Andy (00:01.488)
Greetings friends and welcome to Now Hiring, our podcast about trends in staffing, recruiting and talent. I'm Andy Weiss, CMO of CEPL and today I'm joined by Scott Goldfarb from Avani Healthcare Staffing. Scott's a long -term veteran in this space and rather than me reading his bio, Scott, why don't you share with our listeners your background and how you got into this space.

Scot Goldfarb (00:24.398)
Hey, Andy, thanks for having me. Love to do that. Been in the staffing business for 40 years. It's one of those industries you either love or hate. It's in your blood or it's under your skin. So obviously it's in my blood and a good portion of my time in the industry has been spent in healthcare staff.

Andy (00:41.606)
So, Scott, based on not only your experience in staffing overall, but in particular, healthcare, I'm seeing a lot of headlines around layoffs in a bunch of different sectors, not only tech, but also healthcare. What are you seeing on the front lines in terms of your opportunities, the things that you're hearing from your colleagues and peers in this space? What's happening on the ground?

Scot Goldfarb (01:11.16)
Sure, I talked to a lot of my peers that I've known for years and we've all come to realize that there's a lot of people looking for work, but there's a lot of people being laid off for various reasons across the country, whether it's at a local facility, whether it's part of a large hospital group. even though there is a downturn, there's always going to be a tremendous need for healthcare professionals to staff these facilities at all levels. People still get sick. We're coming into the cold and flu season right now.

People also are coming up to the end of the year where they have to use up their deductibles. So there's going to be more elective procedures. And with the shortage of healthcare professionals that are hired locally and work full time for these facilities, healthcare staffing will always be a viable vertical to operate in. Healthcare staff.

Andy (01:57.158)
So are you then expecting the continual kind of north -south kind of migration of opportunities or east coast, west coast, and kind of just the continual kind of flow that we've seen over the last several years of travel nursing and other opportunities continue to follow that same pattern, or are you expecting something different kind of as you look ahead to this year?

Scot Goldfarb (02:24.91)
Yes and no. There's always going to be those facilities who have a greater need in the north and northeast and the northwest during the colder months and the southwest and the southeast and the central plains in the warmer months. throughout the country, there's going to be a need for health care staff everywhere. Now, agencies, including ours, have seen a reduction in the open orders with the exceptions of a few specialties.

Andy (02:49.561)
Okay.

Scot Goldfarb (02:51.734)
Locums and allied staffing have been bucking the trends. And obviously, locums, you're talking about your docs and allied, your therapists, your technologists and the like. Obviously, there was a tremendous growth in every sector of the market during COVID, but it's contracted a little bit, but not as far back as pre -COVID levels. So in healthcare...

Andy (03:00.902)
Mm

Andy (03:12.774)
So for an organization that may not be playing in Allied and Locum, is this the time that they should be looking to expand?

Scot Goldfarb (03:23.438)
possibly if they have the internal team that can help recruit for these verticals. Those two are particularly specialized and you have to know how to play in that space. But for a company to grow, they're going to need to do several things simultaneously in this market. Ensure that you have a good mix of business that'll bring in some of those allied orders especially and that you have the staff to work on them.

A typical agency might have thousands of open orders to work on and they're going to come from direct clients. They're going to come from VMS. They're going to come from MSPs, but only a handful of these orders are going to move quickly. So the key to being successful in this space right now is having a great working relationship with your clients and your counterparts, whether it's at a VMS or an MSP to determine which of these orders are going to be what I call a hot job, the ones that are going to move quickly. That if you submit somebody who's qualified,

you'll get a response potentially in order within 24 or 36 app.

Andy (04:24.454)
So how do we spot these hot jobs? Is this because of the relationship or is there something in the job wreck that's gonna help us understand or spot those?

Scot Goldfarb (04:37.162)
Yeah, I mean, some job wrecks will say quick offer or auto offer. But at the end of the day, just like any people business, this is built on relationships. So you need to have a good relationship with your client. You need to have a good relationship with the account manager on the other side of the fence. And they will let you know sometimes on a daily basis, hey, Scott, you're working on A, B, C and D, but those aren't our priority now. Let's shift to these because these hiring managers said they're going to give an offer to somebody who's qualified.

once they get a good signal.

Andy (05:09.571)
So, as you're looking at your own business, are you making tweaks to kind of how you've individually approached stuff? Or is it just kind of, hey, this is another cycle, this is business as usual, I'm, know, foot on the gas kind of approach.

Scot Goldfarb (05:15.521)
Thank

Scot Goldfarb (05:28.398)
Well, you always have your foot on the gas because healthcare is probably one of the fastest moving verticals in all of staffing. And what I mean is a job can get open and filled in a very short amount of time, sometimes 30 minutes. So to stay on top of this, you need to maintain a good database of your nurses, your allied professional, your docs, whatever space you're playing in, and stay constantly in contact with them and have them what I like to call submission ready.

So having the right tools to do this, a great ATS, and these days my buzzword for 2024 has been AI and automation. Those have been the most efficient ways to accomplish this and layering your tech stacks so they all work together and work seamlessly and flow to one another is the key to being successful.

Andy (06:14.64)
So I know you've transitioned into healthcare for other organizations that are more general staffing. Would you recommend transitioning or diversifying into healthcare? It's now the time to do it. What are your thoughts?

Scot Goldfarb (06:25.816)
Thanks.

Scot Goldfarb (06:33.774)
I don't want my answer to sound like I'm discouraging people to eliminate competition. That's not the case. There's plenty of work out there. There's plenty of fail. But unless you have somebody who can guide you through the transition or to add that additional element to your agency, I wouldn't do it if you were just sitting back one day and, all right, I think I want to play in the healthcare space.

Andy (06:40.25)
Yeah. When you're on the spot.

Scot Goldfarb (07:01.998)
put a committee together and see how to do it. Unless you have somebody who's an expert on that committee, then it won't work for you. You need to bring in somebody from the outside who has played in the healthcare space, who has been successful in the healthcare space, and have them guide the process and build the process out.

Andy (07:18.434)
Got it, got it, that makes sense. So we talked a bit about maintaining or having a relationship with your clients, but the other, and you emphasize that this is a people business. So the other side of the equation is the nurses and the staff and the candidates that you're bringing forward. And one of the things that I saw come out of nurse .com's relatively recent salary and work life report is,

some concerns around burnout and telehealth and remote work. so there's, know, some of those themes are starting to bubble up. How do you help kind of manage or help take care of and be cognizant of this pool of talent that, you know, is the other side of the relationship that you're trying to forge?

Scot Goldfarb (08:08.174)
All relationships are important, whether it's your client or your nurses. I said, staffing is one of the, healthcare staffing is one of the fastest moving verticals. It's also the one where creating relationships, I think has the most relevant key to being successful. And what I mean by that is nurses are people. They're not numbers. They're not KPI points to put on a spreadsheet and say, hey, we did this this week. Nurse Sally and Nurse Joe or technologist Sally and technologist Joe.

They have lives outside of work. They have families. They have commitments. They're going to have things come up where they can't make it. They're going to get a flat tire on the way to the facility. It's important to maintain these relationships, even more for your travelers than the ones that are working as a W -2 employee at a hospital. You need to find out upfront, hey, Andy, you're a registered nurse and I'm about to send you to an assignment in Dallas General. What schedule works best for you?

Andy (09:06.98)
Yeah, okay.

Scot Goldfarb (09:07.022)
Do you wanna work 12 hour shifts and get that work week done in three days and then maybe pick up some overtime? Or do you wanna get it done in three days and then have the rest of the week to deal with your family? Deal with sounds wrong, but what I mean is to be able to maintain a good work -life balance. So you have to find out these things upfront. One of the tenants I founded Avani with is nurses first. And nurses are people. And...

Andy (09:24.079)
Yeah.

Scot Goldfarb (09:33.97)
They love to be treated as people and not as a number. And when you break that barrier down, because sometimes the first time you talk to a nurse, they're going to have that wall up because everybody's trying to talk to them. And once they realize that you're on their side, you've got a best friend for life who will not only follow you and work for you wherever they can, they'll refer people to you as well because they trust you and trust is the key.

Andy (09:55.814)
That's awesome. as you think about kind of, you know, the wealth of knowledge and you've already shared some great insights, but as you think about kind of, you know, your view of the rest of this year and kind of setting up things for 2025, what's top of mind for you and therefore what kind of guidance or suggestions would you give our listeners in terms of, hey, here's the one, two or three things that I'd be thinking about.

Scot Goldfarb (10:22.136)
it

Scot Goldfarb (10:25.518)
Sure. And I said it before about AI and automation. Some people are afraid that AI is going to reduce the number of staff they have or reduce the need for staff. I personally think it's quite the opposite. That will allow you to increase your staff, but increase with the right staff. AI will take you to a point in a process and every company is going to design their process differently. But there's going to come a time in that process when a human has to step in because that's where the engagement needs to be.

personal and AI just isn't there yet. So if we can get a really good platform and have the workflow set up to take it from A to D, have a human step in at E, you can do more A to D automatically and then hire more recruiters or account managers or whatever you might want to call your staff to then at that point engage with people. And I think people are going to get more business that way. They're going to get a happier and a much more loyal and tender staff.

Andy (10:56.581)
Yeah.

Andy (11:23.28)
Well, yeah, it's like it, I mean, we, there's a theme that keeps coming up that this is a people driven business. So if you're looking at technology, whether it's AI or any platform, but you know, AI, Hey, we all have to check the AI box and it would be foolish not to be thinking about or considering AI, but looking at it as a way to automate or help assist with some of those mundane tasks. you can focus on, and on the human side. So if.

Scot Goldfarb (11:26.026)
you

Scot Goldfarb (11:33.718)
All right.

Scot Goldfarb (11:50.082)
Thanks.

Andy (11:53.058)
If it's helping to do some of the routine pieces and back to your example about the nurse that wanted to work a certain schedule and stuff, you're freed up to have that type of conversation with candidates and with opportunities to find the right balance and maybe using AI to do some of that matching. So now you're placing people or putting forward the right candidates for the right opportunities. then you get that win.

Scot Goldfarb (12:06.924)
Exactly.

Scot Goldfarb (12:21.282)
Right, exactly, exactly. And people say to me a lot of times, know, staffing is one of those businesses that will always be need. There'll always be a need for some people call it recession proof. I don't know if there's anything that's truly recession proof, but staffing comes close and healthcare staffing, I think really is at the top of that list of the staffing verticals. know, people are living longer. They're going to require more general care and more specialized care as they get older, whether it's in a facility.

whether they can be fortunate enough to afford private duty nursing at home, it doesn't matter. People are going to need more care. And there's not enough people out there working a W -2 position for a hospital or a nursing home chain or a long -term care chain, and they're going to rely on healthcare staffing firms. And I think it's as close to recession -proof as you can get because there's always going to be a need for healthcare staffing agencies to assist our aging and growing population now and in the foreseeable future.

Andy (13:19.482)
Yeah, well, you're talking about taking care of our loved ones, whether they're at any age, at any level. So it's important to have the right people.

Scot Goldfarb (13:30.188)
Yeah, I mean, on a personal level, my father was suffering from Parkinson's for a couple of years and was living in an assisted living facility up in the Philadelphia area, and they were constantly short staffed. Not every owner wants to use an agency. I offered to give them my services at cost just because the fact that my father was there. I didn't want him and others to suffer. Unfortunately, they didn't take me up on it, but that's just one microcosm of what is all over the country.

is there's a need, but not everybody wants to take advantage of the resources that are in front of

Andy (14:04.23)
Yeah, no, I've heard that story play out, unfortunately, from a number of friends and colleagues and stuff. So it's not, it's sad, but it's the reality of the state of healthcare and it's opportunity, as you mentioned. well, Scott, thank you for joining us today. Great conversation. Love to have you back in the future. Some really valuable insights.

Scot Goldfarb (14:22.19)
Correct.

Andy (14:32.784)
Thank you, and to all our listeners, be sure to check out our other episodes of Now Hiring on Spotify and YouTube. We also have a newsletter, and we have a new Slack channel as well. So check us out in all those places. Until next time, have a great day.

Scot Goldfarb (14:47.982)
Thanks Andy.