The challenge

Many rural and remote organizations struggle to recruit talent and retain clinical staff for more than a few years. This challenge is in part due to the disconnect between an employee’s clinical fit and their community fit. A candidate may be an excellent clinical fit, but not a good fit for a rural or remote area, leading to poor retention rates.

The organization

Marathon Family Health Team is a physician-based family primary care provider located in the province of Ontario in Canada. The team consists of physicians, a nurse practitioner, a physician assistant, a registered nurse, a registered practical nurse, a registered dietician, a social worker, and an epidemiologist.

The approach

Historically, the organization struggled to retain physicians. To solve for this problem, the organization, in partnership with its community, hired a local community member from outside the health care industry to serve as a recruiter on a part-time basis. The organization leveraged the recruiter’s deep connections within the community to recruit physicians, locums (temporary replacements for staff) and other positions. The recruiter soon became known as the “community connector,” and used their deep knowledge of the community to help candidates and new hires feel comfortable in a rural setting.

The result

When the recruiter started in 2011, the complement of physicians in Marathon had fallen to only five. Since then, in 2021, through their efforts, Marathon now employs nine physicians in the community and a robust system of over 150 locums to cover for staff when they take time off.