Recognisable for every healthcare organisation
Recruitment and vacancy holders are working at cross-purposes. Candidates have been hearing nothing for weeks. A recruitment system that is in place, but does not do what it is supposed to do. These are bottlenecks that are widely recognised in healthcare, and at Calidus, they all came together at a time when the organisation already had a lot going on at once: a name change, a new work-at-site, and a new recruitment system, all implemented simultaneously. The will was there, but the foundation to absorb all those changes was still missing.
Getting a grip starts with understanding
ImpactWork spent half a year with the Calidus team to first understand where the process was getting stuck. What do new employees experience during their application? What do vacancy holders run into? How do recruiters use the system in practice? Those insights determine the course.
Getting to work step by step
The process started by reconfiguring the recruitment system Ubeeo. The big difference was that this time it did align with the working method that the team wanted to anchor together. Via the referral app Cruit, employees are encouraged to propose new colleagues themselves. Vacancy texts are rewritten, and long-standing vacancies are refreshed more often. Vacancy holders were given clear agreements about availability and feedback, and recruitment took over calling references, so that managers were relieved. This way, the process was not only set up better, but also widely supported.
The results
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22% More applicants. Refreshing vacancies more often and rewriting texts led to 22% more applications.
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30% Decrease in application lead time. The lead time from application to first interview decreased by 30%, and the time-to-hire by 20%.
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40% increased fulfilment percentage. The fulfilment percentage doubled from 20% to 40%.
Retention as a foundation
And perhaps even more important than the numbers: the process is now in place. The team steers weekly on real-time data per location and vacancy group. Retention has become part of recruitment. If someone leaves within a year, recruitment also looks into it: why is that, and could we have prevented that during the influx?
Building further on a solid foundation
The collaboration has provided Calidus with a working foundation, but it is not an endpoint. Onboarding is at the top of the roadmap. Calidus is working on the influx of lateral entrants and is exploring a regional flex pool together with other organisations in disabled care. Because preventing people from leaving healthcare is not something you do alone.
From reactive recruitment to proactive control
Where the process previously got stuck on fragmented systems and a lack of mutual coordination, Calidus is now in control. By shifting the focus from simply 'filling gaps' to an integrated approach to the candidate experience, recruitment has once again become a profession that provides energy. The team now steers weekly on real-time data, making bottlenecks per location immediately visible and solvable.
Future-proof healthcare through connection
The success at Calidus proves that a tight labour market is not a fait accompli, but a challenge that requires a fundamentally different approach. With a doubling of the fulfilment percentage from 20% to 40%, we have succeeded in relieving the pressure on current teams and ensuring the continuity of care. Every filled talent immediately means more personal attention for the nearly four thousand elderly and vulnerable people who depend on this care.
"We don’t have unlimited budgets here. Everything you do must be well-founded. But this case shows that it is indeed possible."
Nienke Masker - Director of People & Organisational Development, Calidus
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