Human Resource Challenges In Healthcare Sector: Issues And Recommendations

Role of Human Resource Management on the Employee Performance in Healthcare Sector

Discuss about the Human Resource Challenges In Healthcare Sector.

There has been a continuous emphasis on the human resource management which eventually helps improving the quality of service in healthcare sector. Human resources are considered to be one of the major principles in this industry along with consumables and physical capital. The human resources in this sector can be defined as various types of non-clinical and clinical employees who are responsible for the individual and public health intervention (Aryee et al., 2016). Researchers have indicated that the delivery of the benefits and performance in the healthcare sector largely depends on the skills, knowledge and the motivation of the employees who are responsible for providing such services. Examining the health care systems give rise to many issues such as the healthcare size, composition and distribution within the country, training of the potential workforce, demographic issues, migration of the heath care employees, inadequate supply of healthcare sectors and several others (Van De Voorde & Beijer, 2015). This report will trigger the potential issues in the healthcare sector n Australia, in respect to the Albury Wodonga Private Hospital in Australia. This report will explore the role of the human resource management on the better employee management along with the possible challenges in the industry. The recommendations will be made accordingly.

In the contemporary healthcare sector, human resource management has been more emphasized in recent times. While evaluating the role of human resource management, it can be seen that there are three major objectives that drive this industry, such as equity, efficiency and quality. If the concerned organization wants to keep all the employees motivated, they have to take several initiatives which will eventually increase the employee performance level (Marchington et al., 2016). The poor performance in the healthcare sectors can be quite dangerous to the community as well. There have been a number of reasons that are responsible for poor employee performances, the most major one being the financial reason along with various socioeconomic, political and cultural reasons. Therefore it is very important for the organization to address these issues with their HR strategies. The interventions should include at the health system or the macro level, therefore the HR planning and procedure, training, bonding should take place within the organization. The organization should find out the potential challenges and address these issues through the human resource strategies.

Imbalance in the supply and demand of labors in the healthcare sector has been a major challenge for Albury Wodonga Private Hospital. Healthcare sector requires several clinical and non-clinical employees who are responsible for making the public and individual health intervention take place. There are times when the management of the hospital has faced a severe shortage in the numbers of nurses. There are several reasons that contribute to this budding challenge. Financial issues have been one of the major one which enhances the imbalance in the supply and demand of employees (Abdelhak, Grostick & Hanken, 2014). Most of the employees leave their job as they are not adequately satisfied with their remuneration package. Other than that, the management of the hospital has also experienced the lack of experienced and well trained employees; therefore there are higher chances that the quality of service gets hampered. Therefore the human resource policies of the hospital should address this issue immediately (Fan et al., 2014).

Challenges for Recruiting Workforce in Healthcare Sector: Labor Supply and Demand

This issue has been a prevalent one since decades. The demographic changes have made the entire environment and eventually the policies regarding human resource management have faced disputes as well. Aging population has been obvious throughout the developed world and apparently they live a healthier and longer life (Kramar, 2014). This has a huge implication on the human resource policies as it also indicates having older people in the workforce, therefore the management of the Albury Wodonga Private Hospital have to reevaluate their existing policies so that they can manage related things to this issue such as training and development of the older employees, benefits of employees and several others. As more aging population within the workforce sometimes creates intergenerational conflicts as the younger ones think that the older population is acting as a blockage to their further growth in career. Therefore, it is also a major challenge for the Albury Wodonga Private Hospital management to find out methods which can disperse the tension amongst the employees and make the environment more productive so that employees can work in an effective way. Another demographic challenge faced by the hospital is that the younger generation of workers is bringing more challenges to the workforce. It has been observed several times that the millennial have a huge expectation from their employers and they are more focused on the immediate future than the long term benefits. Most of this generation wants an innovative and varied environment which can offer them a fast progress in career; however this is not really possible in the health care sector (Sparrow, Brewster & Chung, 2016). Therefore sometimes, it is quite difficult for the hospital to attract and retain the young generation workers. In addition to that, globalization has also has a huge impact on the human resource policy. The increasing globalized workforce comes with both benefits and challenges. On one hand, the organization is benefitted by the increasing talent pool from all over the world; on the other hand, this issue also comes with different challenges such as inclusion and equality of all the employees. There has also been a huge surge in the numbers of female employees for past decade; therefore the organization has also faced challenges to create the strategies that are not discriminating employees on the basis of their gender.

Diversity is changing the entire dynamics of the workforce rapidly, especially in the health care industry.  There can be several kinds of diversity within the workforce, such as employees from different background, age group, nationalities, ethnicities, gender and so on. The leaders and the managers require harnessing the potential of all their employees for achieving optimal performance for the organization which can make sure that the patient gets excellent care (Chartier, 2014). The management of diverse work force is a major challenge for Albury Wodonga Private Hospital as the organization has to build their vision and mission in a way that is capable of identifying the differences amongst the employees and consider it as a potential strength for the organization. Therefore, managing diversity is a continuous process that allows the organization to deal with all the possible challenges and create an environment that enhances the achievement of both the organizational and individual development (Wager, Lee & Glaser, 2017). The government of Australia has already taken several steps for ensuring that the entire population is having an equal right for employment. However on the organizational level, the management has faced different issues with the diverse workforce such as less understanding of the regional language, cultural conflicts etc. Therefore, the organization has to take care of the situation and reshape their human resource policies.

Demographic Changes

Human resource management is a significant part of any organization as it is relate to several major areas of management such as maintaining the organizational image, strategic planning etc. The organization has faced several issues regarding the benefits and safety of the employees. The organization also had to face the rage of employees regarding their existing benefits. As these two factors are the basic ones which makes the organization ahead in the competition and enhances the employee retention policy of the organization. The organization also requires keeping the organizational image clear so that they can attract more talents to them, otherwise, it would be very difficult for them to have excellent talent pool for the outstanding performance of the organization (Kavanagh & Johnson, 2017). A recent case of employee rage regarding the safety plans and employee benefits have created a huge setback for the organizational image of the Albury Wodonga Private Hospital. Therefore the organization has to create its human resource policies to overcome such issues.

Albury Wodonga Private Hospital can adapt strategic human resource policies which can reevaluate their existing ones and enhance their organizational development. Rightly adopted strategies can be very much effective for overcoming the possible challenges and improve their employee performance. The proposed strategies for overcoming such challenges are:

• Diversity management is a big challenge for the Albury Wodonga Private Hospital; therefore the organization needs right implementation of policies and programs that can be supportive of the development and growth of the employees. The management should make a clear assessment of the generation wise categorization to understand how the employees are filling the categories. Furthermore they can develop a workforce planning tool which can create a engaged and competent work force for delivering good quality care for patients. In the healthcare sector, sustainable work force is the key for providing good quality care for the patients, therefore the organization should immediately adapt innovative strategies for attracting people from different generation in accordance to the demand of the organization and make a sure target for such labor force.
• The leaders of the Albury Wodonga Private Hospital require increasing their understanding level for managing the workforce in a better way and remove any kind of tension from the work place. The leaders should have random sessions with the employees so that they can help the employees in achieving the organizational goals and the work life balance. The projects that are being given to the employees should also be distributed keeping their individual skills in mind while expecting an optimal outcome. There may be a huge generation gap between the expectations of being rewarded by the company. Therefore, the management should tailor their reward policies accordingly.
• There should be a well-organized training and development program, so that all the employees are well aware of the organizational mission and vision. They should also know about the expectations that the organization has from them and how they should act for achieving the organizational objectives.
• The management should know each of the unique qualities of the employees so that they can use it for the enhancement of performance of the organization itself. If there are no such professional and educational developmental activities, it is impossible for the organizational management to know it. Therefore the management should organize such activities frequently.
• The management should also offer good benefits and safety policies for the employees.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it can be said that, there can be several differences between the management and the employees, yet both the parties have to work together so that they can achieve the organizational goals and objectives. The human resource department of the organization should be competent enough to understand and find out the loopholes in their existing strategies and reevaluate them after a certain point of time. This will enhance their organizational performance to a great extent.

References

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