Recent reports have confirmed what healthcare directors and HR specialists have already recognized and painfully experienced firsthand throughout 2018: last year’s cybersecurity job market was rife with hiring gaps, transitions, and disruptions.
While the past several years have proven challenging for healthcare organizations looking to staff up their internal network security and cybersecurity teams, 2018 took hiring stress levels up a notch.
End of year statistics illustrate that the U.S. “quit rate” reached a 17-year high.
Excessive IT employee turnover wasn’t the only factor plaguing healthcare’s technology hiring market last year, though. The same study noted an unemployment rate of just 2.4% across the country as of November.
The robust 2018 job market, coupled with an ever-diminishing pool of available and qualified technology candidates, has left hospitals and medical organizations of every size and scope scrambling to not only find and hire industry talent, but to retain these employees with long-term success.
Unfortunately, Human Resource and hiring professionals across every healthcare vertical are already realizing that the new year may not necessarily make hiring and retaining cybersecurity and safety experts any easier.
A recent white paper published by LaSalle Network entitled “What Do Technologists Want?” surveyed over 4,000 technology specialists and revealed that 64% of those polled considered themselves satisfied (or very satisfied) with their overall happiness levels at their current place of employment.
Great news for healthcare IT departments spearheading data breach and cybersecurity solutions throughout their organizations, right?
Yes and no.
While a significant ratio of programmers, developers, and cybersecurity professionals are satisfied at their current place of employment, many still believe in the power of keeping their options open.
The same LaSalle Network paper noted that a whopping 76% would consider new opportunities, proving that even high levels of staff contentment do not directly equate to employee longevity.
Demand for cybersecurity and data breach specialists expected to rise
While the outlook for sourcing and retaining talent in 2019 will remain challenging across most technology sects, human capital management throughout the cybersecurity vertical may prove the most difficult of all.
Industry statistics indicate that the already high demand for experts in cybersecurity safety is only expected to exponentially increase from now all the way through until (at least) 2022 as a direct result of the tumultuous, ever-evolving terrain of cyberattacks, both locally and on a global scale.
The growing need for cybersecurity professionals, combined with an entry-level salary approximately $10,000 higher than the U.S.’s national median average, could mean that the 2019 hiring market will look a lot like 2018: rife with gaps, transitions, and disruptions.
Healthcare IT leads are partnering with cybersecurity MSSPs
With cyberattacks continuously on the rise, many healthcare organizations are turning to a professional managed security service provider (MSSP) to solve human capital management deficiencies within their IT departments.
A qualified MSSP brings a team of skilled professionals trained to prevent a cyber attack, maintain secure email exchanges, and protect patients’ medical and personal information from hackers.
Implementing a fully staffed MSSP team can reduce hiring costs, increase team bandwidth, and offer mission-critical insight and expertise in response to external risks.
Most importantly, teaming with an outsourced cybersecurity team delivers integrated vulnerability management solutions to minimize system threats throughout healthcare organizations of every size for optimal administration and patient peace of mind.
