Hospitals and health systems have a tall order: find exceptional executive talent in a competitive market and employ their skills to successfully navigate a challenging operating environment.
Longer-term incentive plans covering three to four years also are becoming more common across organizations of all sizes, said Alexander Yaffe, managing director at Pearl Meyer.
Almost 90% of health systems have recently assessed or plan to assess the effectiveness of their organizational structure, according to the May Pulse Survey.
Pearl Meyer’s Yaffe noted the hospital president role as one example. As more hospitals join systems, the position has sometimes been retitled as chief operating officer or administrator to reflect a regional decision-making hierarchy.
Yaffe said organizations need to avoid giving a false impression of where a role stands in the larger leadership structure and how it is compensated.
“Titling cuts both ways,” he said. “You can give someone a title and it may attract them to a certain place because they have a title that they can put on their resume, but if the job requirements don’t match that title, then individuals feel sort of shortchanged.”
Yaffe said many organizations start early and look at director- or manager-level roles to identify future senior leadership candidates.
He said some organizations are using “360-degree” evaluations for leadership candidates, in which an employer collects feedback from the candidates and their colleagues to help determine their strengths and what they want to do next.