RPO case study: government health ministry hires thousands of healthcare professionals to support COVID-19 response and vaccine rollout.
industry/client
an Australian state-wide health ministrychallenges
With the outbreak of the pandemic in 2020, the ministry faced the challenge of having to significantly increase its healthcare-related workforce in response to the crisis. It faced a similar challenge in 2021, when it needed to further ramp up staffing to facilitate mass vaccination efforts.solution
A recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) program was implemented to source, screen and hire the thousands of positions needed to keep up with the surges in demand for healthcare professionals. The Randstad Sourceright team managed recruitment campaigns and worked in partnership with the ministry across two key phases.key results
In its first phase, the team deployed strategic sourcing and screening which resulted in 126 healthcare professionals hired by the ministry within two weeks. In the second phase, it quickly hired more than 3,000 individuals to staff a mass vaccination hub, along with a further 2,000 placed into talent pools to support its ongoing COVID-19 response.
hiring healthcare workers becomes more crucial than ever
This health ministry is responsible for supporting the public health system throughout its state and ensuring the population has access to its health services — a task that became much more critical in the face of a global pandemic.
As COVID-19 intensified during 2020, the ministry needed to respond by drastically increasing the number of healthcare-related resources to support the population in the midst of the outbreak, spanning roles in contract tracing, call center and assistants in medicine.
The ministry required a solution that could accommodate the sourcing and screening of more than 7,000 people across 200+ role types within an extremely short timeframe.
As COVID-19 resurfaced in 2021, the ministry responded by putting together a COVID-19 workforce surge taskforce to meet the demands on health professionals and the planned vaccination rollout across the state.
This time, the ministry faced the daunting challenge of hiring nearly 2,000 people to support the mass vaccination hubs (including the largest in the country) and close contact tracers, in addition to hiring thousands more healthcare professionals and supporting teams to cater for the recruitment activities for local health districts across the state.
RPO enables a high-volume recruitment strategy
With limited time to increase staffing significantly, the ministry adopted a recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) model through Randstad Sourceright.
This was a critical partnership, with Randstad Sourceright working alongside the ministry to achieve the key vaccination milestones that allowed for easing restrictions.
By implementing a project-based rapid deployment program, the ministry leveraged an agile recruitment strategy to source, screen and hire necessary talent. Developing the program in collaboration with the RPO ensured immediate visibility of all potential health resources and the ability to respond quickly to surging demand. In response to being in a period of lockdown, the ministry relied on virtual implementation and deployment of resources to more quickly meet its staffing needs, such as the use of video interviews to assess candidates and partnering with local businesses to supply talent who had been let go from their roles due to the pandemic.
Given the success of the program, the ministry re-engaged with Randstad Sourceright to help manage a new surge in hiring to support the mass vaccination roll-out.
In less than two weeks, a team of more than 70 professionals was established to support the project, dedicated streams of work were established for for the major vaccination hub, assistants in nursing and assistants in medicine, nursing specializations, close contact tracing, and teams to support business as usual (BAU) recruitment activities in local health districts across the state.
rapid recruitment to support public health
For both phases of its hiring surge, the ministry required a fast and efficient process to hire significant volumes of people, in the right roles and with pace. The RPO model proved to be highly successful in meeting those needs.
For phase 1, rapid response, the ministry received expressions of interest from more than 6,000 candidates, and more than 100 companies seeking to partner with the ministry to supply and redeploy talent. Over 126 key roles were filled.
This success continued into phase 2, surge workforce. The team received more than 18,000 applications, conducted over 10,000 video interviews, and well over 3,000 hires were made across the state to increase the capacity of close contact tracing, vaccinations and provide ongoing clinical care and support fatigue management for health care workers.
With the unprecedented challenge of turning a sports and entertainment arena into the country’s largest vaccination hub, through the RPO model the ministry was able to assess nearly 7,000 applications and hire 1,824 individuals in just 10 days.
The ministry was empowered by the RPO to rapidly hire the talent it needed to support its crucial work; it also helped prepare for any future surges. A further 2,000 candidates were added into a talent pool, which provided a reliable bench of pre-vetted talent it could draw from to fill ongoing roles and scale up as needed.
As a result of the successful delivery of these workforce programs, Randstad Sourceright has been engaged for additional programs of work, supporting further surges in workforce, close contact tracers, aged care projects, ambulance services as well as state and public health emergency operations.