We all have vices or addictions; something that makes us feel good even though we know it’s bad for us. In the world of healthcare staffing, we are addicted to paper. Paper gives us a sense of control and a feeling of organization. We know paper is expensive and we know it’s not great for the environment. Yet, we continue to rely on paper to help ease our anxieties and give us a sense of security in the form of a “paper trail.”

Way back in 1975, BusinessWeek published an article that predicted offices would be entirely digital by the mid-1990s. Obviously, this didn’t materialize quite the way they envisioned; however, significant progress has been made towards becoming a paperless society. Thanks to technology, namely the Internet, it is easier than ever to kick the paper habit. As with any addiction, the first step is admitting you have a problem.

Save Paper, Save Time, Save Lives

For healthcare staffing agencies, the more placements you make, the more revenue you earn. As the healthcare landscape evolves to accommodate a significant increase of patients needing treatment, the demand for qualified healthcare staff will increase. Hospitals that can’t accommodate the demand with their current staffing levels will turn to staffing agencies like yours to help fill the gaps. This is great news, right?

That depends on how prepared you are to handle the increased demand for your services. When using a paper-based solution, the typical timeline for recruiting new talent takes approximately 8 hours on average. This includes everything from posting the position to credentialing and qualifying candidates to onboarding and placement. You might refer to this process as the “Time to Value”.

Paperless recruiting can reduce that process by as much as 75%. Rather than taking eight hours to recruit and place a single candidate, you can do it in two. Or to put it in terms of value: with paperless recruiting tools you can onboard and qualify three times more candidates in the same time it takes you to onboard and qualify a single candidate using a paper-based system.

No More Paper Cuts

Paperless recruiting is not only faster, it delivers provides a superior user experience that today’s candidates have come to expect. With intuitive online tools that handle everything from testing and credentialing to capturing electronic signatures, candidates will be more inclined to complete the application process. This means you get more completed applications which will enable you to place more candidates and earn more revenue.

In Celebration of Trees

It’s no surprise that a significant side-effect of going paperless is the favor you’re doing for the environment and future generations. Think about how many reams of paper your agency goes through in a single year. Consider that a single 60 foot pine tree yields approximately 160 reams of paper. Over the lifetime of your agency, you are almost certain to consume more than 160 reams of paper without even trying. If you could cut that number by as little as five percent, imagine how many trees you would be saving simply by making your recruiting process paperless. Imagine the impact if every single staffing agency did the same thing.

I agree that it is unrealistic to expect any staffing agency to be 100% paperless. There are critical components that still require the use of paper. However, by significantly reducing paper consumption from your recruiting and onboarding processes you not only make the environment happy, you make your bottom line happy. If you use less paper, you spend less money on paper. If you improve the end user experience, you will increase your recruiting results. Plus, your staff will spend less time on redundant and repetitive tasks, freeing them up to focus on more important activities.