TeamLease sees the growing need to have access to a large pool of quality talent in the healthcare sector. This is forcing corporate hospitals to integrate social media to identify and recruit talent. The temporary staffing major estimates that over 40 per cent of the talent are hired using social media.

While the social media platform is widely used by IT companies, today even other sectors like healthcare want to adopt it extensively. What’s more, companies are also encouraging employees to be active on these platforms. Given that attrition rates amongst nursing staff in India is very high and pegged at 35-40 per cent because of their high demand in US, UK, Middle East and Africa, hiring using social media in India should help stem the flow to some extent, Kunal Sen, senior VP, TeamLease Services told Pharmabiz in an email.

Even hospital chains like Apollo Hospitals are relying extensively on social media sites like Facebook to attract and retain talent. Nearly 45 per cent of this healthcare major’s junior doctors and paramedic staff are hired through this platform. What’s more Max Hospitals, Delhi, Fortis Hospitals, pan India, Manipal Hospital, Bengaluru, Medanta, Delhi, Narayana Health Bengaluru and Wockhardt, pan India are also encouraging talent to be active on these platforms. Apart from recruiting on social media, Apollo Hospitals also provides a training and certification course for all their staff thereby keeping them in loop to new technological developments.

Currently, around 50 hospitals have social media presence in India with Apollo being ahead of the others.  Social media has been used not just for hiring, but also engaging both the employees and patients as well, he added.

Specifically Apollo has a strong presence in social media with 2 million fans on FaceBook. They post an average of 6 updates per day which include jobs and educative content covering healthquiz and eatsmart which are extremely popular. About 200 people engage on these posts every day. This has been useful to attract nursing staff both from India and abroad to join Apollo. Of late, the focus has shifted to hiring administrators and executives besides junior doctors on Linkedin. Apollo has built 30,000 followers on Linkedin and more importantly integrated its Linkedin career portal to its own portal through Taleo Recruit software, stated Sen.

In the current scenario of cell phones, social media and cloud computing mobile Apps are seen to play a major role in accessing healthcare. For instance, Practo/Qikwel are used widely for doctor appointments. Besides, What’s app is used by some doctors to stay in touch with their patients. Over time more apps will support hiring and patient engagement, observed the TeamLease senior VP.

Globally, social media hiring in healthcare has caught on with 99 per cent of US hospitals and 67 per cent of hospitals in Western Europe with a FB account which is used for engaging with employees and patients besides hiring. Going forward, TeamLease expects major hospitals to have a strong social media identity and connect.