Critical Evaluation of HRM: Hospital Case Study and Recommendations

This report presents a critical evaluation of Human Resource Management (HRM) practices within two hospitals, one with a dedicated HRM team and the other managed by the CEO and finance manager. The report analyzes the challenges faced by the hospital lacking a dedicated HRM department, such as inconsistencies in policy implementation, staff grievances, and staff shortages. It proposes actionable strategies for improvement, including written policies, enhanced team building, a system for addressing grievances, motivational sessions, and improved management skills to enhance staff retention. Furthermore, the report outlines key features for building sustainable HR capabilities, including time-based, culture change, service, money-based, and information-based strategies. The report emphasizes the importance of HRM in achieving organizational goals and objectives, highlighting the need for a dedicated HRM function to ensure employee satisfaction, productivity, and long-term sustainability. It underscores the role of HRM in creating a competitive advantage, particularly within knowledge-intensive and service-oriented industries like healthcare.

Running Head: Managing Human Resource
Managing Human Resource

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Executive summary
HRM plays very significant role in an organization working. The report is based on the critical
evaluation of the need of the HRM and key features for building a sustainable HR capability in
an organization. The critical evaluation is based on the case study which consist of the two
hospitals of same sized are analyzed with or without HRM. The challenges are faced by the
organization not having the HRM; currently it is managed by the CEO and finance manager. The
areas of improvement along with the actions are stated in the report considering the challenges
faced by the company.

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Contents
Executive summary.........................................................................................................................1
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Human Resource Management........................................................................................................4
Action Required to Improve HRM..................................................................................................4
Key features of building a sustainable HR capability.....................................................................5
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
References........................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
The report includes the critical evaluation of 2 organizations are given in the case study. Out of
these 2 hospitals, one hospital does not consist of HRM team who can take care of the human
resource activities such as selection, recruitment, etc. the function of HR is regulated by the CEO
and finance manager. As they are not expert in the practicing the HR activity they faced
difficulties. On the other hand, the second hospital maintains an HR team which makes sure to
manage HR planning and analysis for recruitment, selection, training, and development. The
HRM include the management of the policies, practices, and processes. The report includes the
activities that need to be taken by the company to improve the operations of HRM at the first
hospital. Later on, it includes the management of sustainable HRM and its features.

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Human Resource Management
HRM defined as a process of managing employees in an organization in a structured form to
accomplish the strategic goals and objectives of a business. HRM includes the organizational
strategies such as recruitment, selection, training, and development of the employees
(Armstrong, & Taylor, 2014). It plays an important role in maximizing employee’s performance
towards the strategic objectives.
Action Required to Improve HRM
In the case study, the first hospital faced inconsistency difficulties in managing HR activities.
CEO and Finance manager need to ensure that whatever policies and plans they are
implementing should be in writing. The copy of the written document should have been shared
with the employees with the clear instructions. So that in case any employee found guilty proper
actions should be taken by the organization. The middle level and supervisory management try to
maintain the policies and plans but this may lead to employees feel that are not equally treated.
These thoughts not only made the employee leave the company but also impact the productivity
of the employees. Considering this may also lead to the industrial disputes (Marchington,
Wilkinson, Donnelly, & Kynighou, 2016). To avoid that company need to enhance the team
work and team bonding that will reduce the industrial disputes among the team members in an
organization.
The high level of staff grievances can be resolved by acknowledging the issue by one of the
people for the same department. So that person can examine the facts and make decisions
accordingly. Employees should be given a system to lodge a grievance confidently, so that they

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can make complaints without any pressure and they should be praised because of sharing
problems in the form of grievances (Lengnick et al, 2011). For bringing a reduction in the
absenteeism, CEO can conduct motivational sessions for the employees. This will encourage
employees towards their work and responsibility. Reduction in absenteeism may enhance
promotion opportunities for employees; will raise flexibility of work, enhance the opportunity
for earning incentives, etc. the company can also provide benefit such as double pay to the
employees for working on offs or on gadgets holidays.
In the case study, one of the issues highlighted is Staff shortage, staff shortage is a leading
problem and compulsory to be maintained by any organization. Staff shortage might occur
because of the high retention rate of the employees in an organization. The management skills
and working conditions of an organization need to be improved for retaining the staff. HR plays
a vital role; by hiring skilled and experienced employees, company requirement for the skilled
employees might be fulfilled (Reenen & Bloom, 2011).
Key features of building a sustainable HR capability
Building sustainability in business is quite difficult due to a dynamic world. Sustainability
defined as fulfilling the needs and demand of the customer without impacting the near future.
HRM plays a vital role in establishing strategies that link a business with the human resource of
a company. HR function is required to manage the business strategies, management process and
for building a strong organizational structure. The CEO and the HR of the company are the
architects of the organizational social culture (Abadesco, 2015). Below given are some of the
features that help a company in building a sustainable HRM.

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 Time-based strategy: - The policy which an HR needs to establish is; flexible timings to
the employees, part time working times should be available. The time duration plays a
major role in working conditions.
 Culture change strategies: - This strategy is related to the culture of the company, the
manager needs to be trained to deal with the employees. So that employee's satisfaction
can easily be achieved. The manager needs to understand the issues related to the work
life.
 Service Strategy: - In this strategy company should provide some additional services
such as emergency care, health and beauty programs, some outing programs, some
coupons or gift voucher to employees, etc.
 Money based strategy: - The monetary benefits should be given to the employees such
as incentives, vouchers, retirement benefits, paid sick leaves, etc. which enhance the
morale of the employees and increase the productivity.
 Information based strategy: - Information policy includes the intranet and relocation
assistance benefits, these benefits should be provided to the employees.
 Non-financial based strategy: - In this strategy the HR needs to make sure that they are
providing non-financial benefits to the customers. The organization needs to maintain the
policies related to the non-financial benefits. The non-financial benefits include
competitive salary satisfaction, promotion, rewards and recognitions, health insurance,
etc. (Cummings, & Worley, 2014).
These points show the strategy that can be implemented by the HR for smooth management of
the employees and sustainability. Sustainable HR practice contains motivation to employees and
training and development of the employees. There is needed to make the employees realize that

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organization will be able to provide job security (Benn, Dunphy, & Griffiths, 2014). The health
care sectors include highly knowledge intensive and service oriented entities. Hence, these kinds
of industries require some set of HR activities and support. HR with their capabilities can bring
knowledge, tactics, talent, etc. that create an opportunity for the company for building a
competitive advantage for a company. Hence, maintain a HRM in an organization is must for
the company (Wright, & Mcmahan, 2011).

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Conclusion
Each and every organization tries to maintain the gap between the organization function and the
HRM function. In the case study, the hospital needs to maintain the gap between both
organization and HRM function. HR contributes to the achievement and fulfillment of the
organizational goals and objectives. The report shows the way through which the issues can be
improved by the company. It also includes the strategies and policies that need to be
implemented by the company for building a sustainable HRM capability. By adopting such
policies and activities company may be able to retain the employees in an organization. This will
also lead to a reduction in the inconsistency challenges of the company.

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References
Abadesco, EV. (2015). Strategic HRM Building organisational capabilities, HR matters retrieved
from http://business.inquirer.net/202970/strategic-hrm-building-organizational-capabilities
Armstrong, M., & Taylor, S. (2014). Armstrong's handbook of human resource management
practice. Kogan Page Publishers.
Benn, S., Dunphy, D., & Griffiths, A. (2014). Organizational change for corporate
sustainability. Routledge.
Cummings, T. G., & Worley, C. G. (2014). Organization development and change. Cengage
learning.
Lengnick-hall, C. Beck, T. & Lengnick-hall, M. (2011). Developing a capacity for organizational
resilience through strategic human resource management, Human Resource Management
Review, 21(3), 243-255.
Marchington, M., Wilkinson, A., Donnelly, R., & Kynighou, A. (2016). Human resource
management at work. Kogan Page Publishers.
Reenen, J. & Bloom, N. (2011). Human Resource Management and Productivity, Handbook of
labor economics, 4, 1697-1767.
Wright, P. & Mcmahan, G. (2011). Exploring human capital: putting ‘human’ back into strategic
human resource management, Human resource management journal, 21(2), 93-104.

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