London hospital offers employees $1,500 for referrals that lead to hires

In a move to help with recruitment in an increasingly competitive health-care field, the operator of London's two largest hospitals is offering employees a $1,500 incentive to refer people for vacant positions.

The hospital says the one-time incentive is paid to London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) employees if they recommend external candidates for vacant roles.

In order for the employee who referred the employee to collect, the new hire has to be the successful candidate and stay in the position for 10 continuous months. Also, the program is not available for executives, leaders and hospital recruitment staff.

Julia Marchesan, the hospital's vice-president of human resources, said 16 other Ontario health-care organizations already have some form of employee recruitment incentive.

"We had a small group of roles that continue to be a bit challenging to recruit for," said Marchesan. "It made sense for us to adopt a program that so many of our peers had already undertaken."

Marchesan said many of the positions that have proven challenging to fill are very specialized and technical.

They include:

Other difficult-to-fill positions at the hospital are non-medical jobs including plumbers, millwrights and building engineers.

Marchesan said a number of factors are making health-care recruitment more challenging, including an aging population driving up the need for more health-care supports.

She said LHSC is doing well with recruitment compared to other hospitals. LHSC reported a vacancy rate of eight per cent in January of this year. It dipped down to 3.5 per cent by August, which Marchesan said is about half the provincial average.

"I'm proud of the team for that but there are moments when we have to dig a bit deeper to recruit other candidates and convince them to come to London," she said.

Marchesan said LHSC has a good reputation as an employer and said London's cost of living helps the city compete with health-care jobs in bigger centres.

"I see us in having advantages, and that's why our vacancy rate is so low," said Marchesan.

Marchesan said the employee incentive is one aspect of effective recruiting. Social media channels, LinkedIn in particular, remain important was to connect with candidates.