Numerous success factors have demonstrated that human resource management can be a fundamental aspect in the health care practices. Although the health care systems have experienced a number of challenges in different regions, several factors have been raised to overcome such challenges. Some of the proposed factors include training and development; customer-focus; workplace safety, and changing HR trends. Effective execution of human resources can help in ensuring that health care organizations are offering quality services.
Lesson 10: Training and Development
Determining Training Needs
Workplace training and development are vital in human resources because they boost efficiency and competency of employees. Training and development in the workplace incorporate activities that aim at enhancing productivity of employees. It is an education process that polishes employee skills, in addition to transforming their attitudes towards their responsibilities. Some of the techniques that HR managers should utilize in training and development include job analysis and skills analysis.
Job analysis involves creating a detailed description of what an employee is required to do to undertake a particular job. According to Wan (2014), job analysis stipulates the content, as well as requirements of the job, where tasks, duties, and responsibilities are recognized, but no details on how to undertake a given job. New employees should be trained on what their job entails, how to undertake their jobs, who to report to, and the working conditions. Trainers can teach old employees on role play, with an intention to enhance their proficiency in their tasks. Trainees can assume different roles or personalities, as they interact within a complex training setting. Role play can be helpful, particular to employees who work in emergency response departments, as it necessitates quick decision-making.
Skills analysis is normally undertaken after breaking tasks into manageable bits. For each bit, the HR manager has to determine the skills necessary to undertake it. If the organization lacks the capacity to undertake certain tasks, training can be done to instill skills necessary to ensure all tasks are accomplished on time with minimum cost. Apprenticeship is a tactic that trainers can utilize to enable employees to undertake numerous tasks. Apprenticeship is most appropriate for jobs that require production skills because an employee is necessitated to understand all the process involved in the production of certain products. Individuals who successfully complete an apprenticeship are awarded with professional certificates to demonstrate their competency in handling specific tasks.
Elements for Strategic Development
Health care organizations are generally instituted to meet the critical needs of patients. Their future depends on whether they are capable of meeting the current needs. Strategic development focuses on changes that the health care organizations encounter as they proceed to the future. The rapid development, as well as investment in clinical networks all over the globe has necessitated the establishment of valid instruments to assess intrinsic and extrinsic characteristics that are linked to their performance (Brown, et al., 2016). Strategic development in health care enables organization to generate a chart of progress from its current position towards the future. Strategic development is built on four components, which include awareness, planning, development, as well as results.
Training creates awareness of the organizational goals. Awareness is a constant process that enables organization to evaluate their capacity, as well as their potentials. In the health care organizations, awareness enhances organizational analysis and decision making. Planning involves creating a course to accomplish organizational goals. Planning sharpens organizational focus and consequently boosts performance. Development involves creating an environment where employees can attain their personal goals, in addition to improving the organizational productivity. The combination of awareness, planning, and development, enable health care organizations to realize desirable results. Thus, strategic development is paramount in instilling a culture that enables employees to perform at their best.
The Role of Succession Planning
Succession planning is a fundamental constituent of any organization that intends to operate into the future. Succession planning ensures that health care organizations have identified the potential candidates within the departments, who can fill the vacancies once the top managers have retired. Thus, the role of succession planning is to ensure that the organization will continue running smoothly regardless of losing the key employees. The plan allows senior leaders to identify future leaders, evaluate their achievements, set performance goals, and offer timely feedback within the training period (Fibuch & Van Way III, 2012). Performing talent management planning can assist the health care organizations to prepare employees who would take senior management positions when the older generation of managers has left their positions.
Succession planning serves to prepare the organization for any contingency, thus, minimizing the impact of losing some of the key employees. By being resolute concerning succession planning, the HR managers are able to recognize numerous skills among the team members to be groomed for higher positions. Succession planning enhances departmental relationships through regular communication and assessment. The plan creates a course under which employees can follow to attain top positions. HR managers play a vital role in the succession plan, as they are involved in recognizing and nurturing talented individuals within teams, who can assume leadership positions in the future. Employees are made to feel that they are valuable part of the organization, and are motivated to work hard for promotions.
Lesson 11: Customer-Focus
HRM and Customer Satisfaction
HR management can be utilized to enhance customer satisfaction through various HR management practices. For instance, employee engagement enable health care organizations to understand what the customers want, hence, developing a culture that focuses on patient-centered care. Human resources in hospital environment are critical in driving patient satisfaction by enhancing the nursing-skill mix, as well as staffing levels (Hockenberry & Becker, 2016). Creating different work units allow individual employees to specialize in certain tasks that consequently enhance quality and boost overall care experience.
Knowledge management is vital in customer satisfaction because it enables organizations to maintain consistency while dealing with customers who prefer to deal with employees who are conversant with their tasks. For instance, in the health care facilities, the HR’s act of increasing the number of registered nurses (RNs) has been linked to higher patient satisfaction, since much of what patients required is offered by RNs (Hockenberry & Becker, 2016). Organizations can share documents across HR department to ensure that every employee is aware of the new knowledge.
Developing a Customer-Focus Culture
Winning customers necessitate organizations to embrace a culture that lean on the customer needs. Organizations that dedicate their time to generate a customer-focused culture are capable of sustaining their competitive edge, in addition to maintaining the best talents. In order for the health care organizations to attain a customer-focused culture, they should undertake the following steps:
- Strengthen your customer relationship: The healthcare organizations should strive to build their businesses around customers who understand them. Most organizational leaders believe in the notion that customer focus is vital for running a successful business (Brown, L. & Brown, C., 2014). Health care professionals should communicate regularly to patients to understand their needs and to act upon their requests. They should be open to explain what the facility offers, and what they are planning to do to enhance service provision. Patients will always develop trust towards health care professionals who seem to care about their worries, as well as their needs.
- Involve every employee in developing the culture: Employees in the health care organizations possess great insight concerning the patient needs and how to attain such needs. They understand patients better than anyone else, thus, asking for feedback from employees can assist in generating new activities and evaluate how they affect the customers. HR managers can also ask for feedback from patients and share customers’ view with employees as a tactic to motivate employees. Creating a customer-focused culture will also involve coming up with new tactics to deal with patients, and taking time to evaluate how the new tactics affect them.
- Reinvent the process of creating the culture: When employees offer feedback to the HR manager, the HR manager should demonstrate the will to make changes, which enhance customer relationship with the organizations. Corporate culture involves making long-term goals that demonstrate how the organization would deal with customers in the future. Establishing a culture should involve all health care professionals, who understand the tactics of handling patients. Employees can also be trained on the new changes so that they can adapt to the new culture with ease.
- Evaluate all the measurements: A number of metrics utilized to measure success enable organizations to create a customer-focused culture. Feedback from customers and employees reveal how organizations can understand and strengthen customer relationships. HR managers should focus on how customers perceive them as they create relationships instead of how they perceive customers. For instance, customers may be annoyed by how HR managers are handling their problems. Whatever metric that the HR managers opt to use in evaluating customers, they should share it with other employees, who can also utilize them as part of the organizational culture.
- Share responsibilities and develop a common goal: Every goal in the organization is attained through a combined effort of the management and the employees. Each employee should understand his/her role in developing a corporate culture. Employees are incorporated into the organizational culture by empowering them to offer solutions to their problems. When employees are permitted to resolve problems within their workplaces, they contribute in building a customer-focused culture.
Lesson 12: Workplace Safety
Effective management of human resources can assist health care organizations to attain desirable outcomes, particularly when the meet patient needs. In case of a disaster, such as hurricane, earthquakes, and floods, HR management take the responsibility of ensuring that all activities during the response and recovery time are conducted effectively by coordinating the disaster response team. Managing risks imposed by hurricane disaster necessitates preparation and coordination efforts from the Federal government; with assistance from other stakeholders within the affected region (“Hurricane Preparedness and Response,” n.d). The most successful health care organizations have the capacity to ensure that all employees are safe in their workplaces.
Disaster Preparedness Plan
- Introduction
Meridian Medical Center is situated near the coastline of the Pacific Ocean. This makes the center to become vulnerable to hurricane disaster. Such disaster is capable of destroying the facility, in addition to disrupting the provision of medical supplies and food. Preparing for a hurricane disaster is paramount for ensuring that the health care organization staff and patients are secured from imminent danger.
- Purpose
The purpose for a disaster preparedness plan is to offer guidance to the staff and patients in Meridian Medical Center concerning the emergency policies, as well as procedures of handling disasters, with an aim of safeguarding their lives and property. The plan can assist in executing activities with speed and efficiency, thus, saving people’s lives.
- Assumptions
- Chances of experiencing a disaster are very high due to location of the facility
- The facility can ask for assistance from outside if the harm is too much to handle alone
- The center would comply with federal and state regulations while implementing the plan
- Pre-Emergency
- The center should assess its susceptibility to disaster
- All plans and procedures should always be ready for execution
- Warning system should be ready to inform the employees in case of a looming danger
- The center should have reliable communication systems, which should be operational even when the power lines are off
- All staff members should be trained on disaster preparedness
- Preparedness
- The healthcare administrator should direct the emergence operation team to launch a disaster plan immediately after receiving warning of an eminent hurricane disaster
- A disaster preparedness plan should be reviewed to identify evacuation routes, as well as probable temporary settlement
- Family members of patients and staff should be informed of the plan
- Emergency transportation plans should also be reviewed
- Food and water supply should be available at the temporary site
- Response
- The center’s administrator should start the disaster preparedness plan by setting a command post where information would be sourced and conveyed to other departments
- Families of patients and staff should receive regular updates of the response plan
- Local emergency services should be incorporated in a coordinated action
- Recovery
- The hospital’s administrator should assess the impact of the hurricane disaster on center, staff members, as well as the patients
- Recovery operations should incorporate the local emergency recovery agency, as well as other private agencies that volunteer to assist the affected people
- Victims and families should be counseled to eradicate cases of depression and stress
- Affected staff members and patients should be transferred to the temporary center
- Organizational Responsibilities
The Meridian Medical Center’s administrator has a duty to ensure that all operations are carried out under his command. His duties include the following:
- Coordinating the disaster preparedness plans
- Overseeing the execution of disaster preparedness plans
- Appointing a coordinator to deliver medical equipments to the facility
- Directing on the maintenance of the safety within the facility, which including seeking alternative power supply and equipment
- Facilitating telecommunications
Lesson 13: HR Trends
As the world of health provision continues to change, people perceptions have also experienced change. The current breeds of organizations are established through new forms of management, which are driven by globally diverse leaders. The rise in digital technology has compelled HR managers to review their tactics of administration in order to drive employee engagement and boost retention rates. Organizations have persisted in transforming HR into a consumer-oriented department, where consumers experience social and dynamic engagement with service providers. HR department has adapted the marketing tactics with an intention to maintain the customer base. Some of the notable trends in human resources include the following:
- The Workplace as an Experience
Growing organizations are quite aware that individuals with exceptional talents are looking beyond jobs with benefits within their workplaces. Workers with computer skills have become valuable and are in high demand. Out of the ten fastest growing occupations, five of them are computer-related. However, access to numerous facilities within the workplace, such as gym facilities, massage base, Pandora, and refreshments, have transformed workplaces to a new experience (Meister, 2016). Making workplaces centers of experience has inspired employees physically, emotionally, and intellectually. The workplace has also encouraged flexibility, where employees can choose to work from home or from office. This has enabled health care organizations to transform their culture of time to culture of performance, focusing on attaining goals instead of assessing time require to complete tasks.
- Health and Safety
The need for a healthy workforce has made organizations to institute strategies to enhance employee productivity and safety while at work. Workplaces have become safer than before owing to health insurance and stringent rules concerning employee safety. Employers are becoming more aware of disaster preparation than before, owing to numerous man-made disasters, as well as natural calamities. This has prompted health care organizations to establish and execute emergency response plans, in addition to training employees on disaster preparedness. Employees are enjoying fully paid leave while firms have established effective compensation programs to cater for the injured workers.
- Family-Work Life Balance
Most parents desire to have work-life balance as they pursue their career goals, but the truth is that they work longer hours, thus, spending too little time with their families. Employees have put much pressure on the HR management to consider balancing between work and family life. In particularly, women have taken positions that were earlier perceived as belonging to men. This implies that women are spending extra time in their workplaces than at home. The fact is that a happy family is capable of performing better at work as compared to unhappy family. Organizations are nowadays organizing family days where the staff members are allowed to bring their families to their events. In addition, organizations are permitting their employees to sacrifice some days of their duties to attend to issues concerning their families.
- Individualization
Most organizations have turned to treating employees as individuals rather than a group as they endeavor to tap the best talent. The way health care organizations are dealing with their employees is quite different from the way they handle their clients. HR managers in the heath care organizations are striving to emulate the marketing tactics to enable them boost the performance of their organizations. They understand that health care professionals do not belong to the same class, thus, they cannot be perceived as a team. While some organizations are still segregating employees into young and old, the current trend of HR rely on data analysis to identify and predict individual inclinations among employees.
References
Brown, B. B., Haines, M., Middleton, S., Paul, C., D’Este, C., Klineberg, E., & Elliott, E. (2016). Development and validation of a survey to measure features of clinical networks. BMC Health Services Research, 161-11. doi:10.1186/s12913-016-1800-0
Brown, L., & Brown, C. (2014). The customer culture imperative: A leader’s guide to driving superior performance. New York : McGraw-Hill Education.
Fibuch, E., & Van Way III, C. W. (2012). Succession Planning in Health Care Organizations. Physician Executive, 38(5), 44-47.
Hockenberry, J. M., & Becker, E. R. (2016). How Do Hospital Nurse Staffing Strategies Affect Patient Satisfaction?. ILR Review, 69(4), 890-910. doi:10.1177/0019793916642760
Hurricane Preparedness and Response (n.d). United States Department of Labor, Occupation Safety and Health Administration. Retrieved on 5 November 2016
Meister, J. (2016, Jan. 7). Consumerization Of HR: 10 Trends Companies Will Follow In 2016. Forbes. Retrieved on 5 November 2016 from
Wan, M. (2014). Incidental trainer: A reference guide for training design, development, and delivery. Boca Raton : Taylor & Francis.