Covid-19 Has Forever Changed the Employment Landscape

As everyone now realizes, the current Covid-19 pandemic has changed our lives in many ways that most people weren’t prepared for, but most importantly, it has had a huge impact on jobs and how we operate on a day-to-day basis.  Many people have lost their jobs and others have not returned to the workforce and some have changed professions or found hybrid jobs.  This has created a labor shortage with many healthcare organizations fiercely competing for qualified talent.  Our firm would like to share our top five observations on how Covid has changed the recruitment landscape, particularly in transplant and in healthcare and what we should expect going forward.

First, Covid has created a situation where people are reevaluating their priorities and the value of their jobs.  In some cases, people have resigned and in others there is a reluctance to return to an office setting.  From a recruitment perspective, there is also a desire to be closer to family which results in a reluctance to relocate.  This presents both challenges and opportunities – for employers, they must cast a wider net to source candidates and offer relocation packages and for employees, it creates an opportunity to advance one’s career if they are willing to relocate.

Second, employers are realizing that they must focus more on work-life balance.  We are seeing employers be more lenient about working from home and being more flexible with hours.  This is evident even for direct caregivers.  We do not see this trend changing since employees have more home responsibilities and new variants continue to arise making a return to normalcy a dream.

Third, compensation is increasing.  The candidate pool for – transplant talent is small, and employers realize that in order to attract a qualified candidate who will relocate, they must adjust their salary ranges.  The market for these candidates is not local or regional, but national, and the compensation, benefits and bonuses must be competitive.  This trend does not seem to be slowing down.  We will be publishing our end of the year compensation survey for transplant administrators in late January which will illustrate just how much compensation has changed in the last year. Stay tuned!

Fourth, we are seeing many organizations promoting existing employees in an effort to retain talent.  Organizations are creating new positions in the area of strategic planning, innovation, diversity and employee engagement.  They are also creating assistant vice president, associate vice president and senior director positions for existing transplant administrators.

Fifth, we are seeing more and more counter offers when internal candidates decide to leave for other opportunities.

What are your thoughts on the landscape of transplant employment and counteroffers?