It might sound a little like speed dating.
But Avera McKennan Hospital & University Health Center says it hired more than 100 nurses last year to fill a major shortage through four three-hourlong “Green Carpet” events that centered around 10-minute interviews with each of four nursing leaders. The events also included presentations, videos and a question-and-answer session.
The 310-bed Sioux Falls, S.D.-based hospital plans to adapt the “Green Carpet” concept, which received a nearly unanimous thumbs-up from 53 nursing candidates surveyed, to other employee areas.
“The 10-minute interviews turned me off at first,” says team category judge Lee Elliott, vice president of human resources and fund development of St. Francis Medical Center, Grand Island, Neb., about the project's premise. “But then I thought differently about it. As the labor supply shrinks relative to demand, we will see more and more people doing that.”
