A county hospital's residency rule requires nurses to live inside the county, and qualified regional applicants will not apply. What recruitment-strategy move should the CHRO take to the board?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
If the "must live here" sign is turning away the only nurses who can staff the floor, the sign is the strategy problem. Widen the gate—or take it down—before buying more ads for a locked door.
Full Explanation
A county hospital residency rule that requires nurses to live inside the county—and thereby blocks qualified regional applicants—is a recruitment-strategy gate problem. The CHRO should recommend repealing or narrowing the residency requirement so the labor market the hospital actually needs can apply. If the 'must live here' sign turns away the only nurses who can staff the floor, the sign—not the advertising budget—is the strategy failure the board must face.
Keeping the rule and adding a signing bonus that only county residents can receive deepens the exclusion while spending money. Outsourcing all nursing hires to a travel-nurse agency so the residency rule never applies is an expensive permanent workaround that never fixes the gate. Lengthening the posting window while leaving the residency requirement unchanged assumes more days will magically fill a locked pool.
Exam caveat: some residency rules may be legally constrained, politically sensitive, or subject to bargaining; narrowing can be a transitional path while repeal is debated. The concept is removing or reforming a market-blocking residency requirement as recruiting strategy.
Operational check: show vacancy and applicant data with versus without the rule; draft repeal or narrow options for the board with counsel; model the travel-nurse cost of keeping the closed gate; and pause residency-restricted bonuses until the policy decision is made.