Surgery Partners experiences growth, efficiency and significant ROI with Position Manager

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Surgery Partners, a network of outpatient surgery centers in Florida, implemented Position Manager^® in 2007. At that time, the company had 100 employees and was at the cusp of acquiring five new surgery centers.

“When I joined Surgery Partners, there were no effective recruiting processes in place and I couldn’t figure out which jobs were open,” said Will Milo, Director of HR at Surgery Partners. “One of the first things I did when I arrived was contact HealthcareSource to implement Position Manager.”

Will had been a HealthcareSource customer in his previous job at another medical practice so he was very familiar with the capabilities of Position Manager. “I knew immediately that Position Manager was the right solution for Surgery Partners. I needed a good system that would be able to grow with the company.”

Enabling growth

Since 2007, Surgery Partners has grown to 400 employees and ten surgery centers, as well as a multi-location physician practice and an anesthesia services division. “The timing of implementing Position Manager was crucial,” said Will. “We prevented a disaster. It scares me to think about what would have happened if we had not put in a system that would allow us to be very scalable as our growth accelerated.”

 The company anticipates doubling in size each year for the next 3-4 years. Position Manager will enable this rapid pace of growth through its scalability and the efficiency it brings to the organization. “Our hiring managers are spread out over the state of Florida,” explained Will. “Since Position Manager is a web-based product, it is accessible from anywhere. And, it links with our email system so the hiring managers can get approvals easily, often on their Blackberry^®. This moves the requisition and hiring process along very quickly.”

Making it easy

One of the reasons Position Manager works so well for Surgery Partners is that it is easy to plug into new locations and train new users. “When we bring a new surgery center on board and need to implement the recruiting process for that location, Position Manager is a tremendous time saver,” said Will. “I just log into the system the day before the center goes live and add a new location. It takes me five minutes – It’s that easy!”

The recruiting team and hiring managers at Surgery Partners enjoy using the system and find it easy to use as well. “The dashboard summarizes everything for my team and makes it very simple,” said Will. “And, the managers appreciate the ability to keep an eye on the process themselves, and to go back to candidates who previously applied for positions.”

The initial implementation in 2007 also was a seamless process for Surgery Partners. “We did not have one glitch during kick-off,” said Will. “Having done it before, I knew exactly what to expect during implementation. The first time, Heather came down from HealthcareSource and did a great job. This time, I did the training for the team by myself. It’s just that easy of a product that I could do that.”

Measurable success

While the primary benefit of using Position Manager is increased efficiency, the reporting functionality is also invaluable because it allows Surgery Partners to very clearly establish the return on investment of the HR department. One area Surgery Partners is focused on is employee advertising costs. “We have been able to bring down our cost per new hire from $237 per new hire to $99 per new hire,” said Will. “I hit one button and can see where an applicant is coming from, so it is very easy for me to track what works and what doesn’t. I could not have achieved that reduction in cost without Position Manager.”

Another metric that Surgery Partners monitors is time to fill each position. Surgery Partners’ average time to fill is currently trending at 19 days – a significant improvement from an average of 35 days to fill a position in 2007. “Without the reporting, you can’t monitor the business as effectively,” said Will. “And, since the system enables our recruiting team and hiring managers to track the process at all times, everyone is much more proactive.”

HR as a strategic partner

Surgery Partners views Position Manager as a crucial tool that enables the HR team to deliver maximum value to the broader organization. “Position Manager allows HR to be a strategic partner by taking away many of the administrative duties that an HR department is required to do,” said Will. “I am not a big fan of putting processes in place unless they add significant value, and I still would have implemented Position Manager even if we had plans to remain at only 100 employees.”

“We probably haven’t even scratched the surface of what Position Manager can do. But, what we do have in place makes us tremendously more efficient for our size staff,” added Will. “It is a fantastic product. I have recommended HealthcareSource to many other healthcare organizations, and I will continue to do so.”

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