A formal and consistent onboarding program will maximize your investment in temporary staff, make it easier for them to be both productive and efficient, and increase the likelihood that you will become an employer of choice for your temporary staff in a similar way that you might be for your permanent staff. 

All of this is true regardless of your industry — and especially if you are part of the healthcare industry, where we recently conducted research in partnership with the Association for Advancement of Physician and Provider Recruiters (AAPPR) and our sister company, Jackson Physician Search, to better understand the experience of onboarding for both temporary and permanent hires.

In healthcare, we call temporary workers locum tenens, which is Latin for “to hold the place of.” Increasingly, locum tenens in healthcare is part of a holistic workforce strategy that is meeting healthcare workers where they are and offering a mix of opportunities for full-time and part-time employment. 

We distinguish between orientation, which is essentially Day One onsite, and onboarding, which is everything that happens between when the physician accepts the assignment and Day One and beyond. 

Whether your temporary hire is providing continuity for your team or for your clients, a consistent process can make or break the experience for everyone involved. So often, though, we don’t have a plan for how to make it happen, and as a result, the experience suffers. 

The insights we gleaned from the Physician and Clinician Onboarding Research Report are relevant across staffing in just about any industry.

Onboarding Matters to Both Temporary and Permanent Hires

Locum tenens clinicians reported higher satisfaction with the onboarding process, with 73% rating their onboarding as very good or excellent, compared to 61% of permanent clinicians, suggesting that organizations that use temporary or contingent firms are doing a slightly better job of onboarding than those making permanent hires. Perhaps it’s the nature of hiring a temporary employee — there’s an incentive for them to arrive onsite ready to get to work.

Onboarding Starts Before Day One

Research backs up the idea that onboarding that starts prior to the start day goes a long way towards creating a satisfying experience. Typically, onboarding a physician requires many steps prior to a clinician’s start date. A majority (85%) of surveyed clinicians told us that detailed instructions and timely credentialing created a smooth start and helped them feel at ease, making it clear that a detailed process prior to the start date is key.

Onboarding Should Be Ongoing

Locum tenens providers may work in a facility for as briefly as one week and as long as one year or more, but regardless of how long the placement will last, all providers appreciate an ongoing effort to integrate them into the culture, norms and relationships that make up their new role. Onboarding processes that last 12 months or longer result in an 87% satisfaction rate from those surveyed, compared to a one-week onboarding, which 66% percent rated as satisfactory.

The More Formal, the Better

A formal onboarding process is a significant factor in determining satisfaction, according to the pros we surveyed. Seventy-three percent of physicians and clinicians who reported satisfaction with their onboarding had undergone a formal process, compared to only 34% of those who were dissatisfied. Similarly, the recruitment professionals themselves also expressed higher satisfaction with the onboarding process when it is formalized.

Staffing is a challenge across industries. The better we prepare as hiring organizations to onboard new hires not just to our organization, but to who we are and what we stand for, the more successful we will be.