As healthcare companies constantly seek ways to cut costs, they will insist their doctors and nurses spend their time on actual patient care and less on administrative tasks. Administrators, in turn, will be asked to take on even more varied tasks, making those with extensive experience, competencies, and problem-solving skills precious commodities.

To ensure a steady supply of proficient administrators, hospitals, clinics, and independent providers must be able to accurately assess their needs – both current and future. A comprehensive workforce management plan can assist hiring managers anticipate and recruit for their most pressing administrative vacancies.

• First, analyze the current workforce to determine what skills each administrator possesses, the procedures they employ to accomplish their assigned tasks, and what abilities they have that could translate to success if they were called upon to expand their duties.
• Next, consider the organization’s structure and strategy, as well as any changes foreseen, such as expansion, a shift to management matrices. This alignment to strategy will point to which skills the company will depend more heavily on and which may not be critical.
• The gaps between the types and quantities of competencies administrators and managers possess and those that will be required point to which areas on which to focus recruiting efforts.

Developing a strategy for filling the gaps also will help identify the skills administrative departments must be able to provide, either through hiring or training. For instance, instead of hiring additional clinical personnel, a hospital may develop a plan to reduce the amount of time they spend on recordkeeping. For the strategy to work, newly hired clinic managers will have to bring with them or have the ability to learn the documentation, filing, and retrieval procedures the hospital uses.