Introduction
Over the years, the role of human resource personnel has significantly changed. The demands from employees are scaling up at a tremendous range. With this effect, it calls for the human resource department, coupled with other stakeholders in the organization to pool together every resource at their disposal to ensure that employee empowerment is key. This is especially important in the health care professional setting where there is a demand for effective and efficient work delivery as patients deserve the highest level of care. In the job set up, there are many challenging talks while at the same time there are those that are easy to execute. Regardless, of the job set up, there are many issues that arise and many opportunities that appear, however the employee is no position to establish how to go about it (Huq, 2010). It is for this reason that in this paper, there will be a breakdown of an effective plan developed to help home healthcare staff be able to identify and capitalize on their strengths and weaknesses.
Employee empowerment refers to the collective efforts that are centered on helping an employee develop to his or her full potential. Usually, these would have been designed to highly motivate all employee to work on themselves and look overlook their shortcomings. Sarwar & Khalid (2011), states that employee empowerment is the theoretical and practical concepts that ensure that employees within an organization are well-developed, natured and provided for with a platform for handling future responsibilities. Employee empowerment just like training helps bridge the gap between existing and required employee skills, knowledge and attitudes.
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Objective Expected from Employee Empowerment Plan
The objectives expected from employee empowerment plan will in general help not only the home health care specialists but will also help the patients. With employees having received the deserved empowerment, there should be efficient delivery of home health care services. This is because the employee will be able to identify challenges that are present in the system and take an appropriate approach to solve the issue rather than letting it debilitate the system. With the appropriate tools and resources in hand paired with issue identification skills employees can innovate ways that will help in the delivery of quality health care services to the patients. Further, employees who receive desired employee empowerment help in facilitating versatility in the work place. This is because the staff can think of a more solid ground and know how to article issues relating to their job descriptions. In line with this, employee empowerment helps establish employee stability.
The Employee Empowerment Plan
Training and development is an ongoing process in the health care industry. Day in day out the human resource department advocates for an employee to seek all the pertinent knowledge that will help them advance their skills. In the job setting, taking care of the patient deserves extra handling as this is a specialized form of treatment that is accorded to some patients. As diverse as the field so does the need for specialization evolve. The fields of specialization include; physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech-language pathology and medical social work. To empower employees, human resource will provide the employees with all the necessary resources that will facilitate them to offer quality services. As such, they can provide them with scholarships, either full or partly, school or education leave and promotions as a form of compensation for those who have advanced their education (Degago, 2015).
To promote employee empowerment, another plan will be to analyze current skills gap. This will highly motivate the employee to work on themselves and look overlook their shortcomings. According to Degago (2015), understanding current and future developments begins with understanding the position of the organization. Thus, it is important to conduct a thorough review of employees, knowledge, abilities and present skills to identify the level of their present level of skill. Further, there will be consultation with the employees to list down their present level of skills which is an essential move as it is through this medium that comparison will be made to establish whether a gap does or does not exist. Through the identification of existing skills gap, an employee's weaknesses will be dealt with appropriately as such provide all the necessary support to the employee.
Making the most of the current assets helps empower employees. From this point, the current assets refer to mentor-mentee program which will also be in the empowerment plan. Huq (2010) states that mentors add training to their set of competencies. Most mentees in the organization have an array of knowledge that is brought about by years of experience and specialization. As such, mentees have the benefit of coming into contact with senior staff members who will provide them with the in- and - outs of the industry. Therefore, they will be taught on how to handle any arising issues in the job industry and make decisions that will help eliminate any contingencies.
In his book, Employee Empowerment: The Rhetoric and the Reality , Huq (2010) states that the creation of detailed career paths for employees helps motivate them within their respective organizations. As such, step by step career mapping will be effected to help employees move from one state to the next. After career mapping, all the necessary development will be availed for the employees to move their career forward. For example, leadership development will start in the early stages of the employee career. This will, in turn, help employee re-invest in their positions by doubling up their efforts and skills.
Communicating Progress with The Stakeholders
In any organizational set-up keeping in touch with the respective stakeholders is important since they are the overseers of the program. One means of keeping in touch with stakeholders is through constant formal communication. While a daily meeting with the stakeholders may appear as too much, it is important to meet with stakeholders during the process of the implementation of the plan. Physical contact will help the stakeholders evaluate the plan from an individual representation instead of other forms of communication. Sending newsletters, emails, reports, and poster is another way of communication. Finally, with the increase in globalization so is how business encounters are established. As such, another form of communication will be through conference calls (Sawar & Khalid, 2011). On the other side of the coin, informal communications such as hallway conversations, lunch meetings or voice mail will also be used when the situation demands.
Evaluating the Plan
One of the ways by which to evaluate the plan would be to have the employees evaluate the program once effected, as part of the process that’s more commonly known as authenticity consultation. It will entail asking the employees whether they benefited from the program or how they are faring with the program. Edwards et al. (2007), suggest that tests should also be administered both when a program progresses and at the end. In line with this, there will be tests that that will be administered to evaluate the effectiveness of the empowerment plan. This is important is it also provides employees with the avenue to express their opinions. Another way of evaluating the program will be through conducting an appraisal. According to Edwards et al. (2007), a good performance appraisal done with no bias can help show where an employee's weaknesses and strengths. As such, by comparing pre-training and post-training appraisal a measure of change should be apparent.
References
Degago, E. (2015). Psychological Empowerment and Employee Performance. Lap Lambert Academic Publishing GmbH KG
Edwards, J.E. et al. (2007) Evaluating Human Resource Programs: A 6-Phase Approach for Optimizing Performance . John Wiley & Sons
Huq, R. (2010) Employee Empowerment: The Rhetoric and the Reality. Trierarchy Press Limited
Sarwar, A. & Khalid, A. (2011) Impact of Employee Empowerment. Lap Lambert Academic Publishing GmbH KG
