Healthcare Sector Workforce: Recruitment and Retention

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ASSESSMENT 3
Key challenges in attracting and retaining a workforce in the Healthcare Sector
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Introduction
In today’s competitive world, many organizations are facing challenges to maintain the turnover
of employees. Employees of today's generation need and seek better work experience and for
that, they often move to other organization where they can find some better opportunities and
growth. Human resource management is a concept which is very important and can be applied to
any sector and to any business. With the growing competition in the business market and human
resource management, it has become important for almost every business organization to adopt
human resource practices in their businesses. In recent time, it has been found that many
organizations are facing challenges in attracting and retaining talented employees in their
business organization. This is the essay that highlights those challenges in the Health Care sector
and also gives recommendations that can help in sorting out those challenges by using Human
Resource Management (HRM).
A highly talented and skilled workforce is needed in industries like Health Care to carry out daily
operations of different departments. But it has been found by the Human Resource Management
that the main problem that has been faced in recent time is the aging of the employees in the
Health Care sector (Cowman and Mary, 2013). The solution which has been identified for this
problem is to provide the aging employees easy work or to force them to get retire from the job.
Providing the aging employees easy work is more appropriate in the sector of Health Care
because it is very hard to find employees with that much of skills and retaining them will be
suitable for the sector and also for them. While forcing them to get retire from the job may allow
the industry to have new employees with lower skills but more energy which is also a very
important requirement in this sector.
As per the demographics of 2018 of Australia, the participation of the workers who are of age
group 65 years or above was 13% rate and the workers who are in the age group of 40 or above
have planned to work till 70. As the aging of the workforce is a part of life and is inevitable but it
has been wondered by the Human Resource Department of sectors like Health Care often that
how can they make it possible to prevent the workforce of their working sector from being less
productive. As per the report which was published by the small business and jobs department of
Australia, approximately 1,702,000 persons at the age of 42 years are employed in the sector of
Social Assistance and Health Care.
To retain the workers who are aging, Human Resource Department of the Health Care sector has
identified many ideas and strategies like for the aging employees who find it difficult to read has
been provided with the magnifiers (De Prins, et. al., 2018). Another strategy or idea that can help
the human Resource Management to retain the employees who are aging is by constructing
floors of woods so that they can walk around freely without the fear of slipping and also by
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organizing different activities that can make them more active and energetic. This can help the
sector in increasing the productivity level of the sector and will also help in retaining workers in
the organization and consequently, it will reduce the turnover of the employees.
One more reason that is contributing to the failure of retaining employees by the Human
Resource Department is the Pay-cuts (Hackbarth and Gamble, 2017). Mostly, the employees turn
back to the organization or the sector because they find the employers or the leaders are making
unfair deductions or pay-cuts in their salary. It has been also found from the studies that the
employers or leaders tend to slash the bonuses of the employees for self-benefits which creates a
negative impact on the workers or employees and increases dissatisfaction of the job for the
employees which results in the failure of the Human Resource Management in retaining their
workforce.
It is very difficult for the Human Resource Management to attract employees for the sector of
Health care as it requires highly skilled, trained, and disciplined workers in the workforce to
carry out difficult operations of different departments. Today’s generation people who are
seeking jobs in the health care sector are not skilled and disciplined enough to carry out the
operations in an effective manner, so they will require attention and training in order to acquire
the skills needed in the sector of Health Care (Nyberg and Christian, 2019). But the advantage of
recruiting employees from the new generation people is that they are very energetic, optimistic,
and also possess great skills in communication.
If any conflicts arise in the workplace in any working sector of Australia, the workers have the
right to protect their rights against it. System of National Fair Work governs most of these rights
of the employees and the other practices of the occupations and industries are covered by the
modern awards. The number of awards has been reduced to around 75 which were around 4,000
before the introduction of the Modern Award system. Standard for determination of the workers
is not just the thing that has been included in the National Employment Standards but it also
gives the information of the employees regarding the rights of the employees; how much the
minimum wage of the employee should be and for demanding leaves also (Ramadevi, et. al.,
2016).
It has been recommended to the employees before starting job anywhere in Australia to go
through a website whose domain is fairwork.gov.au and learn about the workplace of the
organization they are to join. The employees working in the health care sector must be aware of
the rights they have given, as working in the health care sector is the job with huge
responsibilities.
It has been also observed from the studies that many employees of the industry of health care
resign from their jobs because of major disputes in the industries. It is the responsibility of the
Human Resource Management department to create a healthy working environment in the
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working place by recognizing the concerns of the employees. The leaders or the employers of the
health often fail in recognizing the major concerns of the employees and the disputes continue, as
a result, the employee involved in the dispute prefers to leave the job. The employment abuse in
the industry sometimes gives rise to the conflicts between the employers of the industry and
trade unions. The commission of the fair work of Australia has aimed at resolving and removing
these types of issues in the industry (Taha and Júlia, 2015). But with the help of Human resource
Management Departments of the industry, the issues of such types can be removed and resolved
effectively and resolving these issues may also help the Human Resource Management
department in minimizing the turnover of the employees’ rate effectively.
There can be negative impacts on the persons who want to work in the industry of Health Care
sector and are not willing to leave the job if the records of the resigning of the employees from
the industry keep on increasing. For reducing the resigning of the employees, the Human
Resource Management department of the industry can organize some programs which will the
employees of the industry to discuss their concerns and issues freely with them. The relationship
between the industry and employees should be made strong and should be maintained effectively
and also it should be in favor of the employees. This will make the employees of the industry
work in the health care sector more willingly. If the relationship will be not maintained nicely
with the employees then it will increase the possibility for the employees to work with very less
efficiency.
It is important for almost every industry, especially industry like the Health Care sector to apply
the approaches strategically for using Human resources. The growing competition in the world is
making the companies to become a global image but they are not putting any attention on their
employees which is making it difficult for the industries in retaining the employees. Now, it has
become the major concern for the organizations to retain employees in the organization by
dealing with the needs of human resources. It has been found from the surveys that the
organizations are becoming globalized but are failing in retaining and maintaining employees
with talent. It has been also observed that the organizations have also failed in managing the
talents that the employees have required if viewed from the aspects of investments and it is
known to all that hiring and investing on the employees that are smart and hardworking have
always paid off in one way or the other. So the department of the Human Resource Management
should approach in a productive manner and by keeping in mind the future requirement while
hiring the employees for the organization.
To make the organization sustain in the global economy, the Human Resource Management
should is needed to approach the future in a strategic way. The long-term decision making will
improve if the Human Resource department identifies the significance of uncertainties and make
a suitable strategy for the management of those uncertainties. Structuring of the plan of
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employment is the first step for the recruitment of initiating employees. Various technologies
have been identified and are used by the organization for solving the complexities arise while
maintaining information about the organization’s employees and recruiting them. One of such
technologies that have been found in the Human Resource information system which is also
known by the software solution of the Human Resource. The main objective of the Human
Resource information system is to improve efficiency, simplify accessing of data easier and to
make an improved decision.
The system of Human Resource information also contains components like management of
Human Resource, maintaining the time of log out and log in, and identifying benefits and
liability. The organization gets benefits from the use Human Resource information system like
with the use of this system the data can be stored in a systematic manner and also in maintaining
the flow of the work. Duties are imposed on the Human Resource Management department by
the organization for preparing the employees of the organization to deal with the globalization
and its concepts by making them work in different environmental cultures. Human Resource
Management is responsible for the identification and recognition of the gaps within the talent
management and also in gaining a better understanding of the behavior of the employees of the
organization.
In the industries like the industry of the Health Care, creating an environment which is safe for
the employees, as well as the patients, are very important and it is the responsibility of the
Human Resource Department to create such environment. In general, the mechanism of the
psychology is given low focus which aims at explaining the Human Resource relationship and its
relationship with the operations at maintaining safety and care in the sector of the Health care. It
has been found from the studies that the employees mostly fall ill because of the workload or
commonly known as the work-stress. There are many different effects which can be led by an
illness like it can lead to depression, difficulty in sleeping and also anxiety (Kolachi, 2014). So
reducing the workload by dividing it in an unbiased and effective manner can help the
organization and the individuals in the following ways:
 Saving time and reducing illness
 Reduces expenses done on the employees
 Increase job satisfaction
 The decrease in the absenteeism
 Productivity improvement
 Improve community welfare and also the health of the employees
It has been shown by many reports that for remediating injuries and the diseases of the
employees at the workplace the money spent is approximately $60 billion. The compensation
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that has been paid to the employees every year who has suffered mental disorders related to the
work that has been reported is approximately $480 million and for this reason, the Australian
government has aimed at creating an environment at the workplace which is safe by enacting
acts numerously.
It has been studied in the recent studies of the survey that approximately 76% of the
professionals are trying for the work actively or passively. It is evident that the link between the
conditions of the training and the recollecting of the employees. The healthcare sector in the
human resources department to address the employees by showing the different training to
encouraging the employees. The strategy of the training program is for evaluating the employees
and also to recognize the different skills for the present and for future sake and the evaluation of
the training is in the period of six months to two years. The loss of productivity is due to the high
turnover of the employees and the increment in the costs of the hiring and also for the new
employees training. That is why human resource management is chosen for the recollecting the
current employees that are working rather than the training of the new employees (Shantz, et. al.,
2016). It will become easy that the maintenance of the employees because the company provides
reasonable and fair reimbursement to the employees that include more perks and the medical
insurance of the employee. The extra benefits that are provided by the company for their
employees such as membership of the clubs and the amenities.
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Conclusion
In the present scenario, it is very hard to keep the talented employees, this is because the
management team faces many issues that are dealing with the same. In this study, there are many
challenges that have been discussed in the context of the Human Resource Management in the
sector of the health care and in the changing of the environment of the workforce how the
Human Resource Management should retain the employees of the organization. In this study, it
has been also discussed that what measures should be taken by the Human Resource
Management in order to maintain safety and health in the workforce of the organization by
providing working hours of flexible timing and also by reducing the load work or can be called
as work stress. This essay also depicts how can the Human Resource Management use several
methods that have been mentioned and discussed above for attracting new talent and also for
retaining the skilled employees in the health care sector.
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References
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