When Should a Blood Center Consider Outsourcing Its Donor Recruitment Efforts?
The challenges facing the blood banking industry lately pose a very serious question; one which holds ramifications that could potentially disrupt operations for years even.
“When do we outsource our recruitment efforts?”
The Cambridge dictionary defines outsourcing as “the process of paying to have part of a company’s work done by another company”. Outsourcing happens all the time; think of going to get your car’s oil changed. This is a job that the customer deems more effective and efficient where a person, or organization, specialized in doing the task shall perform the task. This saves time, effort, frustration, and money.
When faced with challenges in recruiting enough blood donors to satisfy the demand for blood and blood products, outsourcing is still frowned upon. However, there are times where outsourcing the recruitment effort is not only appropriate, but also is the BEST way. Let’s have a look at some of these instances.
1. Lack of resources
Donor recruitment is the most difficult function of a blood center. This position has typically high turnover and burnout rates. Yet the mission of the blood bank centers around the ability to attract and retain blood donors. So what is a blood center to do if it lacks the resources to carry out this very important function? Outsource! Even with adequate resources, a blood center can take advantage of the expertise, reach, and volume capabilities of a specialized call center. Organizations such as Incept have built their entire business around efficiently reaching out to, and recruiting, blood donors. Supplementing your resources with ours will help build a winning strategy focused on contacting, educating, and building connections with, your target donor base.
2. Cost efficiency
Maintaining an in-house team can be expensive, and sometimes outsourcing can be a more cost-effective way to manage budgetary constraints. This is even more critical in a time where competition is strong; not simply competition for customers, but also competition for talent. Today’s Donor Recruitment professionals have many options which may prove to be more lucrative for them financially. Our blood center partners are facing price constraints from the customers they serve as well as rising costs in obtaining the blood needed to serve their missions. Incept has again built its entire business model on effectively and efficiently contacting, educating, and connecting with your target donor base. The costs of outsourcing may in fact be much less than trying to maintain an in-house staff.
3. Specialized expertise
Outsourcing means having subject matter experts handling the task that you need taken care of. Incept Health has been providing recruitment and outreach services for over 25 years, having built our entire business platform on this specific task. We are the specialized experts in this field, keeping up with industry trends and understanding changing donor motivations. Partnering with us leverages this expertise to help you achieve your objectives.
4. Scalability
Seasonal or periodic campaigns require resources to make them successful. Outsourcing is a wonderful option in these cases as it allows you to scale up your efforts without committing to a full-time headcount increase. You are provided the boost in resources and expertise needed to handle the increased load without the unenviable task of determining what to do with the resources when the campaign concludes.
5. Refocus of efforts
Blood banks are in the business of serving the community, and there is a lot involved in doing so. Unfortunately, you likely can’t always handle all of the tasks needed to serve the community, and may need to focus on a couple of “core efforts”. Maybe it’s providing a world class donor experience. Or perhaps it’s focusing on manufacturing efficiencies. When you focus on such core activities, outsourcing the others, such as donor recruitment, makes sense. Engaging Incept Health to help with donor recruitment again leverages the years of experience we have in perfecting the art of contacting, educating, and connecting with your target base. This allows you to turn your focus to those core activities which you want to strengthen and become known for.
Conclusion
The challenges facing blood centers should not be handled alone. Outsourcing the donor recruitment efforts provides a strategic option to contacting, educating, and connecting with the donor base that is so critical to a blood bank’s mission success. While the term “outsourcing” still has negative connotations in terms of employment, we must also consider that outsourcing still provides people with gainful employment, and, used effectively, improves the customer’s operating efficiency and provides a positive outcome in the form of Economic Value Added.
Looking to learn more about what outsourcing blood donor recruitment entails? Contact us today to see what it can look like for your blood center.