Hospital heads online to network with health workers

With a national shortage of nurses looming, operator Northern Health has taken to LinkedIn to recruit healthcare staff.

With a national shortage of nurses looming and growing demands at Melbourne’s Northern Hospital, operator Northern Health has taken to LinkedIn to recruit healthcare staff.

Acting executive director of people and culture Michelle Fenwick says the Epping hospital is on one of Melbourne’s busiest road corridors and the local population is expected to grow by 64 per cent by 2031.

That means increasing demand for services — baby deliveries have more than doubled to 4000 a year since 2011 — and emergency treatments hit 77,000 last year.

“Putting an ad in The Age, The Australian, into Seek is all very good if you’re looking for a job, but you might not be actively looking at my hospital,” Fenwick says.

“What LinkedIn offers me is I sit at home and I get these little ticker tape notifications coming to me, and I may not be interested in that job but one day it might be interesting. I’m tapping into the unconscious psyche of people out there.”

Fenwick says 74 per cent of the hospital’s nurses come from within the local government area, and using a passive networking site means potentially she can target health workers living in other areas who are planning their future and considering a move to Melbourne’s growing north.

“I may be able to get into your loungeroom and into your planning, and if I can save you an hour in traffic and you can do something different, that’s a really powerful tool,” she says.

Northern Health has been using the site for nine months and its followers have increased to 8000 people.

Fenwick says the more followers, the more people are aware of the hospital and the greater the passive recognition of job opportunities.

Internal research and data provided by LinkedIn shows 6 per cent of the hospital’s recruits have come directly from people seeing ads on the site across the past nine months.