Case Study: Improving People Management Practices in the NHS

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People Management Areas: A case of NHS
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Body.................................................................................................................................................3
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
Reference.........................................................................................................................................9
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Introduction
The following study concerns about the company NHS, which has been getting serious trouble in
retaining the employees and therefore they are employing and reframing some areas in the
company. The three main areas are leadership and management, training and development and
talent management. In the following report the three aspects are discussed connecting them with
relevant theories. Along with that the role of the officials to retain the talent and regain the prior
position is also discussed. The places of influence and recommendations from the reporter is also
briefed out for the company’s better performance.
Body
People management is one key area of the managers. The workforce in the human resource
which requires most attention as they are the company’s primary assets. The case study focus on
the fact that NHS being a reputed organization is facing issues in the human resource
department. Though people are interested in joining the company still they are having problems
in the particular department (McCaffery, 2018). The key reason identified that there is a serious
problem in the people management sector. The company s appointing more people from the
agency who are less responsible and the key persons are not given much attention.
The current scenario in the company is that NHS is having a staff shortage due to illness and
leaves which is hampering the patient care. Reports say that the recruitment board is also not
careful in selecting the correct people. Along with that company has a poor pay scale, high
workload, higher targets and an intense environment which demotivates the workers. The
company also use agency staff which initiates the discrepancy factors of wage and responsibility
between the permanent and the temporary staff (Thorpe, 2016). Though it is relevant that more
people are getting trained to join NHS. The company thus, have identified the areas of
improvement. Addressing the current scenario the company has identified the following sections
to improve (Renz, 2016).
Leadership and Management
The distinct role of a people manager is to understand and manage the people. They should
possess the quality where they are able to face and fight real situations (Diamond and Spillane,
2016). To be a ‘people’s man’ the manager should have some knowledge about tackling the
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workforce and managing their skills according to the company requirements. The management
theories can be associated with motivation, leadership, change management and their application
in real life situations.
There are 4 theories of management namely- The classical management theory, Human Relation
theory, Neo-Human relation theory and System theory. Each theory are associated to the various
qualities required in managing people (Solomon,et al., 2016).
The competencies required to be a good manager are as follows:
 Communication
 Delegation
 Motivating others:
 Organising and task management
 Patience
 Building effective teams
 Self-development
NHS can follow some patterns of leadership according to the well-known theories which can
heal the current scars.
According to situational theory of leadership no leadership style is perfect for all situations. All
situations are different and accordingly the leadership style needs to be changed. It all depends
on the type of tasks, nature of the work-group and different other factors that may get the job
done. This is also called Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership theory. There may be four
types of situations (Herman, 2016). The first type where the member don’t have knowledge, skill
and willingness to work. The second type may be -member is willing but lack ability. The third
type is the member who is not willing to take the responsibility and the last type where the
member is skilled and willing to complete the task. The four type of people are managed by
telling what to do and how to do, selling the ideas for work-proficiency, less participation or no
participation, and lastly hand-off leadership respectively.
Again another theory is called the behavioural theories where the leaders behave according to the
situation. According to the theory there are two types of leaders. One who are task oriented and
another who are people oriented (Bush and Glover, 2016). The task oriented people favour
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behaviour which are inclined towards the work. Such as Initiation, Organizing, clarifying and
Information gathering. On the other hand people oriented leaders love encouraging, observing,
listening and mentoring their workers.
Role of management, influences and recommendation
According to the study NHS requires a style that is more engaging. ‘Developing people,
improving care’ can only take place when the framework incorporates more focus on the staff.
Support, protecting characteristics can only aid the aim of improving the work environment
(Fischer,et al., 2016). The above types of leadership styles are perfect to attend the requirements
of the staffs and improve the current conditions. NHS can apply the same leadership patterns
after knowing the particular mentality of each worker.
Training and development
Wide range of measures have been taken to improve the values and education of the staff of
NHS in the next five years. Sufficient amounts have been also donated by different bodies of
government to aid the program. The people will be trained on the basis of experiences of others
and improvement stories will be delivered to all the staff members in a single platform.
The theory of experiential learning says that transformation of experiences can boost knowledge.
The knowledge is enhanced by grasping the particular facts and transferring the experiences. The
different ways of grasping are concrete experience and abstract conceptualization. Again this can
be also a transforming experience through reflective observation and active experimentation.
Each individual is different and the type of experience may be different in the actual situation.
But the experience of the particular does not let the mind think about the different situations. The
solutions for the issues are not detected by the human brain and thus the whole process is
portrayed according to the story teller. In this way both the problem and solution are registered in
the human brain without any extra functioning. Though the type of leadership also incorporates
the personality type, educational specialization, career choice, current job role, adaptive
competencies of an individual.
Social learning theory is another theory for training and development. Social learning theory
explains human behaviour in terms of continuous reciprocal interaction between cognitive,
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environmental and behavioural influences. Via observation, imitation and modelling people tend
to learn.
Another theory is called the reinforcement theory. There are two types of reinforcements.
Positive and negative. People tend to cancel the negative effects and memorise the positive
effects in the memory. Positive reinforcements increase the frequency of desirable behaviour.
Thus the people will tend to follow the positive impacts and do the job accordingly.
Figure 1: The reinforcement theory
(Source :Gren and Goldman, 2019)
Role of management, influences and recommendation
NHS should employ trainer who understand the mentality of each worker and thus develop an
instrument to train and develop the employees. The people have an intension not to listen until
the stories are interesting and positive (Donate,et al., 2016). The platform should gather all the
staff and clinicians along with doctors and share their experiences. The positive impact should
enrol in the listener’s brain and the person will act according if the situation arises.
This will highlight a greater impact on others as well as they will share their stories in the future
to other staffs as well. The positive actions will drag more employees and the agency cost will
reduce resulting a gain of quality employees. As the employees will gain positive behaviours
they will deliver positive behaviours to the patient which will give a rise for public preferences
(Ardichvili,et al.,2016).
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The HR should look through the matter and employ the donations in the right area. The HR
should also keep a watch on the correct methods applied on the staffs for a beneficial training
program. The two training programs are perfect for the employees and they are modern in every
aspect (Cao and Hamori, 2016). The more they will be involved in the particular area they will
gain the knowledge and help NHS to regain its lost position.
Talent management
Talent acquisition and retaining the correct and key personnel are not an easy job for any
company. The staff acquired by NHS should be aspiring enough to hold on with the company
and deliver the skills according to the needs of the company. The company has decided some
programs to retain the talent. NHS has decided to hold hands with Leading Sustainability and
Transformation Plans and Accountable care systems and other trade unions to find ways for
flexible working and de-risking service according to the individual staff point of view.
According to reports only 52% of the workers are satisfied in the company. The discussion with
unions can open new ways of talent retention. The term time contracts, seasonal hours and
annualised hours contracting policies also need to be rechecked and reframed according to the
employees.
Kurt Lewin’s model of change states that change is natural and the three steps of this
management are unfreeze, change, refreeze. To determine the needs of change through surveys
and understand its necessity. The next step is to use the stakeholder management and win the
support of key people of the organization and frame the issues (Noe,et al., 2017). The next step
is to create the need of change by communicating the reasons for change, developing and
communicating vision and strategy, communicating the visions. The last step is to manage and
understand the doubts and concern areas for need of change. The next step is to communicate
often and motivate the people dispelling the rumours, empowering the action and lastly involving
people in the whole process. The last step is refreezing (Cohen, 2017). In this stage the managers
should anchor the changes into the culture and develop the ways to sustain the change, provide
support and training and lastly celebrate the success.
In the whole process the employees understand the essentiality of change and they support it.
Thus the company officials are positive about the change and the correct talents are thus retained.
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The people in the whole scenario different talents are acquired and through talent acquisition
constant change happens.
Role of management, influences and recommendation
The role of management in talent management is vital as they are the key to handle the change.
The correct talents are acquired through various processes and screening the skills of the
prospects. The talent acquired are those people who have the skills to uplift the company
performance and at the same time they can be beneficial for the company in the long run as they
know the skills required, the goals, responsibilities and how jobs are done in the scenario (Deery
and Jago, 2015). The key employees and loyal employees have faced a lot of issues during their
performance still have managed to stay in the company and served the company with best
solutions. Therefore, the management should understand the mentality of the employees and
suffice their needs in the long run. The company should also ask for better benefits and
compensations for the employees in order to satisfy them and hint them their importance in the
company (Davis,et al., 2016). Maslow’s hierarchy has all the need and stages of human needs
and they can serve the managers a view on the needs of a person.
Conclusion
Concluding lastly, the whole study concentrates on the case study of NHS and their development
program. The company has decided to take on the leadership and management, training and
development and talent management areas seriously in order to regain the lost aura of the
company. The reporter has incorporated theories in connection to the 3 main areas of
improvement and given a brief idea about the role of management and HR, their influences and
the recommendations for improvement.
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Reference
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Bush, T. and Glover, D., 2016. School leadership and management in South Africa: Findings from a
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Cao, J. and Hamori, M., 2016. The impact of management development practices on organizational
commitment. Human Resource Management, 55(3), pp.499-517.
Cohen, E., 2017. Employee training and development. In CSR for HR (pp. 153-162). Routledge.
Davis, T., Cutt, M., Flynn, N. and Mowl, P., 2016. Talent assessment: A new strategy for talent
management. Routledge.
Deery, M. and Jago, L., 2015. Revisiting talent management, work-life balance and retention
strategies. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 27(3), pp.453-472.
Diamond, J.B. and Spillane, J.P., 2016. School leadership and management from a distributed
perspective: A 2016 retrospective and prospective. Management in Education, 30(4), pp.147-154.
Donate, M.J., Peña, I. and Sanchez de Pablo, J.D., 2016. HRM practices for human and social capital
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Fischer, M.D., Dopson, S., Fitzgerald, L., Bennett, C., Ferlie, E., Ledger, J. and McGivern, G., 2016.
Knowledge leadership: Mobilizing management research by becoming the knowledge object. Human
Relations, 69(7), pp.1563-1585.
Gren, L. and Goldman, A., 2019. Trying to increase the mature use of agile practices by group
development psychology training-An experiment. arXiv preprint arXiv:1904.02466.
Herman, R.D., 2016. Executive leadership. The Jossey
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McCaffery, P., 2018. The higher education manager's handbook: effective leadership and management in
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Noe, R.A., Hollenbeck, J.R., Gerhart, B. and Wright, P.M., 2017. Human resource management: Gaining
a competitive advantage. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.
Renz, D.O., 2016. The Jossey-Bass handbook of nonprofit leadership and management. John Wiley &
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Solomon, I.G., Costea, C. and Nita, A.M., 2016. Leadership versus management in public
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Thorpe, R., 2016. Gower handbook of leadership and management development. CRC Press.
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