About Encompass Health
Encompass Health is the largest owner and operator of rehabilitation hospitals in the United States. With a national footprint that includes 162 hospitals in 37 states and Puerto Rico, the Company provides high-quality, compassionate rehabilitative care for patients recovering from a major injury or illness, using advanced technology and innovative treatments to maximize recovery. Encompass Health is ranked as one of Fortune’s World’s Most Admired Companies and Modern Healthcare’s Best Places to Work in Healthcare.
With a workforce of 37,000 employees across their hospital system, Encompass Health’s recruitment strategy requires robust and customizable technology that can cater to the needs of individual hospitals and markets. In a particularly competitive landscape where even Encompass Health’s own hospitals compete for similar, highly qualified talent from limited candidate pools, guidance from industry experts is also critical in helping maintain a high volume of applications for their clinical, non-clinical, and even C-suite roles.
"Before we started working with Appcast, we were building a recruitment team and trying to streamline what they were doing. At the time, we were completely decentralized and the agency that we were working with didn’t have the sophistication that we needed."
– Amy Inter, VP Talent Acquisition, Encompass Health
Challenges
- With over 160 hospitals, each with its own unique requirements, Encompass Health struggled to implement the recommended one-size-fits-all recruitment strategy
- Encompass Health was relying heavily on the same one or two job boards to advertise, resulting in a lack of significant volume and candidate diversity
- They received minimal education from their previous recruitment marketing agency on how to leverage different channels to reach passive and active job seekers effectively, leading to wasted budget on sources that weren’t delivering
Solutions
Employer Value Proposition (EVP) Development: Led by Appcast’s team of EVP expert strategists, designers, and writers, Encompass Health first underwent a complete EVP overhaul. This process allowed them to uncover the values of their target candidate segments and create an ownable brand identity that shows up consistently on their site and across all advertising efforts. You can learn more about the EVP overhaul here.
Career Site Revamp: Nursing positions were a high priority for Encompass Health from the get-go. Appcast built a bespoke microsite that was used across hospitals to attract and engage qualified nursing candidates. From there, Appcast’s creative team executed a total revamp of Encompass Health’s career site. The team optimized the site design and functionality, and created compelling and engaging creative assets based on candidate insights and industry best practices. You can learn more about the bespoke microsite and revamped career site here.
Introduction to Programmatic: To establish a consistent pipeline of candidates, Encompass Health leveraged AppcastOne’s programmatic solution to get their job descriptions distributed across a proprietary network of thousands of job and niche sites. This enabled a significantly higher volume of qualified candidates more quickly, cost effectively, and with minimal effort from Encompass Health’s recruiting teams.
Expanded Advertising Channels: As Encompass Health began to see success, Appcast further diversified the approach by incorporating Google SEM and display ad campaigns alongside social advertising channels, including Meta and LinkedIn. This allowed them to reach candidates earlier in their job search and increase job seeker exposure to Encompass Health’s brand.
Hiring Events Initiatives: Beyond digital advertising, there was opportunity for Encompass Health to scale their on-site hiring initiatives as well. Appcast Hiring Events introduced a customizable, user-friendly experience for event registrations/RSVPs, all while reflecting Encompass Health’s branding and messaging. The platform also streamlined their ability to measure and analyze inbound candidate data effectively.
Tailored, Hands-On Client Service: Recognizing the unique needs of the recruiting teams at each hospital within Encompass Health’s network, Appcast designed and executed a strategy that allows every hospital to communicate challenges as they arose, as well as enable the Appcast team to address those challenges seamlessly. Additionally, with the Appcast team regularly providing performance updates and expert guidance based on region-specific trends, competitive insights, and more, Encompass Health was confident that they were maximizing the effectiveness of their campaigns.
“From the jump, Appcast partnered with me to teach the ins and outs of recruitment marketing. They helped me to look at our business as a whole and build a layered strategy starting with the low-hanging fruit.”
– Amy Inter, VP Talent Acquisition, Encompass Health
Results
- Average of 43% decrease in cost-per-application (CPA) across key nursing and therapy roles year-over-year
- 1,200 new hires recruited and more than 16,000 applications generated with implementation of Appcast Hiring Events, supporting several new hospital openings during the 2023 calendar year.
- Drove an average of 3,800 hires per quarter in their first year with Appcast, while improving cost efficiency by more than 19% quarter over quarter
- Drove more than 2.5 million unique visitors to their career site and established new benchmarks to fuel ongoing and future marketing initiatives
“With Appcast, we have a partnership and both sides are accountable. It’s not always easy and we pivot when we need to. The best part about Appcast is that I can push the boundaries of how we do recruiting, succeed, and learn.”
– Amy Inter, VP Talent Acquisition, Encompass Health
