The toil and trouble of finding good people

Veterinary Employer Brand

Understaffed and overworked

Being understaffed and overworked is the reality for many working in veterinary practice today. Practice managers (and owners) list recruiting and scheduling as the most pressing problems they must deal with almost every day. Headlines like “Short-staffed veterinary clinics”, “Skills in short supply: how to mend the recruitment crisis”, and “Veterinary clinics struggle with staffing shortages” abound. Even The Atlantic published an article with the headline “The Great Veterinary Shortage”. Yes, more vets may be leaving the profession than joining, and the pandemic most certainly played a huge part in exacerbating the problem. But the profession has been facing this problem for decades now. Here, for example, is the opening line of an article published in The Canadian Veterinary Journal of February 2002 about the challenge of recruiting and retaining veterinary technicians: “Much attention has been paid lately to the tight labour market for veterinary associates and even tighter market for associates willing to purchase practices.”

"Practice managers (and owners) list recruiting and scheduling as the most pressing problems they must deal with almost every day."

But are many veterinary employers not perhaps misinterpreting the recruitment (and retention) problems they’re facing as simply a consequence of the perceived shortage of veterinarians and qualified veterinary nurses?

While researching for this newsletter, I discovered this fascinating article from the College of Veterinary Medicine at Iowa State University. It’s about a research project conducted by two veterinary students who wanted to investigate why there was a growing shortage of veterinarians in rural Iowa. You can find the article which was published in 2019 here. What I found most compelling reading this very interesting article, were these few lines:

“...practices were having trouble hiring – no matter their recruitment efforts, they simply couldn’t find veterinarians who wanted to work with food animals in rural areas.”

“What practitioners think students want and what students think rural clinics are like aren’t necessarily true.”

“Many rural clinics don’t have a dedicated website, which is the first place today’s students go to find out about the clinic as well as the community.”

“Prior to this internship I wanted to go to a larger city to practice,” Deaver said. “Now I might go into rural practice.”

"But despite all the talk about the current "war for talent" many veterinary employers recruit as if there still is a "war for jobs"

It’s not unusual to hear from desperate practice managers that they’ve been advertising for months and received only a handful of applications – or none at all. And employers are very much aware that they no longer are in the driver’s seat. Candidates are now calling the shots. But despite all the talk about the current “war for talent” many veterinary employers recruit as if there still is a “war for jobs”. What most practice owners or managers mean when they speak about “all their recruitment efforts” is usually advertising their job opportunity using 75 words or less imparting only the information they deem sufficient for job seekers to enthusiastically apply in droves. And after a few months of not getting any applications, they turn to recruitment agencies who typically don’t fare any better.

But we’ve moved on from the age of information disparity in which employers held the balance of information about the jobs they advertise. We’ve entered the age of the informed candidate who will spend hours if not days researching potential job opportunities. They want to know who they will be working for, who they will be working with and why they should choose you. And they are spoiled for choice. Veterinary candidates don’t need to find a job, they need to weed out those jobs they would never take. If we were to apply the article I referred to earlier to the veterinary profession in general, it could be summed up thus:

“Most veterinary employers said that they’re having trouble hiring – no matter their recruitment efforts, they simply couldn’t find veterinarians who wanted to work for them. And veterinary job seekers say they struggle to find enough information about the job, employer, their future colleagues, and the practice when deciding whether to apply. But many veterinary clinics don’t even have a dedicated website, which is the first place today’s jobseekers go to find out about the clinic as well as the community. Therefore, veterinary employers need to do much more to entice today’s informed job seekers to apply for job opportunities at their practice.”

"But whilst many practices struggle to recruit competent veterinarians and veterinary nurses, many others attract top job candidates with little to no effort."

But whilst many practices struggle to recruit competent veterinarians and veterinary nurses, many others attract top job candidates with little to no effort. Why is this? Ultimately, it boils down to being an employer of choice – having a reputation as being a great place to work. Employers of choice are both clear and consistent when setting out the benefits of working for them and what is expected of those who work for them to thrive. They have a reputation for consistently delivering on the promises they make about the employee experience they’ve put forward. Because they have a strong positive employer brand, they’re able to attract, engage and retain the best people in the veterinary profession.

It’s a fool’s errand to think reactive recruiting will fill vacant job openings with competent, highly skilled veterinary professionals when the world is embracing a more proactive strategic approach that is focused on employer branding and marketing. The reality is that things have changed, and veterinary employers cannot continue to recruit for highly skilled competent team members the way they did 20 years ago. But, unlike some of the big consolidators or corporate veterinary groups, most veterinary employers do not have a recruitment strategy. Frantically looking for the word document of the job ad you used six months ago to use again because your latest recruit decided to move on is not a recruitment strategy. Building a strong, positive employer brand is.

"Your employer brand answers the question on every job seeker’s mind: "why should I work for you?"

Your employer brand answers the question on every job seeker’s mind: “why should I work for you?” It can have a significant impact on a candidate’s decision whether to engage with you or not. A strong employer brand enables you to gain and maintain a competitive advantage within the veterinary profession by improving the quality of new hires, reducing the overall cost of recruitment, and lowering attrition rates. But the process of becoming an employer of choice means investing time, effort, money, and other resources.

Many veterinary employers are not fully aware of the reputation they have as an employer among their own employees or potential candidates. So, finding out what those inside and outside your practice think of you as an employer is the first step in the endurance race (not the sprint!) that is employer brand management. This will allow you to identify and remedy any gaps that may exist between what you offer as an employer and what employees want. It is how you begin to build a distinctively great place to work.

"But it is not enough. You must communicate your employer brand message in a way that informs, entertains, and inspires."

Next, you need to ensure that the right people know about how great a workplace you have. Your job ad is still important in grabbing people’s attention and is often the first touchpoint candidates have with your practice. But it is not enough. You must communicate your employer brand message in a way that informs, entertains, and inspires. Creating engaging content is crucial to winning the attention and interest of the modern, informed candidate. This means spreading the word by creating a continuous flow of authentic people (employee) focused story-led content for your practice website, social media pages, and veterinary career platforms and for your current team to share with their friends and network.

Ayn Rand is often quoted as having said or written something along the lines of: “You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.” And the reality for veterinary employers is that you must apply the same kind of enthusiasm and effort to winning team members as you have long applied to winning clients. The harder you work at building a strong positive employer brand, the easier it becomes for top candidates to decide to apply, and for your best employees to decide to stay.

I’ll leave you with this quote from Adam Smith, an 18th-century Scottish economist, philosopher, and author who is considered by many as the father of modern economics.

"The real price of every thing, what every thing really costs to the [person] who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it."