Among the many challenges facing labs today is recruiting and retaining top-tier talent. Listen as Chris Wolski, director of business intelligence for CLP, sits down with Shawn Wierzbowski, founder of Intro – CLS Recruitment, for a lively and far-reaching discussion about how labs can attract and, most importantly, retain their technicians. They also discuss ways labs can cultivate talent and when and how students should be introduced to the idea of working in clinical diagnostics.
Podcast Transcript
Chris Wolski:
Welcome to Clinical Lab Chat, part of the MEDQOR Podcast Network. I’m Chris Wolski, Director of Business Intelligence for CLP, and today I’ll be speaking with Shawn Wierzbowski about best practices and recruitment and retention of laboratory technicians.
Chris Wolski:
Now as the founder and lead recruiter for Intro, Shawn helps place laboratory technicians throughout the country, and I think his aim is for the world as well. This experience has given him unique insights into what it takes to attract and keep top talent, which he’ll be sharing with us today. So, Shawn, welcome. Thank you for taking the time to speak with us today.
Chris Wolski:
Also, if there’s one challenge that isn’t an easy fix, I think it’s recruitment and retention. We’ve talked about this in a couple different venues and I’ve spoke with others about this, so I don’t think it’s a big surprise. I know that’s one of the areas that you, Shawn, and other laboratory recruiters put your finger on as a big culprit of is the lack of training programs. You’ve talked about that recently at the recent COLA conference. Andy and I spoke about that in a previous podcast, and I just want to know, is that really the core problem we’re facing? If so, why aren’t we fixing it?
Shawn Wierzbowski:
Yeah, that’s a good question, Chris, and thanks for having me. Really what I noticed when I started right when COVID started was that there was a shortage, but with all these new labs opening up and hiring medical technologists, it just really, really extended the crisis even more.
Chris Wolski:
Right.
Shawn Wierzbowski:
I do think training programs are part of it, because when I was in high school, even college, I never even heard of medical technology programs. My three sisters are nurses and not once did a medical technology program even come across the radar. So, I think that’s a big problem. I know in my home state of Maryland, there’s only about four different programs that do this with about average classes [inaudible 00:02:31]. So, that’s definitely part of the problem.
Chris Wolski:
Yeah. Okay, and why aren’t we fixing this then? If this is a problem, you’re not the only person who’s speaking about that at the COLA conference and it’s come up in other studies, et cetera, why aren’t we fixing this? If there’s a need in the market, we live in that kind of world, why aren’t we fixing it? I mean, are there some practical issues? Is it political? Is there no will? What’s going on here?
Shawn Wierzbowski:
That’s a good question. So from the education perspective, I am not too sure. I don’t know what goes into actually creating a new program, if they’re trying to make money off of it. But one thing I haven’t seen is labs kind of take this into their own hands and have their own training programs where they train bio grads and chemistry grads.
Shawn Wierzbowski:
It’s certainly not a, hey, we’re going to throw them into the fire and treat them the same as lab technologist, they actually have year one, this is what you’re doing, year two, this is what you’re doing, and come year three, you’re actually a lab technologist. These labs have seen success with this. The biggest thing though is if you lose someone after two years, all that training was for nothing, and so that’s one of the flaws in that.
Chris Wolski:
Yeah. Right. So, let’s talk a little bit about the nuts and bolts of recruitment, I know that’s your bread and butter. So again, you and I have talked a little bit about this, I’ve talked to other people about this, I’ve written about this in CLP. What are some of the best practices that you use? I know one thing you do, and I think this is a big trend, not only for what you’re doing, but across the board is you list the salary range in the advertisement or the posting. So, what are some of the other best practices beyond just listing the salary?
Shawn Wierzbowski:
Yeah, I mean, salary, it saves a lot of time, right? I just had a client who lost someone, not through me, but on internal candidate, lost them at the end of the interview process, because salary expectations didn’t line up. So, you got to be transparent about that on the front-end. One thing for me is when I got into recruiting, it was, hey, make 50 phone calls a day to people and 10 of them will pick up and maybe one person will actually be looking for a role.
Shawn Wierzbowski:
I think that doesn’t work as well in the lab field. I think it’s really important to have a digital presence, because they’re constantly getting recruited that way. So for me, about 90% of my placements come from LinkedIn and the content I put out. I’ve seen some laboratory managers and directors actually are posting about their own lab on LinkedIn and why they like it, just little videos. Oh my gosh, it’s made such a difference with inbound candidates.
Chris Wolski:
Right, right. So, are there any other best practices in terms of … I think you or someone else at the COLA conference spoke about this. I’ve read about this in other contexts where you have these processes, and I know the way your system works or the way you work with labs, it’s pretty quick. I mean, you’re not doing a four month let’s spend four months interviewing this candidate eight times, if I recall, you’re doing it relatively quickly. What kind of advantages do you have there?
Shawn Wierzbowski:
Yeah. So, I mean, I can’t tell you how many people that have accepted roles who just said, “Hey, you guys were the quickest and you gave me what I wanted,” and then moved forward with it. So, I mean, our interview process here is typically one Zoom kind of phone call just to screen for skills, and then within 48 hours getting them in-person, followed by an offer same day. Is that always going to work? No, but I’d rather have an offer out there with a five day deadline than put the pressure on everyone else.
Chris Wolski:
Yeah. Yeah, well, and the other thing too, and I’ve known people who have hired people over the years, and particularly say on the government side, and it can take six months. Finally at six months they say, “Okay, I’m going to hire you.” That person comes back, “Well, that’s great. I’ve been working at this other job for three months.”
Chris Wolski:
So I mean, that doesn’t necessarily happen say in more of a private lab situation, but particularly these days the lab technicians are diamonds. They’re not just out there, you’re having to search for them, particularly good ones. I mean, so that’s the other thing. I mean, it’s a question of you can find somebody, but you need to find somebody good to fill that role for sure.
Chris Wolski:
One thing you touched on, which I think is really interesting is, and you’ve talked a lot about this a few times that we’ve spoken, this idea that really how the lab is presenting itself. You just mentioned LinkedIn. The lab manager putting stuff on LinkedIn, we’re a great place to work, et cetera. Certainly you can have that perception, so certainly you want to have a perception that you’re good, but also how do you develop a good work environment that’s reality that you’re going to retain someone?
Chris Wolski:
Because it’s one thing to get somebody in the door, it’s another thing to keep them. If there’s a big cost center for labs or anyone, any employer, it’s turnover. You have to spend a lot of time recruiting, hiring someone like you, et cetera. So, let’s talk about maybe some retention strategies as well.
Shawn Wierzbowski:
Mm-hmm. Yeah, so big thing with retention, Chris, I know we talked about this, but we ran a study, we got 365 people to respond. Lab technologist was, “Hey, what was your biggest motivation for leaving your last role,” right? So 65% said pay, 15% said advancement and 20% said under-staffing.
Chris Wolski:
Wow.
Shawn Wierzbowski:
I think you talked about being perceived as a good place to work and actually being a good place to work. I think one way to see if you’re actually a good place to work is look at your retention, and specifically why are people leaving? Certainly I’ve seen in my markets that you don’t have to pay the highest. You don’t have to be 20% higher than everyone else, you just have to be in the top percentile, right? So if you can stop losing people over pay, then that’s going to make a big difference.
Chris Wolski:
Right, right. Also, one of the things certainly with COVID and now seems like we have another possibly emerging pandemic, and certainly a lot of labs were really slammed. They were understaffed, they were slammed, et cetera, with workloads, pay and workloads. So I won’t go the whole story, but you and I talked about a story I heard about someone who worked extra hours over a whole summer, and at the end of it netted out $300 when they were working almost double shift.
Shawn Wierzbowski:
[inaudible 00:10:29].
Chris Wolski:
Certainly the first thing she told everyone, because the person I heard it from did not do this, but when she told her about it, certainly that was the first thing she told everyone when she got the check was, “I didn’t get paid. I worked all these extra hours, basically missed out on any sort of relaxation in the summer thinking that I was going to have this big bonus wad of cash at the end, and now I don’t have anything.”
Chris Wolski:
So there’s that, but there’s also the whole workload sort of thing to recognize … I mean, it kind of goes hand in hand, doesn’t it? I mean, in terms of workload, work-life balance that we talked a lot about these days, and in terms of, yeah, just having a place that it doesn’t feel like you’re either on a treadmill or you’re walking into a prison or, I don’t know, you’re chained to their bench, however you want to put it, that you want to have a workplace that, yeah, I have to work hard, but I’m getting compensated properly and it’s not destroying my soul.
Chris Wolski:
I mean, again, you can put all sorts of pictures up on the donut Friday or something on LinkedIn, but how do you turn that perception into reality? I mean, are there some things that you’ve worked with … It sounds like one of the big things you have to work with is with compensation with your clients, but is there other areas, based on this survey, that you work with your clients a little bit and say, “Hey, this is what we got in the survey. 300 some odd laboratory technicians got back to us. That’s kind of a lot and they’re all saying the same thing.”
Chris Wolski:
So, what would you tell a lab? If I was a lab manager and came to you and said, “Okay, what do I do then? Okay, I can offer more money, but what else do I need to do to increase and help retention based on those responses?”
Shawn Wierzbowski:
Yeah. No, that’s a good point. I think one trend that I’m starting to see a little bit is, like you talked about, people wanting to be compensated for the extra work they’re doing. One way to do that was to be a travel tech, right? I think traveling as a medical technologist is awesome, it helps labs that really need help.
Shawn Wierzbowski:
Yeah, they make a lot of money, but they deserve it, because they’re typically working in the busiest parts of the lab. But I think we’re starting to transition to this kind of work-life balance part of a lot of these people careers. One thing I’ll tell the managers if we’re having trouble filling a role is, “Hey, you got this role, it’s Monday through Friday. What if we did four 10’s,” right?
Chris Wolski:
Right.
Shawn Wierzbowski:
Because I’ve had people take any pay or even a little less to work four 10’s.
Chris Wolski:
Right.
Shawn Wierzbowski:
I think that is definitely something labs seem to be looking at is, hey, where can we kind of consolidate the schedules, because that’ll help with the traction a lot. I think a lot of these travelers, talking to them, they’re definitely burned out. They’re making good money, but they’re at the point where, “Hey, I can’t do this forever. I’m starting to get a family or I want to settle down,” and I think work-life balance is going to be more important for them.
Chris Wolski:
Yeah, sure. Now one of the things, recruiting is important, retention’s important. We talked a little bit at the front-end of this podcast a little bit about programs, but one thing is how do we get young people interested in this? I mean, I know, and lab technicians are not the only people, we’ve heard it trucking industry, nursing. There’s certain types of doctors who aren’t available, there’s all sorts of problems filling certain types of jobs.
Chris Wolski:
You mentioned you never heard about this. You have three sisters who are all nurses, and I come from a medical family, my mom was a nurse, and so I know about nursing. I mean, I didn’t really know about laboratory technicians per se up until I became a medical journalist years ago, but how do we get young people in high school, and does it start in high school or does it start earlier, to get kids interested in scientific careers? And how do we do it? When do we start and how do we do it?
Shawn Wierzbowski:
I wish I knew those answers. In the recruiting world, it’s hard to be focused on how … I’ll give you an example, right? So for me, we’ve had a lot of trouble filling roles, and so we’ve actually resorted to international recruitment from the Philippines. Some techs, they’re like, “Hey, why are you doing that? It’s discouraging people getting into the field.” But it’s so hard from the recruiting part, because our job is to fill roles. Our job is not so much to how do we get people set up to go into this in three years?
Shawn Wierzbowski:
I’ve talked to some medical technology programs and they seem to have full enrollment, the problem is, is just that there’s not enough programs. But I have to imagine it starts in high school.
Chris Wolski:
Right.
Shawn Wierzbowski:
What do you think?
Chris Wolski:
I think high school, I mean, giving that as an option for sure, but I also think maybe even younger. There’s a lab company or medical testing company that worked with Legos and put together this really fun sort of thing for kids, and I think it was terrific. I mean, I don’t think we’re going to have a plethora of kids necessarily wanting to become lab technicians, but I think that maybe it’ll steer more kids to that, or at least thinking about it and maybe that’ll open it up.
Chris Wolski:
I also like kind of your … I think there’s a lot of young people who go into the life sciences and biology, chemistry, et cetera, and then what would they do? They become pharmaceutical reps, or do they, I don’t know, get into something else that’s related? What you were talking about earlier, having the labs kind of step in and training people and maybe having contracts. Training for a year, you have to sign a contract for five years or we’ll send you to school or something.
Chris Wolski:
I don’t know, I think there are a lot of different ways to recruit. That would be another recruitment option. If I was getting out of college and I really didn’t know what to do, and someone approached me and said, “Hey, we’re this laboratory thing. You know about biology and chemistry? We’ll pay to train, and all you have to do is give us five years.” Particularly if it’s in a nice part of the world like where you live in Maryland, that might not be a bad option for them. So, I think sooner rather than later.
Chris Wolski:
I think what’s so interesting is that we really have gotten away from … I know when my parents were growing up, it was science, science, science, and we’ve gotten away from that. So as a culture we maybe need to get back to it, particularly in light of the pandemic. So-
Shawn Wierzbowski:
Yeah-
Chris Wolski:
I hope so. I mean, maybe a silver lining, and I hate to even say this, but maybe a silver lining with the pandemic that’ll help you as well is that more young people will be interested in getting into the field and seeing this as an option. I think that’s the thing. I think a lot of times sometimes, not to disparage anyone who has a loved one who’s a high school guidance counselor, but sometimes they don’t give you all the options that you can follow. So, I think that’s some of it.
Chris Wolski:
You talked a little bit about international recruiting, I think that’s an area for you. We talked a little bit about that. I think another thing is also how these professions are perceived as well. I mean, it’s on the flip side. How-
Shawn Wierzbowski:
Migrant-
Chris Wolski:
Yeah.
Shawn Wierzbowski:
Yeah.
Chris Wolski:
Yeah. So, you said in the Philippines where you’ve been doing a lot of work recruiting, it’s seen as a good job, a good way to make a living and a real step up to really help your family and build wealth, and that sort of thing as well, right?
Shawn Wierzbowski:
Yeah, yeah. No, 100%. I think one thing too. I was a biology major in college, and a lot of people, including me, I get into bio just because you like science, you don’t really know what you’re going to do with it. I think if people can see the money in the lab field, right? I know coming out of college in bio, I was hoping to make 30, 40 grand a year, right? But the fact is that, I know it’s different in every area, but kind of around me, med tech grads can come out making $60,000, $70,000, $75,000 a year.
Shawn Wierzbowski:
I think if you start to show people that, it’s like, wow, this is actually a really good career. Just because you start in the lab, doesn’t mean you don’t have to stay in the lab forever. I mean, there’s so many avenues in laboratory medicine-
Chris Wolski:
Oh yeah.
Shawn Wierzbowski:
It’s crazy.
Chris Wolski:
Yeah, for sure.
Shawn Wierzbowski:
So I think if someone told me when I was in college … so many bio majors are lost.
Chris Wolski:
Yeah.
Shawn Wierzbowski:
Their third and fourth year, they’re like, “What am I going to do with this degree?”
Chris Wolski:
Exactly.
Shawn Wierzbowski:
Right?
Chris Wolski:
Exactly.
Shawn Wierzbowski:
So if someone can talk to them their freshman or sophomore year, I think that makes a huge difference.
Chris Wolski:
Yeah, for sure. I think that’s the other thing is that you have to make this decision when you’re 18 years old, what am I going to do with my life? As you said, I like science, I’ll just do biology. “Well, what are you going to do with it?” “I’ll figure it out in four years.” If that’s an option either to go for a little extra training at school or go into a slightly different program, or if there are labs that work with that school to come in and grab up those lost biology majors, it just sounds like a really great way to at least have that initial recruitment and do that.
Chris Wolski:
I know in terms of the training program you were talking about, just completely unrelated, but I know of at least one trucking company manufacturer that they bring in young people and teach them how to be diesel mechanics. All they have to do is sign a contract for five years and they get paid good money. That’s a model that you can use. Not only the money, but I think the other thing too is, is it a fulfilling career?
Chris Wolski:
I think all of our readers at CLP and various conferences you go to and the people you work with would say, yeah, it’s a fulfilling career. Look at the pandemic, thank God for the labs, because we’d still be in a big mess if we didn’t have people administering tests, running tests, developing tests. That’s a whole nother area, you can develop tests and do real science and research. As you said, there’s so much you can do, and just starting at that bench can lead on to such a really interesting career and set of experiences.
Chris Wolski:
So I don’t know if we’ve answered any questions today, but I think we’ve raised a lot of questions that can be answered, and I think we’ve talked through some interesting scenarios. Then with that, unfortunately we’ve reached the end of our time, but I don’t think our discussion. So Shawn, I hope that maybe you can come back maybe some time in the near future and we can talk through this a little bit more. We can have some more insights and what we’re hearing and your experiences in the field. I think this really is the biggest challenge facing laboratories today.
Chris Wolski:
You’ve also given us some good practical tips for recruiting and retaining our staff, so thank you for that. I also want to thank everyone for listening. Look for more episodes of Clinical Lab Chat in the future and visit us online at clpmag.com, and of course on all the major social media platforms. So, until next time.