Connecting to our Next Generation Workforce

Both the industry and the association are facing a workforce development and recruitment challenge that will soon become a crisis issue for healthcare delivery. With the impending retirement of our sustaining Baby Boomer workforce, our industry will soon reach a critical point of disconnect with the demands of an evolving healthcare delivery system – a system that will continue to seek other documentation solutions to meet the high-volume documentation needs that are anticipated in health care as Baby Boomers enter the long-term care continuum. For myriad reasons, the industry has failed to address the emerging recruitment dilemma and find solutions for attracting next-generation documentation specialists into the profession. The commoditization of transcription services has painted the industry into a difficult corner, where there is very little room for innovative solutions for recruiting potential workforce candidates into the profession.

The industry has too-long sustained itself with the dangling carrot of at-home income potential to a stay-at-home-mom candidate pool, and it has done very little to find new and dynamic ways to promote the profession and the career to other candidate sectors. The military spouse initiative, while presenting an exciting opportunity to market the career to yet another "ideal match" candidate pool, still operates on the fundamental principle of recruiting wives and moms who want to work from home. The technology-driven documentation picture of the very near future is going to require a different kind of knowledge worker, and work-at-home moms may no longer be the only ideal candidates to fill those roles. The evolving needs of the industry are demanding that industry stake-holders step away from outdated recruitment and retention models and face the dilemma of promoting the career to a new generation worker – one whose career needs and expectations may be significantly different than generations before them and one who may be more technologically equipped to step into the new roles emerging in data capture, particularly where the migration to speech recognition editing and data analysis are concerned.

What Characterizes the Next Gen worker? Career experts tell us that generation X (born between 1960 and 1980) and generation Y (born between 1980 and 2000) represent a new corporate mindset and career mentality that can impact recruiting and retention practices for businesses seeking to engage this younger workforce.

Generation X: Highly adaptive and navigate change quite easily. Prefer autonomy, are highly technologically savvy, have a hunger to learn new skills and brave new challenges, and are focused on outcome and results. Have little patience for micromanagement, traditional policies and procedures, and assignments that have no measurable outcomes. Need buy-in to the big picture and ownership of the corporate vision; ideally suited for project-focused initiatives and team-driven environments.

Generation Y: Touted as the most "scheduled" group of children ever to be raised in America and the most highly educated of any American generation. Represent an emerging workforce with its own social conscience and approach to career planning. Indoctrinated into highly scheduled lives of educational, physical, and social activities that predispose them to multi-tasking, capable of juggling a great deal of information and expectation. Highly "wired" into technology as the primary source of information, entertainment, and communication. Want to be valued for contributions to the corporate vision, advanced education and problem-solving skills, and ability to bring fresh insight (i.e., "creative thinking") to corporate America. Seek personal satisfaction and fulfillment over job security. Do not plan to spend their entire lives in the same career, much less in the same job. Have been shaped by 9/11, Enron, and other national crises that have taught them to value life and family above work and money.

What Can You Do to Prepare for this New Workforce? MTIA and AHDI are partnering to engage all sectors of the industry (documentation specialists, educators, business owners and vendors) to develop fresh marketing and retention strategies aimed at our critically needed next generation workforce. This means working together to target this high-tech younger generation and shape messaging that truly engages and excites those candidates about our profession. To that end, MTIA members and businesses can participate in that goal through any of the following avenues/events in 2008:

Partner with an AHDI component to host a local recruiting event. AHDI components will be engaging in at least one of the following Next Gen recruiting events in 2008:

• Participation in a local high school career fair to market the profession to seniors looking for a technology-centric, mobile career in healthcare delivery.
• Hosting of an informational meeting event marketed to the general public to direct interested candidates to quality career information and to education through an AHDI/AHIMA-approved school.
• Hosting of a military spouse informational meeting on a local military base to continue to market the profession to Next Gen military spouses looking for an at-home, mobile career.

As an industry stake-holder with a vested interest in the current and future viability of our workforce, MTIA business owners, managers and supervisors, and industry educators should consider a sponsorship/partnership role with these MT groups who will be engaged in active, dynamic recruitment of our workforce. It will truly take a cooperative, energetic approach from all stake-holder groups to attract that new generation.

If you are interested in working with a component group in your area to host a Next Gen event, contact Bethany Twist at btwist@mtia.com.

Participate in Next Gen Strategic Sessions: MTIA and AHDI will be hosting several events in 2008 targeted at bringing employers and educators together to explore new recruiting and retention strategies aimed at the next generation documentation specialist:

• Attend and participate in one of several Next Gen online webinars that will be held in 2008.
• Attend and participate in the Next Gen Luncheon and Workshop at the AHDI Annual Convention and Exposition in Orlando, Florida in August of 2008.

For more information about webinars and/or the Next Gen event in Orlando, contact Andrew Wolf at awolf@mtia.com.

Engage Your Employees in Active Recruitment: Throughout the year and particularly during National Medical Transcriptionist Week (May 18-24), MTIA and AHDI will be encouraging MTs around the country to wear recruitment buttons with the message "I Love My Career…Ask Me Why!" to engage the general public in awareness about a career in healthcare documentation. Employers and educators can support this effort by providing those buttons to each employee, encouraging employee involvement in this effort, and helping current employees to understand that everyone in the industry serves to benefit from the efforts to create and sustain a workforce capable of meeting healthcare’s burgeoning documentation demands. To get more information about recruitment buttons and how to get your employees involved, contact Kelly Kappmeier at kkappmeier@mtia.com.

Feedback, questions, and general inquiries about the AHDI/MTIA Next Gen Campaign can be sent to Lea M. Sims, CMT, FAAMT at lsims@mtia.com.