Managing Human Resource For Sustainable Healthcare Organizations

Recommended Course of Actions to improve Operations of HRM at the Hospital

Describe about the Managing Human Resource for the Level of Attention.

Citing the reference obtained from the study of Boxall (2013), sustainability can be referred to as an efficient mean of meeting the current needs and demands of modern-day people without compromising the ability of future generation in achieving their individual requirements. Therefore, sustainability indicates developing suitable balance among the economic, social, and environmental factors from the short-term and long-term perspectives. The overall factor plays a central role in both the environmental and business management. By looking at the modern context of the world, it can usually be noted that needs and demands of the people are changing rapidly, as the contemporary societies have become more demanding than ever (Ehnert, Harry & Zink, 2013). In the diverse context of contemporary community, human resource (HR) plays a pivotal role in coping up with the evolving requirements.

With the help of the study formed by Ulrich et al. (2015), the roles played by the human resource management (HRM) are gaining increasing level of attention from multiple perspectives including the effort in developing sustainable business organizations. The precise study has indicated that sustainability itself refer to as one of the principles of HRM suggesting the HR managers designing their roles accordingly. Various factors associated with sustainability are accounted for affecting the organizational practices including the healthcare and HRM practices followed by the healthcare organizations like nursing care units or hospitals (Longoni, Golini & Cagliano, 2014). Therefore, the HR roles and practices within a healthcare setting are always committed to improving the HRM models for constantly addressing the challenging requirements of the unconventional societies. Therefore, the following section of the report deals with the challenges faced by the healthcare organizations globally with the aim of suggesting the recommended course of actions and key features associated with sustainable HRM operations.

One of the recent studies formed by Paillé et al. (2014) deals with the ultimate priorities of the leaders from different healthcare settings established globally. Among the many other priorities increasing patient satisfaction, enhancing user experience were ranked as the foremost objectives for the healthcare organizations followed by maintaining clinical quality and safety, cost reduction, and process improvement. Salaries and benefits for the employees and cost of different equipment are the biggest budget items for most of the hospitals, as these healthcare settings spend a major portion of their capital in these identified areas (Ardichvili, 2013). Considering the specific scenario, it is inevitable that the certain type of organizations experiences a considerable amount of financial challenges. The overall situation suggests human resource managers adopt a sustainable approach for responding adequately to the challenges and developing suitable solutions accordingly.

Alignment of Organization-centric Goals

Based on the study of Ehnert, Harry, and Zink (2014), HR professional involving the healthcare organizations must need to emerge forward by adopting best practices with the ability to fostering a culture insisting an increasing engagement from the employees. Additionally, the best practices must need to possess capabilities for improving performance and accountability. Therefore, the HR managers must need to form a superior link between the talent management practices and maintaining employee engagement and desired level of productivity. In order develop the excellent relationship between the essential areas of HRM operations and improving its overall implications, some useful recommendations are discussed below:

Alignment of Organization-centric Goals – One of the primary roles played by the HRM within a healthcare organization is based on ensuring the employees are highly informed about the key standards, aims, and objectives associated with the workplace (Kramar, 2014). Such criteria must need to be reflected in the performance of employees. As part of the process, the healthcare professionals and leaders must need to adopt most effective ways for communicating the changing elements to the employees through the goals and objectives of business. In order to achieve such process, the HR managers must need to have clear knowledge regarding the aims and expectations of the firm while monitoring the working performances of the healthcare professionals and staffs adequately. In this case, Boxall (2013) has mentioned such customer-centric approach is essentially especially in that situation when the organization is expecting a certain level of change.

Career Progression and Employee Development – HR professionals must need to play the responsibility provide proper training, learning, and development opportunities for supporting them to enhance their careers. As part of the process, an HR manager should ensure that all the employees have their access to the useful resources, information, and training materials required for achieving success through respective roles and performance (Dubois & Dubois, 2012). The research conducted by Boxall (2013) also comes up with the fact that lack of career development opportunities and challenges in the job roles are one of the principal reasons driving the employees to leave organizations. Such identification is thoroughly applicable to a healthcare organization thereby making it necessary to implement various learning programs as the tool of retaining employees within the workforce. Ehnert and Harry (2012) argue learning and development programs become explicitly relevant for the employees when they can relate the implications of different organizational learning schemes supporting their individual performance. Thus, overall quality in serving the patients and treating the clients is enhanced due to the favourable impact of the proposed scenario.

Career Progression and Employee Development

Core Competencies – Core competencies are adequately expressed by the performance standards, which further support providing additional care to the patients (Jamali, El Dirani & Harwood, 2015). The HRM operation within a hospital must need to be aligned in such manner that can cultivate these benchmarks or features in the roles adopted by each employee. The study originated by Ben, Dunphy, and Griffiths (2014) has critically prioritised the need of determining the ability of healthcare staffs and professionals by the HRM department for ensuring offering quality services and high level of care to the different patients. Through the application of the study, it is also acknowledged that competencies deal with the behavioural and professional approaches of the staffs for the accomplishment of their roles unlike the goals and objectives of the business describing their roles. Considering the particular description, it can be recommended that the core competencies of a healthcare organization must be defined clearly and consistently through the lifecycle of employees from all levels.

Apart from the discussion related to the primary areas, some other areas associated with the roles of HRM should need to be included for ensuring the improvement of the operations in the context of healthcare organizations. The HR managers in a hospital must need to provide special attention to their roles from multiple perspectives, such as staffing and placement, legal research on healthcare, employee management, and decision-making (Florea, Cheung & Herndon, 2013). From the context of staffing and placement, HRM must need to ensure staffing and placement of suitable and talented personnel to the workforce. Then again, HRM department should need to be responsible for extending the research regarding the rules and regulations governing the entire workplace as part of the healthcare system. Additionally, it is already determined that a healthcare facility always needs the skills and expertise from the qualified and reliable members for guaranteeing the adequate delivery of caring services to the patients as well as reducing their complaints and hassles. It signifies HRM to provide special attention to the employee management programs. Lastly, HR department plays the responsibility of planning and decision-making, where the roles should not only confine to record keeping and legal auditing but also it requires managers to address the crucial concerns of employees (Ehnert & Harry, 2012). The combination of these proposed approaches and procedures in the different areas of HRM roles can bring adequate improvement to the intended operations.

Core Competencies

Due to the fast-paced requirements and demands of the contemporary business environment, one of the significant shifts can be observed in the evolution of roles and practices as part of HRM. The fundamental expansion of HRM charters from just personnel management to include the requirements to assist the organization growth and efficacy. The increasing demand for the HR roles has added extra dimension to the overall HR function to transform it into the strategic HRM (Benn, Dunphy & Griffiths, 2014). Such expansion of roles and responsibilities of HRM mandate the enhancing organizational capabilities similar to the criteria of other primary departments of the business, such as finance, marketing, and operations. Due to such implications, sustainability has become an integral part of HRM roles and responsibilities for elevating the skills and capabilities of each manager. The sustainable HR capabilities can be measured or monitored by the inclusion of a specific level of features, which are discussed below:

Sustainable Resource Management – In the course of enhancing knowledge and core competencies, the valuable contribution of the human capital is one of the noteworthy factors (Ehnert, Harry & Zink, 2014). The sustainability in HRM roles and capabilities depends on the ability to recognise the values of such factor driving the business to achieve a competitive position as dictated by the vision and mission statement of the organization. As part of the process, HRM in different occasions construct a knowledge-based society within the organization for building and enhancing employees into the ethical and talented professionals.

Human Resource Management – Employees play valuable roles in driving the vision, mission, and strategies of the organization on the path of success (Boxall 2013). Hence, the capability of an HR manager depends on gaining such understanding by considering some key strategic objectives and approaches. According to Jamali et al. (2015), the sustainability of the organizational performance relies greatly on analysing the success profiles supporting the establishment of business in the certain positions, such as determining the current and future requirements of HRM roles and responsibilities. Hence, HRM must need to explore and determine their positions in different situations of the business.

Structure and Management System – Based on the suggestion obtained from Florea, Cheung, and Herndon (2013), the basic structure of HRM consists of multiple divisions, such as resource committee, management committee, and strategic planning and decision-making committee. One of the superior roles of sustainable HRM practices is based on integrating all the concepts from each HR divisions to design a favourable outcome for the organization. The sustainable capability of HRM relies on controlling the impacts of each departmental role to contribute to the organizational development systems.

Other areas associated with the roles of HRM

Strategic Reformation – Due to dynamic requirements in today’s economic environment, HRM is responsible for devising programs and policies for controlling and monitoring the entire workforce. Such factor contributes to the increasing growth and prosperity of the organization. As part of the strategic formation phase, HR manager should need to prioritise the inclusion of time and information based strategies (Paillé, et al. 2013). Kramer (2014) has identified that time management criteria included in the strategic formation allow the HR department to maintain flexible working hours for the employees while sharing jobs in critical times and allowing leaves during the special occasions. The same study also identifies that the participation of an information-based strategy in policy and guidelines provide necessary materials to the employees for supporting them adhering to the performance standards.

Conclusion

Since the dynamic nature and evolving concepts associated with sustainability, it is not easy to define the term in a specific manner. However, the information portrayed throughout the paper suggests sustainability from the context of HRM as the prominent mean for balancing the social, environmental, and economic factors associated with the business operations for the short and long-term perspective. In addition, the overall report richly outlines the knowledge regarding the sustainable HR practices, which is gaining crucial attention in the changing economic environment. Providing encourage to the employees through training and compensation, designing the overall HRM system by prioritising equity, wellbeing, and long-term sustainability within the working process, and maintaining the needs of internal and external communities are the principal HRM practices in modern business environment. Regardless of the industry or division, sustainable HRM subsidises offering long-term employment security while avoiding any disruptions and developing a benchmark social community.

References

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