Literature Review On Human Resource And Communication For Construction Of Health Care For Aged In Sydney

Literature Review

Discuss the literature review on different areas of human resource and communication for the topic “construction of health care for aged in Sydney”. 

This report is about construction of a health care project for the aged people in Sydney. The care of the aged people is very vital and a serious concern in Australia. The aged acre sector is growing and high level of care is required for these people. According to the report in the year of 2010, the population of aged people in Australia was 400000. It is expected that the population of these people will be 1.8 million by the year of 2050. According to the report of National Health and Hospital Reform Commission, the health care places must be double by the year of 2030 to meet the requirement. In this context, the government and other health and social care organizations are working together for developing new health care projects for the aged people (Blackwell, Lucas & Clarke, 2014). In order to develop a proper care for the aged people, the people of the project construction area should be aware about the requirements of the care of aged people. In this report, the different aspect of the HRM and communication for the construction of the health care project for the aged people will be analyzed by reviewing the previous literature available in this field. After analyzing the important factors of the aged care sector, the different phases of the project development for the construction, HRM and communication issues for the construction of the health care project will be discussed (Böhm, Kunze & Bruch, 2014).

The care for aged people has become diverse because of the changing pattern in the various types of disease among the aged people. The diversity among the requirements and special needs of the aged people are also changing frequently which is creating the construction of the care project more difficult. The expanding size of the health care sector is the major challenge for developing the aged health care. Skills and qualification of the workforce is essential for the successful completion of the construction of health care project for the aged people in Australia. The employees of the labor intensive sector should work harder to meet the requirement of the health care project for the aged people (Broad et al., 2013).

The main aspect for the construction project for the health care sector is to understand the requirements of the health care services and construct the health care accordingly. The construction of the health care is quite different from the normal construction projects. The construction should be done in such a way which can ensure that the care seeker and health care professionals will have all the requirements of health care services. The employees of the civil construction area are very busy with the complex, dynamic and unpredictable working sector with intense competition (Guariguata et al., 2014). According to Koebnick et al., (2016), the major issue of the construction project is the chronic skills shortage. The employees should work according to the Industry workforce plan. The financial crisis of the workers in the construction industry is also a major issue of the construction site for the health care project. The employees of the civil construction area are having the problem of low payment. This may hamper the quality of work. Therefore, the management of the health care sector has to pay proper to the employees to get the best outcome from their works. 

Project Life Cycle

The project life cycle for the construction project of a health care project for the aged people can be divided into four phases. The phases are initiate, plan, execute and close. Each of the phases of the project lifecycle should be completed with high level of priority and care. Each of the phases of the project life cycle should be started after the successful completion of the previous phases.

1. Initiate: In this phase, the requirements of the project are discussed with the construction team and the health care professionals. Recognizing the project requirements and feasibility analysis are the major activities of this phase. Cost estimation and material assessment are also the important activities of the initiate phase.
2. Plan: developing plan for the completion of the project activates are done in this phase. In this phase, the workers should be assigned for individual works properly. The blue print is made in this phase for the total project development. In this phase, the total construction project will be dived into several parts and then the parts will be completed by the workers in the supervision of the supervisors of the construction project. The requirements of the health care organization are considered by the construction managers for developing the plan for the development project (McGorry, Bates & Birchwood, 2013).
3. Execute: High level of co-ordination with the employees of the construction unit and other resources required for the carry out the plan should be properly used in this phase for the successful execution of the developed plan to construct the healthcare for aged people. Proper management of the employees and effective level of supervision is also required for the successful evaluation of the plan developed in the previous phase.
4. Close: Ensuring the construction is completed and all the requirements of the health care unit are fulfilled the project gets completed in this phase. If any corrective actions are required, then those are performed in this phase and the project can started by the health care unit by the formal acceptance (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2015).

The roles and responsibilities of the people involved in the construction should be highlighted clearly. The manager’s roles in the construction of the health care unit should be described and need to be made accountable for his or her work. The time line for the responsibilities should be designed for short period and long period separately so that proper communication is made between the owners and the managers and timely review of the task is taken.

Australian government has provided a large number of support and service systems for the aged population.  Several programs from Commonwealth at state level, voluntary programs from community and localities and programs from private profit making sector and non-profit making sectors have been identified in Australia. The company should take clue and ideas from such organization for planning its own project. Further the company should provide general support to the managers and contractors with respect to housing and income so that they work with free mind and do not worry about their. More assistance is provided to labour people to get their support and willingness to do over duties for the completion of the project (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2015).

The company should provides residential services like funding facilities for residence, rent and payment  pharmaceutical and medical facilities, public housing facility, hospital support and community care support, services for the workers and  other related support to create cordial environment during the construction period (Theou et al., 2013).

The responsibility of Human resource of the company towards funding of the projects should be handled with proper care and timely flow of fund should be maintained to avoid discontinuity of the project. (Singh et al., 2013). 

Human resource development is inevitable if company wants to bring develop good health care system for the aged population in Australia. A Clinical Leadership in Aged Care (CLiAC) program was build-up by government to improve the leadership capacity of the managers for increasing the quality of care delivered in Australia. The company should take assistance from such programs Human resource management has a role in changing the employer’s attitude towards the workers. They need to alter organizational culture according to the requirement of the workforce. The organization should employ older generation for their experiences and also supporting the aged population with jobs. However the strategic focus of the management should be for increasing the skill of the labor force and support the  ageing population (Runciman et al., 2012).

Roles and Responsibilities

Human resource management provides a key role in effectively managing the human resource for the workforce. The working people should be provided training programmes for their effective output (Schiller et al., 2012).

The human resource management should include developing maximum number of employment opportunities for the labour force of the country so that it will reduce the unemployment problem. There is need to expand the flexibility and develop training programs for the working population Human resource should be developed to give appropriate training programs to the employees. Proper learning methodology need to be adopted for them. There is crisis of performance management for the unskilled workers which need to be taken care off. The remuneration system should not be linked to the number of years of experience or age of the workers but it should be linked to the performance of the workers (Mossialos et al., 2016).

The human resource management should make an attempt to change the attitude of the employers towards the working population and their leaning styles should be enhanced by giving them proper training. There are several moral complexities on ethical ground for human resource practitioners. The behaviour options were examined when the people are encountering ethical dilemma. In public sector, the research has revealed that there are several issues an complexities of ethical dilemmas and proper human resource management should be practiced to remove ethical dilemmas (McGorry,Bates & Birchwood, 2013).

Ergonomics is an important element of human resource management. It helps in understanding the factor of performance and brings a link between effectiveness, efficiency, security and understands its effect on the organizational development process of the employees. The link between ergonomics and human resource management is important from the methodological view and helps in analyzing the affect on the organization. Ergonomics contribute to the growth and development of human resource management in various ways and it has become one of the important interests of the managers (Mann et al., 2014).

Ergonomics practices are used all over the globe to improve the working conditions of the workers and to reduce the injuries of the workers at the working place. It not only benefits the workers but also the organization in binging effectiveness at the work place. Ergonomics is the science through which the jobs are designed to fit the workers. In case of aged workers, it is more required as the aged workforce has some rigidity towards the choice of the work. It makes the human resource management to adopt task, equipment, work stations and tools to reduce the physical strain on the workers body and remove work related disease and muscular disorders in the body.  Ergonomics includes industrial hygiene, biomechanics and many other scientific (Lawrence, Hancock & Kisely, 2013).

Human Resource Development

Ergonomics is used for optimization of socio-technical system that includes the optimization of organizational policies, structure and policies. It is an applied science that is concern with arranging and designing the things used by the employees so that they work more effectively. It is manner of improving productivity of the employees. The benefits of ergonomics is to increase the work quality, improve productivity, reduce absenteeism, decrease the charges for health insurance, increase morality and reduce discomfort and fatigue of the employees.  OSHA’s Ergonomics program and Employees Work-life Support service are the two main ergonomics practices currently used by the organization (Kooij et al., 2013).

According to Koebnick et al. (2016), the ergonomics methods at Ford, was able to alter the process of engineering so that there is a better involvement of human in job. The lower is the ergonomic risk on jobs; the higher is the quality of the product. 

The human governance activities will enhance the performance of the employees of the construction sector. The activities of the employees will be monitored and measured by the supervisors. This is known as the performance monitoring. Framework and metrics should be used for the performance monitoring of the employees (Weber, Rachman-Moore & Tarba, 2012). The functional effectiveness, compliances and contribution of the employees to the project development will be analyzed in this method. Skill development of the employees and leadership styles are the important factors of the human resource governance of the construction project. Fair treatment regarding the payment and other facilities to the employees should be ensured in the human resource governance.

The stake holders of the construction project are the construction manager, contractor, planning manager and the labors of the construction sector. Effective level of communication among these people is highly required for the successful completion of the construction project of aged health care services. Both the verbal and non-verbal communication will be used for the communication with the stakeholders of the construction project (Singh et al., 2013).

Hierarchical structure will be maintained for communication between the stakeholders. Written requirements will be provided by the health care professionals to the contractors. Then the document will be provided to the construction managers. Blueprints of the construction project will be developed in written format and will be shown to the health care management. The blueprint will be developed by the planning managers. The blue print should be approved by the health care management. If any changes required in the plan, that should be communicated with the constriction manager. Then the revised plan should be made and approved by the health care management (Mossialos et al., 2016). One of the main issues of this area is the miscommunication between the stakeholders. The requirements of the health care centre for the aged people should be cleared at the initial level. Any misunderstanding about the requirements may be the reason of great problem in the construction.

Verbal communication will be required between the construction manager and the labors. The construction manager will give the instructions in verbal format to the employees regarding what to do and when.

Risk Factors:

Health and safety factors

• Risk of falling off workers from the construction site
• Handling, storage and usage of hazardous substances
• Potential injuries for occupational overuse including electric shock, fire or explosion
• Exposure to ultraviolet rays of the sunlight while working on site

Solid waste production

• The construction of the Hospital includes the prediction of harmful waste products including concrete, mud, plastics, glasses, papers and other waste products that are difficult to manage for disposing the same

Scope, cost, and schedule uncertainty risk

• Construction project for the Hospital not meeting with the estimated budget
• Project unable to complete within the estimated time line
• Quality factor being neglected in the process

Administrative controls

• A proper undertaking should be taken by the company for recording hazards
• Implication of proper risks management strategy for making significant changes
• Training of the workers about the health and safety implications
• Provision of first aid equipments at the construction site
• Analyzing the cost and benefit analysis prior to the implementation for the construction project
• Integration of the quality and scope management within the construction process of the Hospital

Legislation controls

• Implementation of the standard code of practices, guidance and regulations
• Implementing appropriate control measures for the various risks being recorded
• Benching the sides of excavation to minimize the risk of the individual being trapped in order to prevent from collapsing

Engineering controls

• Enclosing the cab excavator by using the falling objects protection structure
• Battering and shoring the sides of the excavation for minimizing the excavation from collapsing
• Providing the workers with the safety clothes and protection while working at the consecution site

Isolation controls

• Minimizing the risk of harmful substances and practices from exposing in public by isolating the same 

Conclusion:

The paper discusses the literature review on different areas of human resource and communication for the topic: construction of health care for aged in Sydney. The areas of discussion are Project life cycle, roles and responsibilities, human resource development, linking ergonomics with human resources management, human resource governance, and risk management and communication plan. Further, the paper has suggested the manner in which the risk and challenges can be managed that comes along the issues of communication.

Selection of the Human Resource strategy is very vital for managing the workforce in the construction project. The employees of the construction sector are facing the problem regarding payment. The payments should be given to the employees for motivating them and achieving the highest performance from the employees. The employees should be motivated for perform better in the workplace. The roles and responsibilities are well managed by the Commonwealth government that provides age pension, residential services like funding facilities for residence, rent and payment for disabled, pharmaceutical and medical facilities public housing facility, hospital support and community care support, services for disability and other related support to the aged population of Australia

 Human resource management provides a major role in effectively managing the human resource for the aged workforce. The working force should be provided training programmes for their effective output and the work should be designed according to their capabilities. Ergonomics method is the most useful way in which the socio-technical system can be optimized and it helps in arranging and designing the things effectively so that the aged people can be taken proper care.

The success factor of the construction project is dependent on the effective communication between the stakeholders of the project. Therefore, the communication should be very clear. The communication plan given in this report will help to complete the construction project of the health care for the aged people. The communication should focus on the requirements of the health care sector regarding the health care services for the aged people.

The construction project will face some potential risks regarding the employees health and safety requirements and some other factors like waste management, cost etc. The risk management plan is given in the report which will help to complete the construction project by minimizing the risk factors.  

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