A Comprehensive Analysis of Talent Management at Bupa Healthcare

This report examines talent management strategies within Bupa Healthcare, a global healthcare provider. It identifies three key challenges: multicultural barriers arising from its international presence, generational gaps within the workforce, and the impact of varying levels of emotional intelligence among employees. The report analyzes how these factors can hinder organizational effectiveness. It proposes tailored solutions for each challenge, including cultural sensitivity training, inclusive leadership programs, mentorship initiatives, and the development of emotional intelligence skills. The recommendations aim to foster a more cohesive, productive, and adaptable workforce capable of navigating the complexities of a diverse and evolving healthcare landscape, ultimately contributing to improved patient care and organizational success. The report emphasizes the importance of proactive talent management to address these issues and ensure Bupa Healthcare's continued growth and success.

Running head: TALENT MANAGEMENT AT BUPA HEALTHCARE
TALENT MANAGEMENT AT BUPA HEALTHCARE
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Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................2
First challenge: multicultural barriers..............................................................................................3
Strategy to overcome:......................................................................................................................4
Second challenge: generation gap in workforce..............................................................................5
Strategy to overcome:......................................................................................................................6
Third challenge: lack of emotional intelligence:.............................................................................7
Strategy to overcome:......................................................................................................................8
Conclusion:......................................................................................................................................9
References:....................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction:
With the advancements of medical science, life expectancy of citizens in every nation has
increased. The same is the situation in the nation of United Kingdom where striking discoveries
and researches have helped the healthcare industry to meet the needs of huge number of ailing
citizens. However, there are several challenges that result from the path-breaking innovations
developed in healthcare industry. With more advancement, more citizens are living longer lives
but the quality of lives led by them is not satisfactory. Most of the citizens are living with
chronic disorders who although surviving may not be having high quality lives (Lawton et al.
2014). Moreover, the number of patients being admitted to healthcare centers has also increased
in the present generations. Therefore, it has become urgent for the healthcare professionals to
develop their skills in ways by which they can meet the needs of their clients, communicate
effectively with them and provide them person-centered care (Adams 2016). Bupa is an
international healthcare group of organizations who has its headquarters in the nation of the
United Kingdom.
From the time of establishments in the year 1947, it has helped huge number of citizens
through their services providing health insurances, support in care homes, services at work place,
hospitals, dental clinics and many others (McDaid and Park 2017). It is now serving 32 million
clients all over 190 nations. With the advancements of every generation, the plan for
management needs to change to cater to the needs of the clients and to provide the best service.
Firstly, as this healthcare unit is spread over a number of countries, there might be huge number
of issues in management due to the interest of different cultural nations involved as branches of
the organization. Secondly, as this organization has been providing service over a number of
generations, there might also arise challenges among the different categories of workforce like

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the millennial, baby boomers and graying workforce. This may be mainly because their working
styles, expectations and other may vary in comparison to the other generations. Hence,
management in this regard is also necessary (Adams 2016). The third issue is that, as the
healthcare group has to serve huge number of clients from different backgrounds; healthcare
professionals may not be able to maintain their emotions due to stress or lack of knowledge of
controlling emotions. This may result in conflicts. Hence, the essay will be mainly focusing on
the issues that the working professional may face in the upcoming years and accordingly
solutions will be provided to overcome such challenges.
First challenge: multicultural barriers
The first challenge that the healthcare professional teams will face are the multicultural
barriers and its effects on functioning of the organization and its branches. As stated earlier, bupa
has been established in the year 1947 and till then, it had successfully spread it business to the
other regions of the world with the sole aim of providing support and care services for the people
of different nations at cheaper price. It had spread over 190 countries until date, making it one of
the most successful companies in establishing itself outside their nation. Previously, it was an
organization who use to fetch healthcare insurances to individuals, companies or organizations
but now, it even has established privately run Bupa hospitals (Adams 2016). It is serving many
states of different nations like Brighton, Leeds in UK, Adelaide, Sydney, Brisbane and
Melbourne in Australia. They are also serving New Delhi in India and even Chile. Madrid,
Boston, Beijing, Hong Kong and Jeddah are some of the other regions served by them. This form
of multinational companies is often seen to face a number of issues out of which lack of cultural
sensitivity and cultural incompetence are found to be the major barriers. Improper knowledge of
the working professionals of their fellow branch overseas, result in misunderstanding and

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development of distrust and dissatisfaction (Ensari, Lopez and Shackelford 2017).
Communication barriers play the major role where both the professionals from two different
nations cannot communicate successfully due to language barriers. They are also seen to have no
cultural knowledge about the opposite employees overseas and unintentionally ted to harm their
emotions and feelings.
Cultural biasness is yet another factor that might lead to conflicts in workflow over the
nations. Many individuals have cultural biasness over other cultures and unintentionally work
accordingly affecting the emotion of the said cultures. Different dimensions of working culture
may vary from one nation to another nation like differences in power distance index, uncertainty
avoidance, individualism-collectivism, pragmatic- normative, indulgence-restraints and many
others (Adams 2016). Different nations have their own index values in their attributes and
therefore while interacting, the branches are not often aware of the others cultural attributes. This
often leads to massive cultural conflicts. Job dissatisfaction results from such situations and
hence productivity is hampered. This results in destruction of workflow resulting in employee
attrition (Richardson 2014).
Strategy to overcome:
In such situation, Bupa should pay importance to the development of strategies for
overcoming multiculturalism barriers. The talent management plan that should be established by
the organization would involve proper training of the healthcare professionals to make them
culturally competent (Yi et al. 2015). Those individuals who are directly interacting with the
other nations should develop cultural knowledge and cultural sensitivity. The employees can
know proper knowledge of cultural preferences and inhibition by properly going through articles,

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internet websites, books and many other resources (Yogesswaram and Dasgupta 2014).
Language barriers would be overcome by proper training and allocating employees with same
cultural background when communicating overseas. This would lessen down the rate of
conflicts. Business culture is different in various nations and therefore employees should be
taught how to conduct Hofstedes’ analysis and understand the business attributes of the nation
(Byrd and Lloyd Jones 2016). This talent would help them to overcome any conflicts and ensure
smooth workflow. The employees of all the branches should be given the scope of personal
reflection on their cultural biasness. Researchers are of the opinion that personal reflections help
to overcome barriers and help individuals in realizing their incapability and help them to
overcome such barriers effectively.
Second challenge: generation gap in workforce
The second challenge that can be faced by the organization in the present generation is
the conflict that may arise among the different employees of different age cohorts. The
organization had been established in the year 1947 and therefore the workforce of the
organizations comprise of graying olds and the millennial. Many organizations have seen to
experience huge drop in productivity due to the clash of interests and working procedures among
the two age cohorts (Yogesswaram and Dasgupta 2014). The graying old generation has their
own working styles that are quite different from the working styles of the millennial. Often it is
seen, that both the age cohort have their own stereotypes with each other that results in
complexes among the individuals. Negative assumptions affect their relationship building and
bonding which affects the workflow (Yi et al. 2015). Baby boomers have assumptions that
millennials are impatient, lazy as well as unprofessional. On the other hand, millennials have the
idea that baby behaviors are unapproachable and as well as old schools.

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Another example of different work procedures is that the babyboomers feel that work
should be completed in office thereby putting long workweeks to finish a project. They are
mainly seen to be process oriented. This is mainly they have entered the workforce in an era
where work could never be completed at home. On the other hand, millennial mainly take hard
work as the quality of their output. They do not believe on the fact that best work means
spending huge hours in office (Anshari et al. 2016). They mainly believe in remaining connected
and putting hours in work even at home, coffee shops, grounds and elsewhere. Millennials want
positive feedback from managers and have higher expectations regarding their promotions.
Researchers are of the opinion that none of the models for work are wrong but there often arise
conflicts. This is mainly because employees hold each other accountable for the varying
standards. For this reason, the problems arise.
Strategy to overcome:
Bupa healthcare industry has a high chance of facing conflicts between the two age
cohorts and therefore, the talent management plan should be developed in ways by which such
challenges can be overcome. The different managers and leaders should adopt effective inclusive
leadership styles so that they can bridge the gap of both the generations. The talent management
program should have training sessions for the managers by which inclusive leadership can be
taught. Leaders should be taught of strategies by which they can recognize, understand and
reflect all the differences in opinions and working styles of the age cohorts. They should then
leverage those differences for gaining competitive business advantages (Quinones and Tian
2016). They should learn how to value and utilize the knowledge and experiences of the diverse
employees for gathering business benefits. Another initiative other than the training on inclusive
leadership program is the creation of mentorship program. Researchers are of the opinion that

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mentorship programs can be beneficial in such domains of conflicts. Here, the employees are
paired across their generations that encourage them to build relationships and thereby understand
perspectives of each other. The program would be bidirectional that will encourage both the
cohort to learn from each other (Costanza and Finkelstein 2015). The goal for everyone would be
develop new skills, talents and viewpoints. This will result in less conflicts and much stronger
work culture. Millennials may get advice on their development of career and professionalism
whereas the gen X and baby boomers can learn about technologies and others. This would help
them to get over negative assumptions and develop positive feelings and perspectives ensuring
smooth workflow (Lyons and Kuron 2014).
Third challenge: lack of emotional intelligence:
Bupa healthcare organization has been successfully expanding at a very fast rate and
therefore, it needs to incorporate huge number of employees for meeting the needs of the
organizations. Huge number of employees means different personalities and individuals with
their own emotional intelligence (Adam 2016). Different employees have different levels of self-
regulation capabilities in different areas like self-control, trustworthiness, conscientiousness,
adaptability and innovation. They also have different levels of self-awareness that comprise of
emotional awareness, accurate self-assessment and self-confidence. Everyone has his or her own
self-expectations and motivation by which they tend to work in the organization. Social
competencies also vary like intuition and empathy (Gita and Thenmozhi 2015). Every worker
has their own level of understanding others, different ideas of customer service orientation,
people development and leveraging diversity.

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Political acumen and social skills like influence, communication, charge catalysts,
building bonds, collaboration, team capabilities and many others. These result in development of
workplace conflict mainly because various levels of different attributes of emotional intelligence
allow individual to behave accordingly, which may or may not be perceived well by others
(Schuette and Loi 2014). Negative perceptions and behavioral issues may occur among
employees from whom there may be breakdown of trust and development of resentments. Poor
communication reduced pro-activity, lower performance and weakening of confidence may take
place. Damaged credibility and higher losses take place which affects productivity and smooth
workflow (Lyons and Kuron 2014).
Strategy to overcome:
The talent management plan should be developed so that all the employees have their
emotional intelligence skills developed in proper manner. Better, the emotional intelligence
better will be the work place climate that will increase job satisfaction and productivity (Liveslay
and Bowman 2015). Individual should be counseled properly and recommendations should be
given properly so that they have high emotional intelligence with a balance of all attributes
(Krishnakumar et al. 2016). The first one is providing attention to all the emotions on daily basis.
Employees need to be more sensitive regarding their emotions when they identify their emotions
and understand why they are present. Self-reflection will help the employees to discover key
distinctions. This will help them to be sharper and further develop emotional wheelhouse. The
employees should improve their non-verbal skills and become more sensitive to that of the
others. Developing proper body language and effective communication can be achieved by
attending workshop classes. Employees should practice empathy by establishing deeper
connection with anyone by being thoughtful on ways of engagement with others, utilizing proper

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emotional dexterity and similar others. Exercising self-regulation by the employees is also
necessary (Martin et al. 2016). In place of submitting to usually practices and procedures, the
employees can chart new courses that are informed by focused behaviors serving higher purpose.
Sharpening of social skills would also be done in the talent management plan where the
employees would be given the scope of practicing listening, holding meaningful conversations,
negotiating and collaborating, executive courtesies wherever possible (Carson, Carson and
Birkenmeier 2016). This would help in maintaining effective relationship and team bonding at
workplace.
Conclusion:
Therefore, from the above discussion, it becomes quite clear that Bupa healthcare
organizations had spread to a large number of nations. Therefore, management of the workforce
becomes challenging as the workforce remains scattered oversees resulting multicultural barriers.
Cultural insensitivity, business and incompetence may result in conflicts. Therefore, proper
training of the employees for developing cultural competency and ideas about business cultures
in different nations can be incorporated in talent management plan. As Bupa has been serving
nations from 1947, therefore the workforce would be comprising of baby boomers, GenX and
millennial. They may have different perceptions and working styles that may result in workplace
conflict. In such situations, inclusive leadership and bidirectional mentorship programs would
help in developing skills that would encourage healthy relations at workplace. Moreover, as the
healthcare is expanding quite fast, huge employees are recruited at high rate. Not all of them may
have similar emotional intelligence. Therefore, the talent management program would have
counseling and screening sessions. Mentors would provide recommendations about development

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of proper attributes of emotional intelligence. These would ensure higher productivity and
meeting of organizational mission and vision.

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Byrd, M.Y. and Lloyd-Jones, B., 2016. Developing a Social Justice-Oriented Workforce
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Carson, K.D., Carson, P.P. and Birkenmeier, B.J., 2016. Measuring emotional intelligence:
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Ensari, N., Lopez, D. and Shackelford, E., 2017. Managers’ and Diversity Experts’ Perceptions
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Krishnakumar, S., Hopkins, K., G. Szmerekovsky, J. and Robinson, M.D., 2016. Assessing
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