Permanent vs. Temporary Staffing for Hospitals

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Weighing the challenges of staffing is perennial. Do you focus on permanent staff who are in it for the long haul, or do you stay nimble with temporary hires? Both have positives and negatives, and deciding between the two is no straightforward task.

Permanent Staffing: Pros and Cons

Hospitals hire permanent staff for stability and peace of mind. Having a consistent and reliable source of executive support is valuable in medical settings. However, it’s also expensive, and finding the perfect match can be an enormous challenge.

While permanent staff correlates tightly with improved patient care outcomes, their constant presence may also make the organization too rigid. Limited flexibility can affect the hospital’s ability to adapt to shifting patient demands.

Permanent staff members offer higher degrees of knowledge and experience but don’t forget the need for mobility. Those in permanent positions often specialize in one area, but flexibility equips you to effectively respond to new situations as they arise by moving qualified staff wherever they’re needed in a moment of crisis.

Temporary Staffing: Pros and Cons

One way organizations can save costs is by reducing employee benefits. Temporary hires receive a higher average salary than permanent employees, but you don’t need to pay them benefits. However, although the initial cost may be lower, other expenses can add up. Sourcing temporary employees is hard work, and that is what can make it expensive. Much of the money you save by excluding benefits is instead spent on staffing agencies — on their commissions and payroll.

It’s also difficult to find a good fit for every role. Many healthcare positions require a thorough understanding of technical processes, making it difficult to find a qualified hire quickly. Hiring a permanent expert then sounds like a better option, which, unfortunately, leads back to organizational rigidity.

The flexibility and reduced labor costs of temporary employees are appealing, but also remember that temporary staff has a higher rate of turnover and inconsistency. Not to mention, if a temporary employee is always being flexible and shifted around, it can be difficult for them to feel secure in their work and take initiative in their position.

Partnering With MedCerts

Hospitals that partner with MedCerts have access to entry-level healthcare certification programs. Instead of randomly searching for qualified applicants, you can draw from the internal pool of pre-vetted candidates, which enables you to:

  • Untangle your staffing issues by working side-by-side with a seasoned healthcare training company.

  • Fill critical staffing vacancies with MedCerts’s talented applicant pool.

  • Offer your team members first-class training and educational resources to fill your own staffing vacancies with the people you already know.

Healthcare employment is too important to let ideal candidates get lost in the sea of Internet job applications. By enhancing their abilities with MedCerts, the best candidates can magnify their value to the healthcare industry. You can find qualified employees directly, and they can find you.

With MedCerts, healthcare staffing can achieve a new level of efficiency. Through short-term and convenient online career training, candidates can gain the knowledge they need to excel in their careers. To find out more, meet with a MedCerts partnership expert today!

Written by

Patrick Verda

Director of Partnerships

Patrick Verda is MedCerts’ Director of Partnerships and a senior-level sales leader. With more than 20 years of sales and sales management experience in the Ed-Tech sector, Patrick understands the complex needs and challenges that organizations face, and he enjoys working collaboratively to address these challenges.

Patrick spent years in various sales and sales management roles at Blackboard, IBM, and Cengage Learning. Patrick earned a BA from Illinois Wesleyan University and a Master of Business Administration from Hamilton University.

Patrick resides in Bloomington, IL with his wife and four grown children. He is a member of the advisory board for the Chicago-based nonprofit ‘Cardz For Kidz’.

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