

GKN Aerospace, which manufacturers aircraft parts, is seeking to invest in the sustainable future of flight and wanted to raise its profile as a local employer after developing an ‘aerospace village’ in Papendrecht, the Netherlands.

Working with creative agency Dawson Walker, it sought to develop its employer brand externally through a combination of advertising on billboards, wrapped electric buses and community event sponsorship, and internally through workshops, town hall briefings, emails and posters to encourage referrals. The resulting brand, “Making aerospace fit for the natural world”, uses a series of powerful images featuring both planes and wildlife to bring its message to life.

It sponsored a high-profile community event near the GKN Aerospace site that featured a light display. Target groups were invited to watch the display from its panoramic boardroom, giving it an opportunity to promote the company as a great place to work. It also used a programmatic digital banner campaign to enhance its reach online, which directed users to a bi-lingual landing page.

The company has seen a 37.5% increase in applications and thousands of visitors to its landing page. Hires have increased by 46.5%.

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