Managing Human Resources in Healthcare: A Critical Analysis

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WRITTEN ASSESSMENT 3
HRMT20024 MANAGING HUMAN
RESOURCES
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Key challenges in fascinating employees........................................................................................4
Retaining Workforce - Challenges..................................................................................................6
Talent attraction and selection.........................................................................................................8
Managing workplace health and safety...........................................................................................9
Strategic reward management........................................................................................................11
Management of performance.........................................................................................................13
Develop a critical understanding of contemporary human resources issues including ethical
issues..............................................................................................................................................14
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................16
References:....................................................................................................................................17
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Introduction
In this study, there will be discussion regarding the management of the human resource in the
health care industry. Managing its human resource is a crucial activity in this industry because
there is a lot of competition in the health industry market. The discussion will be regarding the
key issues these industry faces while retaining and gaining the interest of their employees. The
role and function of Human resource will be covered, along with how HRM evaluates their
strategies in order to sustain in the industry. The major problem this industry faces is in retaining
their existing employees and for this, they have to use many tools of the reward management
system. This system covers incentives or non-incentives plans, reward and recognition seminars,
etc all these succor the HRM in retaining their employees. This also helps an organsiation in
developing a positive work environment within the company.
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Key challenges in fascinating employees
This is the part of issues in managing the workforce Key challenges this industry faces while
attracting employees are given below. Every HR manager has to go through these few challenges
in order to attract new talent from the market. Major challenges they face in attracting doctors
and nurses:
Challenges from competitors: In the health care industry, hospitals and other health care
institutes are always ready to give an offer to doctors or nurses. So, the HR manager has to offer
a high salary and they have to promise to create a more positive work environment than before in
order to attract doctors or nurses (Tomar, et. al., 2013).
Shortage of efficient doctors or nurses: In this industry, HR manager agrees to pay salary to
efficient candidates but in the market, they face the challenges of not getting efficient candidate
even after agreeing to pay more than the market rate.
Enormous demand of the candidates: HR managers have to struggle with the enormous
demand from the candidates. Doctors or nurses demand for additional week offs more salary,
more perks, etc. These demands create the challenges for the HRM and they have to make a
mutual agreement with the candidate.
Challenges in understanding the behavior of the employee: HR manager has to face
challenges in understanding the behavior of the employees. As if they appoint anyone who has
wrong intentions they he/she will not be able to possess complete loyalty to an organisation. For
overcoming these challenges they have to be careful while taking the skill and behavioral test of
an employee (Shantz, et. al., 2016).
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In order to overcome these hinder, the HR manager needs to act very carefully. All the
conditions of an organisation and of an employee should be mutually discussed before on paper.
This is the great practice that an organisation should adopt and always concentrate on this
practice. Moreover, this kind of practice will help the HR manager in overcoming future
challenges (Sasongko, 2018).
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Retaining Workforce - Challenges
According to Nankervis, et. al., (2016), chapter 6, HR manager faces challenges in retaining their
existing workforce within the industry. In simple words, any time they have to struggle in
keeping the employees within an organisation. There can be many reasons why an employee
leaves the hospital. However, here points will cover regarding the challenges in retaining
employee by the health care industry:
Compensation (packages): Doctors or nurses or other staff members after working for a few
months, they feel like their basic pay should be increased because they are continuously handling
the work pressure. With this though, they request from the HR manager to increase their basic
pay, if HRM fails to increase this then they start searching for other opportunities.
Failure in creating working culture: Expectation of every employee is different as some want
changes in different factors while wanting changes in other factors. This creates a problem for
Human resource to create a work environment that is being accepted by all the employees.
Opportunities from other competitors: In the retention, this is the biggest hindrance, it means
when doctors or nurses get to know about the better income and working culture from the
competitor then they easily decided to switch over another competitor. This brings a lot of
struggle over the human resource manager in the retention process. The HR manager should
decide their packages as per the market conditions and they should keep in mind about how
much other competitors are offering to their employees.
Negative news for the company: When in the market due to any reason the images of the
hospital or health care center start becoming negative then also employees leave the company as
they don't want to associate with such company who has a negative reputation in the market. In
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order to correct this, whole management has to work together because this is not only in the
hands of human resource management.
These are the problems or challenges the HR manager faces while retaining the employees. In
order to improve the retention percent, the HR team should understand deeply about what an
employee except for a good organisation (Wickramasinghe and Samaratunga, 2016).
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Talent attraction and selection
According to Nankervis, et. al., (2016), chapter 7, this study will also about the role and
functions of the HRM because selecting the right person for the right job is the prime function of
the HRM. The role and functions of HRM in healthcare industry follow the best practices in
selecting the candidates. In the selection process, they see for the required skills and qualification
in the candidate, candidate have to go through the many rounds or tests to prove his/her
capability to handle the work roles. In the selection process,\ while conducting the interview for
the post of Doctor or nurses, HR manager’s main aim is to look for the strength and weakness of
the conducting his interview because any wrong or incapable talent acquisition will directly
affect the health of the patient. In the selection process they follow the below steps:
Step1: Conducting the interview of the candidate. It is the general introduction round.
Step2: Skill test in which candidate have to go through the real-life scenario.
Step3: Background of the candidate
Step4: Medical check for knowing the health-related issue
Step5: Signing of agreement or bond (if an organisation prefers)
Step6: Documentation
Step7: Onboarding of the candidate with the offer letter.
Now, this selection process can be modified as per the requirement or comfortability of an
institution.
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Managing workplace health and safety
This is the part of managing the workforce as ensuring their safety is the prime concern of the
human resource department. Human resource management is responsible for ensuring the best
safety of their employees in physical and mental both terms. It means they should those
equipment that is not harmful to their doctors or staff or nurses to ensure the protection to their
physical health. On the other hand, the HR manager should make those policies that not create
unnecessary burden over their employees. By keeping physical and mental health safety
enhances the productivity and sense of security in the employees. Below are the steps which are
responsible for providing a safe working culture to an employee (Ishizaka, et. al., 2018).
Employing safe equipment: In the health industry, doctors have to deal with many types of
equipment for operating patients but the HR team should employ safe equipment wherever
possible.
Proper handling of drugs: In hospitals, the use of drugs for curing patients is normal. However,
these drugs should be used by proper safety and under the guidance of any specialist.
Insurance of the employee: No one has control over the uncertain situations like natural
calamity, etc. So, Human resource manager should always protect their doctors or other staff
with insurance policies. This enhances the loyalty of an employee for an organisaiton.
Proper selection of right meal: In the hospital, the air is not fresh because continuously patient
bring health-related issue there and they release harmful diseases particle releases in the air by
exhaling air. So, the HR manager should take care that the food area should be away from such
an environment (Marichev, et. al., 2017).
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These are the safety measures that can be implemented by HRM in the healthcare industry. Any
kind of glitch in the safety measure of the hospital can result in making the bad health condition
of doctors as well as of patients. Government is also very strict and all the companies have to
abide by the rules or set guidelines by the legal authority. All the rules making by the
government are in the interest of both employer and employee. Not abiding rules can bring the
hospitals or health care institution in serious trouble (Tomar, et. al., 2013).
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Strategic reward management
According to Nankervis, et. al., (2016), chapter 10, this topic will explain how the strategies of
human resource management. Reward management programs help Human resource management
in creating enthusiasm in the employees. This rewards management program uses various
incentive methods which include monetary and non-monetary incentive both. The reward
management system is always proved to be the best practice adopted by human resource
management and this practice also helps the management in maintaining their retention ratio.
Below are the techniques which include in reward management by health care industry:
Earning opportunities: HR makes many policies that help the employee in earning more and
more money. In this way, HRM can enhance more productivity from their employee. In the
health care industry, doctors or nurses need to work with proper accuracy because any ignorance
can affect the health of the patients.
Recognition plans: Recognition for doing proper work helps HRM in keeping the behavior of an
employee calm and positive. This is the most powerful tool of reward management programs
because it motivates an employee to done work with more accuracy.
Timely promotions: Expectation of getting more responsibility with better position also
enhances the work efficiency of the employee. This also develops the long term satisfaction
among the employees and this also increases the loyalty of an employee towards an organisation.
Shareholding of the company: This is not an easy step to implement in an organisation but
these steps empower an employee to get shareholding in the company if he/she works
effectively. This develops the sense of ownership in the mind of an employee and this results in
extreme improvement of the productivity.
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These are the techniques of the reward management system in the healthcare system. Mainly
monetary incentives plans act faster than all other plans. However, HRM can adopt more reward
giving practices in an organisation to keep the employee motivated towards the work (Shantz, et.
al., 2016).
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