Customised recruitment helps an aged care facility get through a tough period of change

Programmed was engaged by an aged care facility to assist them in recruiting nurses for one of their sites.

Our customer had been going through a difficult transitional period following the recent acquisition of six sites from a competitor. One site in particular was proving to be problematic and was facing issues with existing staff who were struggling to adapt to new processes and expectations as a result of the new ownership. Unfortunately, they lost some long standing staff members, which meant they were simultaneously trying to deliver a change management programme for existing staff while recruiting new, experienced staff. This site was also in a regional area so finding experienced staff locally was proving difficult.

Our customer had previously worked with other agencies to recruit staff for this site, but had disappointing results to date. So the first priority was to develop trust with our customer, understanding their organisational culture and any problems they were facing at their site. We built trust through a series of meetings where we were able to demonstrate our experience in recruiting for regional locations and for sites experiencing similar issues after acquisition.

Once we had a clear picture of what our customer needed, we developed and implemented a campaign using our extensive database of candidates, social networking and online advertising to attract candidates to apply.

Both our customer and their parent company have commented on the benefits of our relationship and we remain a preferred supplier for this facility. To date we have successfully recruited four quality permanent candidates. We are now working with our customer to identify recruitment opportunities at their other locations.