Recruitment and Selection in the Public and Nonprofi t Sectors 211
Exercise 7.1: Recruiting Medical Personnel
in Southwest Florida
Recruiting and retaining critical care workers in southwest Florida is chal-
lenging. The expensive housing market, combined with medical school
debt for doctors and college debt for nurses, physical therapists, occupa-
tional therapists, and medical technicians, has required hospitals to become
creative in their recruitment techniques. Boosting hourly wages, offering
signing bonuses, and providing relocation allowances are just some of the
techniques used. The NCH Healthcare System offers housing assistance
programs. It also owns two hundred apartments for seasonal registered
nurses who can stay in them for three months at no cost.
Recruits in critical care positions are eligible for three hundred dollars
a month to help with rent up to three years when they commit to staying
with the hospital system. The NCH board of trustees approved a budget
of three hundred thousand dollars for rental assistance.
Another incentive is a fi rst - time home buyers ’ assistance of one thou-
sand dollars for current or new recruits in noncritical fi elds who buy in
Lee or Collier county. The loan is forgiven after two years of employment.
For critical care workers, the loan is three thousand dollars for a fi rst - time
purchase and is forgiven after three years of employment.
More recently, NCH began offering an interest - free loan of $ 20,000
for seven years to critical care workers toward a fi rst - time purchase. At the
end of seven years, the money must be paid back. Current employees are
eligible.
Lee Memorial Hospital recruits in the northern markets where the
costs of living are similar to southwest Florida. It also recruits nurses and
medical technicians from other countries. Another hospital, Physicians
Regional, began an in - house training program that enables employees
to receive higher wages. Nurses can complete a six - month program and
become operating room nurses or emergency room nurses. The hospital
offers tuition reimbursement of twenty - fi ve hundred dollars per year at an
accredited school for each full - time employee who wants to obtain more
education and receive higher wages.
