NEW YORK, October 7, 2026 – Providence, one of the largest U.S. healthcare systems with 119,000 employees, has tackled a common organizational challenge: an overly complex hiring process. Managers were juggling multiple systems and manually approving requisitions, while internal specialists found it difficult to transition to new roles, leading to delays in critical patient care staffing decisions.
New Efforts Go Beyond Simply Accelerating Hiring
In collaboration with IBM Consulting, Providence has revamped its approach to internal employee transfers. By integrating artificial intelligence (AI) and automation, the health system has seen a 90% reduction in administrative effort for hiring managers. Meanwhile, internal candidates are now starting new positions an average of 12 days sooner. Providence has also achieved a 60% cost reduction in internal transfers and improved process accuracy by 70%.
Managers now spend less time navigating complex systems and more time supporting their teams. Employees, in turn, can more easily pursue internal career opportunities within the organization without disrupting patient care.
Nearly half of Providence’s annual hiring activity comes from internal transfers. However, the process had become so cumbersome that some employees found it easier to leave the organization and reapply as external candidates rather than navigate the internal transition. By simplifying this experience, Providence is enhancing internal mobility and strengthening its ability to retain talent in the highly competitive healthcare labor market.
“At Providence, we took a step back and asked ourselves, how can we make it easier for our caregivers to grow their careers within our organization? We saw an opportunity to use AI in a way that would remove barriers, streamline work, and better support our employees and our mission,” said Carol McDaniel, Vice President of Talent Acquisition at Providence.
Simplifying Hiring Without Replacing Core Systems
Instead of replacing its core HR systems or implementing yet another standalone application, Providence adopted a different strategy. The organization partnered with IBM to redesign the hiring process, focusing on actual workflows. Expertise from Oracle, AI engineering, and IBM’s design team was brought in to identify bottlenecks and establish a simpler, more connected process.
RITA (Requisition and Internal Transfer Agent) is an AI-powered digital assistant built on IBM’s watsonx Orchestrate platform. This platform allows organizations to securely manage any AI agent as its use scales across the enterprise. RITA orchestrates tasks within the existing Oracle Fusion Cloud Human Capital Management (HCM) and Oracle Fusion Cloud Recruiting environments, and it integrates with other systems and data sources outside of Oracle. By consolidating the data and information needed to execute workflows into a single, seamless user experience, RITA simplifies everything from requisition creation and approval to internal transfers, job marketing, and hiring status updates.
The goal was not just to automate tasks, but to simplify the flow of work and data across systems, teams, and approval processes. Providence focused on identifying where work stalled, where policies created unnecessary complexity, and where AI could optimize interactions between systems.
“AI transformation is, at its core, a leadership challenge, not a technology challenge. We started with the question of how we could improve work for our caregivers. For Providence, that meant reimagining how caregivers navigate the hiring process and using AI to create a simpler, more connected experience, without losing sight of the human aspect of the work,” said Greg Till, Chief People Officer at Providence.
With AI integrated into daily operations, organizations are rethinking the interactions between people, systems, and data. According to research from the IBM Institute for Business Value, 82% of senior executives believe functional silos hinder the full realization of AI value in their organizations.
Many organizations find that the complexity lies not just in implementing AI tools, but in improving workflows across systems and teams to achieve real outcomes. For Providence, this means helping employees move faster into the roles where they are most needed, while advancing its mission to serve all, especially the poor and vulnerable.
Providence demonstrates what’s possible when organizations use AI to reimagine work execution—not just add another technology solution. IBM is helping organizations apply this same approach to critical business processes.
