Generations In The Health Workforce

Intergenerational Workforces

Discuss about the Generations in the Health Workforce.

In general, health workforce is classified in four generations like Traditionalists – born before 1945, Baby Boomers – born before 1965, Generation X  – – born before 1980 and Millennials (Gen Y) – born after 1980. Traditional workers established themselves as most loyal workers. They perform their work with dedication and they are risk free. Their collaboration ability is excellent and they have healthy commitment for teamwork. Their interpersonal communication is excellent. Traditional are the wealthy population because of their inclination towards conservation of wealth. Baby boomers give their highest priority towards work as compared to the personnel life. They generally suspect rules and policies of the higher authority and management of the organization. Their values and characters were influenced by civil rights activities and inflation. These workers are open for change as compared to the earlier generation workers. At the same time, they chase for the personnel gratification. It exhibits power in these types of workers. Most of the workers of this generation are not in wealthy condition due to fall of marketplace during their period. Generation X workers are considered as the idler workers. These workers always put question mark on the policies of the authority. Workers of this generation are technically strong and they are more independent as compared to the prior generation workers. Generation X workers give less priority to work and they are not at all dedicated towards their work. Skill development ability of these workers is excellent and they are ready to take new challenges. They adapt to job very early. Millennials are the first global centric work force. Millenials are considered as the most educated group of work force till date. Millennials are excellent in team work (DelCampo et al., 2017; Johnson, 2012).

These all four generations of workforce has different qualities and approach of working. Hence, integration of all the workforces in healthcare organization would give balanced workforce for the organization. Different types of jobs to be performed in the organization can be effectively carried out with this type varied expertise. Traditional and baby boomers are very loyal in their job and generation X millenials are extremely good in technical knowledge. Organization with the incorporation of these types’ workers can perform technically advanced work by maintaining loyalty to the organization and management (Clipper, 2012). Organization with incorporation of all these generations can implement work experience and management strategies of different generation. With the integration of different generations, there can be improved decision making in the healthcare organization. Because these employees from different generations can have experience of different patient cases. With the integration of workforce from different generations, succession planning can be effectively implemented in the healthcare organization. Specifically, in case of healthcare workforce incorporation of people with different expertise is very important. This is because healthcare force needs to work and take care of people with different age group. These people with different age group require workforce from different generations. Hence, integration of workforce in healthcare services can effectively handle varied activities in the healthcare organization. These workforces of different generations can develop generational competence with patients of different age group. These employees should be aware of generational understanding and should participate in specific mentoring programme. These employees should develop communication skills based on the generational sensitivity (Johnson & Johnson, 2012).

Ethical Considerations

These workforces also maintain strong generational foundation for the organization. Availability of workforce from different generations can be helpful in evaluating intergenerational differences and recruitment of the employees from the useful generation. This targeted recruitment of the employees would definitely be helpful in improving productivity of the organization. This targeted recruitment can also be useful in connecting job profile of the employees to the mission and goal of the organization. With the availability of workforces of different generations, their work experience and interactions can be documented in the form of book. This book can be used for the future generations as a reference. To build strong organizational foundation, organization should implement different retention strategies for these employees from different generations. Management should provide flexible work options, educational and career development programme and additional income opportunities. Integration of workforce from different generations can build balanced talent pool in the organization and surely give competitive advantage over other organizations. Employee stability in the organization also reduces the recruitment cost and expenses for training purpose of new employees (Krail, 2005; Sherman, 2005).

While maintaining the integration of diverse workforce, organization should also maintain employee ethics. Maintenance of employee ethics comprises of distinguishing between right and wrong employees. Distinction of right and wrong employee can be decided upon the work and behavior of the employee. Management should consider the honesty, fairness, integrity and loyalty of the employee at the time of determining ethics of the person. Any employee’s negative attitude toward organization like Generation X and millenials should not be considered as unethical from management point when that particular employee is giving productive output to the organization. Management should be ethical by giving equal importance to all generation employees. Management should have specific strategy and rules for maintaining harmony among the different generation of employees. Management should not make any bias in giving rewards and promotions to the different generations of employees. If management of the organization feels any one generation is not useful for the organization, then management should take planned and stepwise action to eliminate this generation employees. In such scenario, management should not take sudden action against this generation of employees (Krail, 2005; Sherman, 2005).  

Running an organization with different generation of employees require expert in the human resource department. This human resource personal should be from healthcare department. Human resource personal can identify healthcare staff with specific skills required for organization and it would be helpful in improving patient care. Human resource personal can identify exact expectations of the employees of the all the generations and try to fulfill these expectations. Human resource person can segregate expectations of the employees of different generations and act specifically on each of the expectations. Fulfillment of these expectations of the employees builds trust and positive attitude in the employees. These developments in the employees can improve teamwork, partnership building and overall productivity of the organization. This recruitment process is useful in capacity building of the healthcare organization by knowledge transfer and best practice inventory (Sherman, 2006; Krail, 2005). Human resource personal should forecast the human resource requirement of the organization based on the evidence of existing four generations of employees. This forecast by the human resource personal is helpful in designing long term planning for the human resource. Along with evidence based evaluation, human resource personal should evaluate employees based on the population based and system based. All these evaluations by the human resource personal are helpful in maintaining optimal demand and supply of the employees in the organization. Human resource personal should take feedback from the healthcare manger about the requirement of the human resource. This can be helpful for the human resource personal to select employee from the specific generation (Jones et al. 2016). Human resource personal should consider external factors like competitiveness form other organizations, global economic climate, labor laws and upgradation of technology for maintaining best human resource for future of the organization. Human resource personal should also consider economic status of the organization, manpower requirement of the organization and organization structure for maintaining best human resource for future of the organization (Hart, 2006).

Structure of the Organization

Productivity of the healthcare organization can be effectively increased by collaborating with educational and training institutes. This type of training helps organization to produce more number of employees in specialized areas with highly advanced techniques. Content of these training programmes should be changed according to the changing needs of the healthcare sector. This up gradation in the training programmes would be helpful in matching global standards and improving competitiveness of the organization. Approach of these trainings for health professionals should be interdisciplinary. Because health profession is an integration of services from different professionals like doctors, nurses, pharmacist and social workers. Through interdisciplinary training approach productivity of workforce can be increased and more output can be obtained with existing number of employees. Productivity of healthcare organization can also be improved by collaborating public and private organization. As public and private organizations have different manpower structure and infrastructure, these facilities can be exchanged (Sherman, 2005).       

Participation of the workforce in the job is generally measured by the number of hours spent on that particular job. In such case, flexibility of work at work place is neglected. However, productivity of the organization can be increased by providing flexibility in the job. Productivity of an employee should not be measured by calculating number of hours spent, but it should be measured based on the output obtained. There should be acknowledgement and rewards for the employees for working extra hours. Flexibility in the working hours can give employees freedom to maintain proper work and personal life balance. This would definitely build strong positive between employee and employer. It is very useful in increasing the productivity of the organization. Improving the working conditions is one of the important factors for improving productivity of the organization. This improvement in the working conditions would help employees to perform their duties in smooth manner. All the requirements for taking care of the patients should be properly arranged and proper space should be there to keep them. In such case employees conserve their energy for performing nursing services, instead of wasting their energy in finding the requirements. There should proper work distribution among the employees based on their skills (Sherman, 2006). There should flexibility for the employees to choose their work based on their capabilities. This can improve the interest and confidence of the employees. As a result, there is overall increase in the productivity of the organization. There should be flexible option for the employees to re-enter the organization after the long personal leave. This reduces the cost of recruitment of new employee and also it reduces training cost. Healthcare service is very complex service and most of the healthcare workforce interdependent on each other for caring the patients. In such scenario, organization should give flexibility to the employees to perform task of other employees also. This improves exchange of knowledge and skills among the employees of four generations (Johnson & Musch, 2012).

As priorities of all these different workforces are different, it would be very difficult for the management to hold for the top talent. Most of the traditional workers are retired now, baby boomers are looking for the post-retirement career, generation X workers are expecting challenging but balanced work and millennial are expecting high salaries in exchange of technologically high input. It is difficult for the management to hold talent by giving high salary and excellent medical benefits. Management should implement unique strategy for each generation to hold them back in the company (Thrall, 2005).

Different rewards and recognisation should be given differently to these four generations. Traditional and baby boomer should be given recognisation mainly in the form of certificate of appreciation. On the other hand, generation X and millennial should be given rewards in the form of promotions and money incentives. Millennial employees should give training about the organizational culture and mission. Experienced employees of traditional and millennial employees should be recognized by giving them mentorship role (Saber et al., 2016; Tourangeau et al., 2015). 

Conclusion:

Even though, these four generations are from different time period, these workers have some common similarities. These similarities include learning and development opportunity, prospect of promotion in the company, respect and recognisation from the company, good quality of life, good compensation, similar type of work with similar or very less resources and supportive environment.  Along with these similarities, these four generation works also have differences. They have dissimilarities in communication styles and attitude towards higher authority.  Incorporation of the four generations in the healthcare workforce is the very much required because healthcare services require workforce of diverse nature. Healthcare service is very diverse and integration of the diverse people is very much required in the healthcare services. Integration of four generations in the healthcare services is not an easy task. These four generations have different values and principles. Satisfaction of requirements of all these employees under one roof requires special efforts from the human resource personal. Human resource personal should make proper planning and strategy for holding four generations employees. It has been observed that integration of the four generation of employees proved fruitful for the healthcare organizations. Healthcare organizations should give flexibility in working, generation specific rewards to retain all these employees for the future and also to improve the productivity of the organization. 

References:

Clipper, B. (2012). The Nurse Manager’s Guide to an Intergenerational Workforce. Sigma Theta Tau. 

DelCampo, R. G., Haggerty, L. A., Knippel, L. A. (2017). Managing the Multi-Generational Workforce: From the GI Generation to the Millenials. Routledge.

Hart, S. M. (2006). Generation diversity: Impact on recruitment and retention of nurses. Journal of Nursing Administration, 36(1), 10-12. 

Johnson, J. A., & Musch, S. (2012). Multi-Sector Casebook in Health Administration, Leadership, and Management. Cengage Learning. 

Johnson, J. A. (2012). Introduction to Public Health Organizations, Management, and Policy. Cengage Learning. 

Johnson, M., & Johnson, L. (2012). Generations, Inc.: From Boomers to Linksters–Managing the Friction Between Generations at Work.  AMACOM: A division of American Management Association. 

Jones, K., McLoughlin, M., Brown, S., Warren, A., et al. (2016). Meeting the needs of four generations of nurses. Nursing Times, 112(21-23), 12-5. 

Krail, K. A. (2005). Retaining the retiring nurse. Nurse Leader, 3(2), 33-36. 

Saber, D.A., Anglade, D., & Schirle, L.M. (2016). A study examining senior nursing students’ expectations of work and the workforce. Journal of Nursing Management, 24(2), E183-91. doi: 10.1111/jonm.12322. 

Sherman, R. (2006). Leading a Multigenerational Nursing Workforce: Issues, Challenges and Strategies. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 11(2), 2. 

Sherman, R. O. (2005). Growing our future nurse leaders. Nursing Administration Quarterly, 29(2), 125-132. 

Thrall, T. H. (2005). Retirement boom? Hospitals & Health Networks, 79(11), 30-38. 

Tourangeau, A.E., Wong, M., Saari, M., & Patterson, E. (2015). Generation-specific incentives and disincentives for nurse faculty to remain employed. Journal of Advanced Nursing,  71(5), 1019-31.