Transforming human resources in healthcare

FEATURE - Industry Innovation Article - Workday

Workday partners with more than 400 healthcare organisations around the world, helping them to attract, retain and engage their most important asset – people.

Health systems globally are facing a workforce crisis, with shortages projected to worsen over coming years.

The Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated what was already a significant problem, as stressed staff exited healthcare to pursue other careers or retire, and not enough young people are being trained to take their place.

Human resources are essential to the success of any healthcare provider and the ability to find, recruit, onboard and retain staff quicky and seamlessly benefits both the employer and the wider workforce.

Workday has a true Enterprise Management Cloud for healthcare. The cloud-native platform is built on an intelligent data core that takes security, privacy, compliance, organisational hierarchy, analytics, and business processes into account.

This intelligent data core is where all the data resides, but layered on top are specific applications such as financial management, human capital management, supply chain management, and enterprise planning and reporting.

An opportunity for NZ
Jonathan Brabant, Workday NZ sales director, says the creation of Health NZ – Te Whatu Ora presents an opportunity to streamline and standardise HR processes at a national level.

“New Zealand is not alone in needing to recruit and retain talented health professionals and all the key support staff who keep our health system working day-to-day,” he says.

“Using Workday’s platform, which incorporates Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), we can identify new employees, as well as strengths and skills in the current workforce, in order to support people into critical unfilled roles.”

Brabant says the opportunity to capitalise on AI to support healthcare organisations is significant and having this technology integrated into the core of Workday’s enterprise management cloud platform is a key differentiator.

“Our secure unified platform provides a single source of truth that can then be mined for insights about the workforce in order to help grow future skills,” he explains.

Employee engagement and satisfaction is critical to delivering high quality patient care, and Workday's platform provides tools and resources to help organisations measure and maximise these.

“With such a widely dispersed local population, healthcare in New Zealand is also increasingly mobile and Workday’s mobile capabilities can support and engage employees wherever they are,” says Brabant.

Modernising people management
Mercy Health in Australia recently selected Workday Human Capital Management (HCM), as part of an HR transformation effort designed to modernise people management and enhance support for employees and the communities they serve.

The healthcare provider was looking to craft a seamless candidate recruitment experience and support people processes spanning the entire employee lifecycle.

Mary-Anne Gallagher, Mercy Health’s chief people officer, says the organisation is absolutely committed to exceptional care.

“Not only do we want to empower our employees to care for the community and provide the best support possible, but we also want to nurture our team and their professional growth,” she says.

“Workday’s integrated approach implements a powerful foundation to streamline processes and allows us to build the teams we need to focus on what matters most.”

Future focus
John Kravitz, Workday vice president and head of healthcare, says the Workday platform provides the foundation to create a flexible health workforce for the future, helping health providers and funders understand the talent they have and need, as well as invest in the employee experience.

He says nursing provides a good example of a workforce that is in high demand and short supply around the world.

“Employers need to find new ways to attract and retain experienced nursing staff and Workday is helping them do that,” he says.

At St. Luke’s University Health Network in the US, the nonprofit network of more than 18,000 staff used Workday to provide a benefits programme, which increased nurse retention rates by an astonishing 50 percent.

“As the population ages and the cost of healthcare increases, health systems such as New Zealand’s are also looking for efficiencies in the back office, that they can funnel into frontline care,” explains Kravitz.

Workday’s Strategic Sourcing enabled a prominent US West Coast healthcare system to save $4.2 million in the first six months of using the software.

“Workday’s innovative solutions empower healthcare organisations to deliver the best possible care to their patients,” Kravitz says.

If you would like to provide feedback on the above feature article please contact the editor Rebecca McBeth.

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