Recruitment And Retention Paper

The public health workforce is a vital part of the public health system ("Recruitment and Retention", 2017). Protection of the public’s health depends on maintaining a sufficient number of workers capable of delivering essential public health services ("Recruitment and Retention", 2017). The recruitment of qualified and capable individuals into the field of public health and the retention of these individuals within the public health workforce are two important elements public health organizations must address to fulfill their responsibilities to the public ("Recruitment and Retention", 2017). Time and resources for pursuing recruitment and retention efforts may be limited ("Recruitment and Retention", 2017). In order to maximize the potential for success, ideally, recruitment and retention activities would be informed by evidence about influences on public health workers’ employment decisions ("Recruitment and Retention", 2017). There is a well-documented workforce crisis facing nearly all mental health providers, from small community agencies to larger state-run hospitals, across the country (Kadis, 2017). Staff shortages affect all levels of professionals, including psychiatrists, social workers, and psychologists, the problem is especially daunting for mental health workers whose jobs do not require advanced degrees, for example case managers, frontline hospital staff, community treatment workers, and mental health technicians (Kadis, 2017). Openings for these critical positions remain vacant for long stretches of time, shifting the burden of care to staff members who may already be stretched thin in terms of their hours and responsibilities or to temporary staff (Kadis, 2017). Once filled, these jobs often turn over quickly due to stress, burnout, poor compensation, and a lack of opportunity for advancement (Kadis, 2017). As a former graduate student that was enrolled in a public health program I understand the complexities of being in the position to become employed. The process of graduate-student recruitment can be complex, utilizing both human and fiscal resources ("Recruiting the Future Public Health Workforce", 2017). Successful recruitment plans include several interconnecting steps such as identifying prospects, creating polished informational materials, cultivating prospects through responsive communication, making thorough but expedient admissions decisions, and remaining in contact with admits to increase yield. Each of these steps is comprised of specific recruitment strategies ("Recruiting the Future Public Health Workforce", 2017). For example, the identification of prospects occurs through several mechanisms including on and off-campus recruitment events, visits to college campuses and public health employers, attendance at professional conferences, and mailing “cold” letters to prospects identified through the GRE or other databases ("Recruiting the Future Public Health Workforce", 2017). It is not solely the responsibility of a recruiter or the student/academic affairs staff, however, to identify prospects. Faculty, staff, current students, and alumni can all make contributions with regard to prospect identification ("Recruiting the Future Public Health Workforce", 2017). One group of prospects, fortunately, requires no initial effort on the part of the institution ("Recruiting the Future Public Health Workforce", 2017). …show more content…
These are the self-selected prospects that contact the school directly. In this case, the institution need only move on to the next steps in recruitment ("Recruiting the Future Public Health Workforce", 2017). The quality of the informational materials provided by the institutions, in addition to the type and rate of responses, are the factors, which help prospects decide whether they will apply to a program ("Recruiting the Future Public Health Workforce", 2017). Although several steps to increase yield of accepted applicants should be built into the recruitment plan, the goal here was to examine the prospect communication materials and strategies used to encourage prospects to become applicants ("Recruiting the Future Public Health Workforce", 2017). As a health program planner for my local health department …show more content…
It is important to emphasize response times, first impressions, and institutional branding. These themes are consistent with traditional marketing theory ("Recruiting the Future Public Health Workforce", 2017). Second, Schools of Public Health should capitalize on the prospects they already have. It takes significant resources to collect names, but not much to communicate with them after that point ("Recruiting the Future Public Health Workforce", 2017). The use of technology makes the task much easier. With the shift to websites as major sources of information, numerous articles have been published on best practices to create useful, user-friendly sites ("Recruiting the Future Public Health Workforce",