Red headband in the hair, surgical mask on the face, white blouse pulled up to the shoulder of a conquering arm that shows the muscles. The falsely retro poster hanging in Jonathan Debauve’s office alone illustrates the most important battle that this communications manager at Besançon University Hospital has been waging with his team for several months: remotivating the troops. On the wall, Rosie the Riveter became a nurse; the famous slogan “We can do it!” » morphed into “Proud of our hospital workers! “.
“In 2020 and especially in 2021, like all public hospitals, we noticed a dip in recruitment,” explains Emmanuel Luigi, deputy general director of the establishment. Unlike previous years, we were no longer able to refuel after school. » At issue: the Covid epidemic, which has caused a disenchantment with the profession. According to a survey conducted by the French Hospital Federation in 2022, 99% of French hospitals were having difficulty recruiting. Among the least attractive professions: that of nurse, with 6% of positions remaining vacant, twice as many as in 2019. “Following this lack of staff, we were forced to close nearly 140 hospital beds” , remembers Emmanuel Luigi.
To once again attract candidates, and in particular young graduates, Besançon University Hospital therefore decides in 2022 to invest in social networks and launch a video campaign entitled “Become indispensable”. In short sequences of less than a minute, caregivers and patients testify, on camera, to the essential role of hospital staff in providing care. “Today, young people want to work for something that has meaning,” comments Emmanuel Luigi, glasses rimmed on his nose, “and the meaning of work in the hospital is two things: the collective and the patient. »
To illustrate the collective aspect, twelve caregivers volunteered to describe their daily lives in a few sentences, like Antoine, medical regulation assistant at the University Hospital, a true “rescue conductor”, who praises a profession in which one “can flourish enormously.” “We also wanted to give patients a voice,” adds Emmanuel Luigi, “because the patient is the heart of the healthcare profession. » So Camille, striped t-shirt on her shoulders, talks about how her pregnancy follow-up went, and the support she received from the midwives and childcare assistants after the birth, without whom she “couldn’t have made it through the first night.”
“Everything was done in-house,” explains Jonathan Debauve, “we bought a camera and shot the videos ourselves,” before posting them on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and even TikTok. Total cost: less than a thousand euros.
In just two months, this communication focused on people, rather than technology, coupled with a poster campaign in partnership with Grand Besançon Métropole, extolling the merits of a city on a human scale, where life is good , is bearing fruit: “Spontaneous applications have increased by more than 40%,” rejoices Jonathan Debauve. “But not all of these applications are successful,” says Emmanuel Luigi, “many people are interested in the hospital and that’s a good thing, but the hospital is an establishment that requires specific skills: we cannot necessarily hire everyone who shows up. »
In total, 400 new recruits were able to join the services of the University Hospital, including almost two thirds of nurses, and the hospital will be able to reopen beds: the acute geriatrics department will increase from 20 to 40 beds at All Saints’ Day, while An adult psychiatric day hospital with around ten places should be opened by the end of the year. “We feel a fairly positive dynamic, but we must continue to maintain it,” insists the deputy general director, “even if we have restarted recruitment, we also have a lot of departures and still many vacant positions. »
To continue to attract candidates, the Besançon University Hospital has therefore approached caregiver schools and training. “We are once again present at student fairs, nursing fairs, we have close contacts with universities, a whole series of things that we no longer necessarily did a few years ago, because we no longer had the need,” explains Emmanuel Luigi, for whom completely filling the staff shortage will take time. According to an estimate by the CGT, there is a shortage of more than 100,000 nurses throughout France.