Enhancing Customer Services in Low Budget Hospitals in UK: Role of HR Leader

This essay analyses the role of HR leader in enhancing customer services in low budget hospitals in UK while ensuring employee satisfaction and motivation. It discusses the challenges faced by nurses and the importance of employee satisfaction in healthcare organizations.

Running head: HR AND CUSTOMER SERVICES
HR and customer services
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction
This essay presents a detailed analysis in the form of an essay with respect to
capability and skills of employees in the health organizations. The hospitals in UK are
facing stiff challenges due to lack of nurses, poor customer services and improper guidance
towards the work and the responsibilities. The human resource department of the
organizations should play a major role in leading the employees towards the work and
organizational responsibility including customer service. However, HR leaders should also
think of the needs and demands of employees when leading them towards the goals. The
leader should ensure that employees are satisfied and inclined towards their job
responsibilities. The major area of the essay is the assessment and analysis of the role of HR
leader to enhance the customer services in a low budget hospitals in UK while ensuring that
organizational staff are satisfied and motivated about the work. On the basis of this area, the
essay particularly focuses on the operational functions of front line employees such as the
nurses, as frontline employees mostly interact or deal with the customers.
In addition to this, an equal attention has also been placed on the labour shortage in
UK health organization as there is a certain fact that due to aging population and increasing
of number of retirement of nurses created the shortage of staff. Moreover, it is a true fact
that governments hospitals in UK are under budget. Additionally, it is also identified that
long hour shifting, workload, lack of clarity of the roles lead to workplace shortage. It is
certain that health organizations run by the governments in UK are short of financial
resources, which is affecting the overall services of the hospitals. Due to lack of budgets, the
organizations are not able to invest in their employee skills development. Likewise, there
could be other reasons or factors creating the impact on the employees at each level of the
organizations, have been analysed intensively in following sections of the essay with valid

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and reliable data. These issues or the questions of the essay are interpreted with the facts and
findings provided in the existing literature.
Main Body
Healthcare organizations in UK in the recent time have faced increasing number of
issues related to customer service. As put forward by Silvain et al. (2007), customer service
is one of the major segments falling under all sector or businesses which requires adequate
attention because if the customers services are not properly enhanced, it could be difficult for
any business to run its operation. If the scenarios of the hospitals are considered here, then it
is worth mentioning that if the front line employees are not able to provide adequate
information to the clients or families of the patients, those customers will not pay a second
visit to the hospital. For example, London Bridge Hospital in UK faced a dire situation
emerged from the poor customer service; in 2009, a bus accident at the downtown of the city
increased the number of death to 13 and some of the patients were supposed to be admitted to
London Bridge Hospital but all of patients had to shift to other nearby hospitals because the
front line staff were not able to give information about the availability of doctors then
(London Bridge Hospital 2018). This incident created the urge for developing a proper
internal management at the London Bridge Hospital.
It is certain that nurses as the front line employees of the hospital plays a great role in
enhancing the customer service. However, it is also a fact that nurses face stiff challenges at
the hospitals as the number of nurses is decreasing gradually due to the increasing retirement
cases, low pay structure, improper work conditions and others. The following are some
specific challenges that nurses face in the recent time at hospitals.
Low paid and high turnover-based profession:

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The government hospital in UK is under budget and due to lack of fund, the service quality is
going down gradually. The existing nurses at the hospital do not find motivation in
performing their duties because their wages are low and due to this low pay structure, the
newly joined nurses are leaving the organization. Consequently, the existing nurses face
workload of absconded nurses. Even though, the HR plays the role of motivating the nurses
to perform their duties but when the pay structure is low, the turnover is inevitable.
According to Herzberg’s hygiene factor indicates that the employees should be provided with
reasonable and appropriate pay which should be equal and competitive to those in the sae
sector (Dartey-Baah and Amoako 2011).
Work life balance: It is identified that the due to labour shortage, the existing nurses in the
hospital face or go through an increase burden of work. The nurses have to work under a long
shift hours, which is challenging for them as they also have to manage their families and
children. Due to improper human resource guidance, the nurses are not sure about their role
and responsibilities. Consequently, most of the day, the nurses have to stretch their working
hours.
Workplace hazard:
Physical- Due to lack of fund, the cleaning is usually not done in the government hospitals;
thereby, the workface becomes infectious and nurses often fall sick. In addition, the nurses
often meet with the accident caused by slippery floors and failing.
Psychological impact: Healthcare services require high attention and instruction because any
small mistake such as wrong use of injection can cause series trouble. Thereby, keeping the
mind busy for long hours often create internal pressure in brain.

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Workplace conflict & abuse: Due to increasing work pressure creates a chaotic and
hazardous situation in the workplace. As there is no proper guidance from the leaders, lack of
cooperation among the nurses often creates conflicts in the workplace.
Emotional labour: Nurse in duty hours face many incidents such as losing a patient even
after several attempts, dealing with rude and ill-behaved patients at the hospital. These
incidents create a mental pressure which cause them poor health. When these nurses reach
home, they have to complete their work such as taking care of children. These incidents
altogether lead to emotional exhaustion and burnout.
Furthermore, it is identified that for managing or enhancing customer services, the
mandatory role of HR leader in leading or managing the staff often comes in the discussion of
customer service enhancement articles. As put forward by Kakuma et al. (2011), human
resource manager or the leader should play a significant role in leading the operation of the
organizations under budget because, here, the role of the leader is not just about managing the
performance of employees or motivating them, the leader has to manage the entire
organizational operation within the given low budget. This means the budget remains as the
concern to the HR leaders. Within a restricted budget, HR leader has to apply strategic HR
management principles such as training and performance monitoring, monitoring the
general human resource functions, holding meeting between staff, employees as well as
administration and ensuring employees are receiving appropriate training programmes (Jiang
et al. 2012).
When it comes to training and performance monitoring, Guest (2011) mentioned that
a primary task conducted by human resource is the quality control. This means that staff or
the nurses can be trained to perform their job responsibilities at the most optima range by
using their primary skills. According to Wright and McMahan (2011), HR leader can develop

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the tests to supervise the skills levels that can be administered throughout the hiring process.
Furthermore, HR leader should work closely with both with clinical and non-clinical
department managers to develop relevant professional development programs as well as
deliver relevant learning opportunities for the employees. For example, Sunrise Medical in
UK once internally started a “knowledge management program” for the nurse, practitioners
and other staff, in which staff are invited to attend the weekly learning themes
(Sunrisemedical.co.uk 2018). The themes include decision-making skills development,
patient management at emergency and front desk operation management. Consequently,
Sunrise Medical reported a growth of 21% in their customer base (Sunrisemedical.co.uk
2018).
When it comes to employee satisfaction and happiness, the HR department must
have the insight that managing or retaining employees just cannot be done by providing them
the wages. As opined by Harzing and Pinnington (2010), the HR department or the
organization must have to think of employee wellbeing and other essential needs. Dartey-
Baah and Amoako (2011) supported Herzberg’s two factor theory and suggested that both
hygiene factor and motivation factors should be considered while retaining employees.
According to Herzberg hygiene factor the employees at each level of the organization should
be provided with appropriate pay structure, fringe benefits and proper physical work
conditions. On the other side, Evans and Olumide-Aluko (2010) mentioned that motivation
factor of Herzberg plays a great role in motivating employees which is further reflected on
employee retention. The motivation factors may include recognition, growth and promotional
opportunities and meaningfulness of the work. This means that the leader should appreciate
the effort and achievement of employees and on the basis of their achievement, the
employees should be provided with internal growth and promotional opportunities.

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As put forward by Gruman and Saks (2011), employee performance can go below the
expected margin for some common reasons such as if they do not find motivation in work, or
if they are not sure about their role and responsibilities as there is no proper guidance.
Thereby, in the case of a government hospital, the leader should manage the nurses or front
life staff by segregating their roles and duties. The major issue such as the workload and
long shift hours can be avoided or managed if the HR leader segregates the work into
different segments. According to Sadikoglu and Zehir (2010) long shift hours can be reduced
by employing few more staff but when the budget is limited, the organization could draw a
work framework structure. According to work framework structure, the leader should put
their employees in different team with a stipulated number of roles and responsibilities. Each
team should have a specific target of job responsibilities and timeline; thereby, if the team
performs their duties as per their target and instructions, hospitals can avoid workload and
long hour shifts.
Becker, Antuar and Everett (2011) conducted a research on the performance health
organizations aligning NHS standards, and mentioned that as the front line employees such as
nurses directly deal with the customers, those staff must acquire communication skills.
Thereby, HR department or senior HR leader should must have think of the required
communication training program. The goal of such communication training program
should be about enhancing the communication skills of the employees who are directly with
dealing with the customers. Such program does not cost much because, hence, the training is
provided to the existing staff only. On the other side, to avoid the cost of hiring full time soft
skill trainer, the hospital can hire a part-time or contact- based trainer who works for the
specific period. For example, a stated above, Sunrise Medical in UK designs contract based
training program for all employees. Sunrise Medical, in every year designs a “fall to autumn

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learning” program which helps their employees to deal with new and ongoing operational
challenges in their organizational setting.
According to “Office for National Statistics” almost 34% of total nurses in UK
heading towards the retirement; as a consequence, the health organizations are observing
labour shortage, excessive work pressure on the existing nurses (Ons.gov.uk 2018).
Furthermore, emotional state of being is also affected when they do not receive appropriate
support or guidance in such conflict situation. According to Arlie Hochschild emotional
labour takes place when the staff introduce their emptions to portray themselves in a
particular light and further creates a wanted state of mind. Hence, Hochschild developed two
significant aspects related to the management of an individual emotions and these aspects are
such as deep action and surface acting. According to Hochschild in deep acting an
individual place his/her private emotional state into one which is aligned with what is socially
acceptable for a particular situation (Hochschild 2015). Thus, in the case of a healthcare
organization, when the employees are under pressure or dealing with excessive workload,
may experience emotional issues that they are unrecognizable but an HR leader can address
the issue interacting with and strategically handling their roles. Therefore, the following
paragraph says why it is important to pay attention to internal employees.
It is highly important for the organizations in healthcare sector to pay required
attention to the internal employees because it is universally proven that the organizational
performance broadly depends on their how their employees perform. Thereby, the leader or
human resource department does not give adequate attention to the employees, the employees
set up their own rules in the workplace; everyone in the workplace could be laidback about
their roles and responsibilities. Moreover, lack of attention to internal employee development
could lead to high staff turnover; therefore, it is necessary for the organization to treat their
people as the highest priority after their clients. The following paragraph shows the

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importance of having a satisfied internal employees leading to enhanced customer base
applying service profit chain model
By using service profit chain, crucial measure of the healthcare organization could
set is customer loyalty. According to Hong et al. (2013), understanding the customer value is
difficult for two significant reasons; if the organization is not a small one, it is difficult for the
leaders to remain close in contract with the customers. Another reason for this is, the
customers are not good enough at explaining what they actually want and why. Thereby, the
best way to do is, use of frontline employees to generate a customer feedback loop. As put
forward by Graban and Swartz (2012), the front line staff of healthcare organization can be
trained to figure out how to convert customer feedback into a useful input and appropriate
tools, which can provide structure that is more practical and actionable at the range.
Furthermore, Chuang et al. (2012) mentioned that the frontline employee such as the nurses
are critical to effective customer experience. The translation of customer feedback in the
service profit chain model empower employees to perform their responsibilities effectively as
well as maximize their motivation to deliver more effective services. Furthermore, Hong et
al. (2013) mentioned that generating a feedback loop for frontline employees remains as the
driver to unidentified problems that affect the productivity. The authors in their article have
also revealed the data derived from the survey that only 4% of firm’s frontline issues known
by the top management, only 9% are known by middle management, 74% by supervisors as
well as 100% are known by the employees only (Hong et al. 2013). Therefore, the
organization can understand why it remains critical to have a better way to collect, design and
resolve the issues that HR managers do not have information of. In addition to this, the health
organization also needs to pay attention to human resource development such as appropriate
requirement process, motivation, and empowerment.

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Recruit: Hospital needs more skilled employees who can better understand the role and
cooperate with others in the workplace. Thus, to recruit employees, the organization can
conduct a personality test where the skills and characteristics of employees can be analysed.
The recruiters must have to assess the interpersonal skills of the candidates such as
communication, eye contact practice and others. Moreover, some particular attributes such as
patience, passion and sympathy towards others of candidates should also be analysed.
Enable: The employees should be provided by with appropriate training and development
programs where they can learn or enhance of their skills of decision making, problem solving
and knowledge sharing. The employees should also be provided with frequent technological
knowledge as the use of technology is rapidly increasing in healthcare industry.
Motivate: Nurses should be provide with appropriate reward and monetary benefits on the
completion of the achievement of work.
Specific role of nurses:
 Create positive focus and gain self-control
 Create a stable work balance
 Relaxation in the leisure time
It is significant to have a good process in place that could bias action over the
analysis. However, Sadikoglu and Zehir (2010) conducted a study and found that focus on
implementing a known solution holds a greater impact on customer satisfaction instead of
analysing as well as focussing on the bigger issues. On the other side, Gruman and Saks
(2011) mentioned that generating new ideas on how to enhance customer satisfaction is not
usually the problem, knowledge already resides within the internal setting of organization.
According to this author, the bigger issue is that those ideas do not prove to be effective
because the individuals with the solutions usually does not have the resources required to

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implement it. It is probably that origin of the issue and solution resides elsewhere in the firm.
Thus, a better connection between frontline employees as well as leadership become a key.
With the help of appropriate tools and leadership support, the HR manager could make sure
that the solutions get the required resources.
Conclusion
As mentioned above, HR leader should play a broad role in managing the overall
operation of the healthcare organization. Customer service improvement is directly related to
the internal workforce development. Particularly, in order to learn about customer issues and
complaints, it is better to create customer feedback loop in which frontline employees will
convey the issue to the senior management by translating them into a meaningful input.
Hence, employee training is a mandatory initiative. Likewise, the organization can also create
employee feedback loop to learn about employee issues that affect the productivity of the
organization. The above presented paragraph talks about the role of HR leader in managing
the overall organizational performance.
The content also includes the discussion about the importance of having skilled
employees who deal with the operation. Some real-world examples have also been provided
to understand the consequence of not providing customers with appropriate information.
When it comes to employee satisfaction and happiness, factors mentioned in Herzeberg two
factor theory has been discussed and suggested to the healthcare organization. The service
profit chain model give in the body of the essay helps to understand how customer services
can be improved by collecting feedback through feedback loop. On the bass of this model,
employee feedback loop has also derived which could help to identify the employee issues
that organizations face in the internal environment and address them by collecting feedback

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from the employee feedback loop. The essay questions regarding the customer service
improvement, employee shortage management are significant and often observed many
organizations in all sector besides the healthcare. Therefore, importance of conducting an
essay on this context, lies on the fact enhanced solutions can derived to resolve worldly
known issues.

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