Healthcare Physician Assistant Recruitment Process Guide

Compliance with Recruitment Laws and HR Best Practices

The first step toward filling the position is to review various HR best practices and legal compliance requirements in order to minimize the risk of employee lawsuits. This review will address issues such as hiring procedures, wage requirements, and employee classification. To ensure ongoing compliance, the HR department will establish a strategy — assuming none currently exists — for regularly reviewing and updating compliance procedures in light of constantly changing labor laws (Breaugh, 2016). The recommended strategy is to designate one HR staff member as a "point person" responsible for researching and updating compliance policies.

To ensure hiring and employment compliance for the current position, the HR department will first confirm that no discrimination occurs in the process on the basis of religion, race, color, age, sex, sexual orientation, disability, or ethnicity (Patterson & Zibarras, 2018). To achieve this, certain questions — particularly those asked during pre-employment interviews — will be prohibited, and uniform legal standards will apply to all candidates. At the federal level, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) enforces anti-discrimination laws (Flynn et al., 2016). The EEOC website will be consulted to identify critical areas that pose potential legal risk and how to avoid them. State laws will also be reviewed to ensure compliance.

Additionally, the recruitment process must guard against employee misclassification and ensure proper compliance with exempt and non-exempt status determinations. Misclassification of employees attracts highly punitive fines from the U.S. Department of Labor, the IRS, and state agencies, depending on the nature of the infraction (Avery, McKay & Volpone, 2013). The recruitment drive will classify all roles correctly in order to prevent the costs associated with misclassification.

Organizational Statement on Diversity and Inclusion

Our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion

One of the pillars of our success is anchored in diversity. As an organization, diversity is a core part of our culture and how we work as a healthcare organization. Diversity is key to realizing our mission of reaching and helping improve the health of all. Our commitment to diversity and inclusion is rooted deeply in our collective values as a healthcare company.

We are acutely aware that differences in race, age, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, physical ability, background, and thinking style are a source of richness in our working environment and in the breadth of our client reach. These differences result in better service delivery to our patients. Through a highly diverse human capital base, we are better positioned to connect with the health needs of the people who make up the communities in which we operate. We also believe that, to succeed, we must build and maintain healthy relationships with diverse professional organizations, partners, and suppliers.

As a healthcare organization, we are genuinely committed to ensuring that our staff, operations, and third-party relationships are diverse, enabling us to reach all members and diversity dimensions of the society we serve. We also recognize that visible diversity does not equate to inclusive diversity. As a result, we seek to ensure a meaningful commitment to diversity and inclusion through a dual and concurrent focus on individual behaviors and organizational operations and systems. Being open to alternative approaches to a task or issue, revising work processes, and remaining flexible in design and scheduling are essential elements of diversity and inclusion.

Accepting Applications and Defining the Applicant Pool

Once a job description has been designed and the vacancy made public, applications are expected to begin arriving. The application period will be time-bound. Applications will be required to be submitted online; no hard copies will be accepted. To avoid storing potentially voluminous paper applications and the risk of misplacing any submission, only online applications will be considered. All applications submitted in hard copy will not be accepted and will therefore not be screened for this position.

For this particular position, only applications from persons residing within the state will be accepted. Broadening the applicant pool to the state level is intended to attract the best available human capital for the position (Flynn et al., 2016; Kehoe & Bentley, 2019). Online applications must be submitted to the correct recipient — the HR Director — with the appropriate email subject line. The acceptance period for applications will close at midnight on the deadline date indicated in the job advertisement. Any application received after this time will be rejected immediately.