Human resource management is becoming increasingly important in health care companies, given the significance of human resources as a major health system input. In this setting, human resources describe the different types of personnel in the organization, including clinical and non-clinical employees. It follows that health care companies need to put in place a proper HRM department, whose practices would lead to the development and maintenance of a balance between the number of employees and the competency of the employees needed for the organization to function properly ( Harris et al., 2007 ). Thus, before the company employs new HRM staff, it would need to consider the prevailing business strategy. The business strategy gives an insight of what the organization might require of a new HRM employee and, therefore, defines the attributes the hiring party will be looking for in applicants. In a health care organization, new HRM employees would be needed due to vacancies resulting from resignation, promotion, or retirement ( Harris et al., 2007; Fallon and McConnell, 2013 ). In some of these organizations, vacancies appear as the company grows and hiring would not be only for the purpose of replacement. This paper presents an outline of the stages involved in the staffing process and describes just-in-time training as the most suitable in a health care organization setting.
The Staffing Process
Planning
The planning phase involves determining the staffing needs of the organization and doing a job analysis. A job analysis entails identifying the exact nature of the position that is supposed to be filled by new recruits (Larson and Hewitt, 2009). In the case of Human Resource planning, this stage would also involve job design, which is establishing the manner in which a given task is executed and the material and equipment which might be needed while carrying out that task.
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Recruiting
This stage involves making an appeal for potential employees to apply for the open positions in the firm as well as conducting inside and outside recruitment.
Interviewing
The purpose of an interview is mostly to determine the right applicant for the vacancy even when the applicants have somewhat similar qualifications. However, this phase is inherently time consuming and can, therefore, be outsourced to agencies in the case of relatively large companies. In such a case, the company provides the agency with a shortlist of the most suitable candidates (Larson and Hewitt, 2009). For small- and medium-sized companies, interviews can be effectively carried out by the firms themselves.
Selecting
This stage is also referred to as the sifting or screening stage. It involves the collection of data about the candidates who have made it through the interviewing phase. This information can then be used to determine the candidate who is fittest for the vacancy.
Hiring
This is the final stage of the staffing process. After the organization has chosen the most suitable candidate, they serve them with a job offer. If the candidate accepts the job offer, then they are hired. Otherwise, the company considers another candidate from the interviewed lot for the vacancy (Larson and Hewitt, 2009). After the hiring stage has been concluded, the new employee undergoes an integration process in order to fit into an existing team.
Just-in-Time Training
Just-in-time training is alien to many companies but has been found to be very effective for new workers. While many health care companies prefer to plan for their training programs when the year starts, just-in-time training can be done within hours of being needed in the workplace. In this way, the new employees would learn the skills they require at the actual point of application ( Harris et al., 2007 ). For programs whereby new employees are taught new skills from a point that is distant from the actual point of application, employees do not retain such skills. As a result, there would be a wastage of resources in the organization.
Figure 1: Elements of JIT training
For the just-in-time training to be a success, it is important for the experienced HR professionals in the organization to identify the skill gaps among the new staff. It is their duty to identify the most pressing skill needs of the new employees as soon as they start their work.
Figure 2: The JIT training process
During the orientation stage, it is required that new employees are provided with guidelines to the tasks they would be required to carry out. However, such instructions do not suffice as it is expected that the employees would need some guidance while doing their work ( Harris et al., 2007 ). The trainer will need to teach the new employees about the concepts described during the orientation at the time when these employees need to apply these concepts. In this case, therefore, the time of learning needs to be in line with the employee’s needs and not the trainer’s.
Figure 3: Impacts of JIT training on HR employees
Training Techniques for Motivating New HRM Staff
Overhauling Training Practices
Many health care companies prefer a training system that is instructor-focused, whereby the instructor determines the timing, technique, content, venue of the training process. Therefore, it is very likely that an employee’s participation in the training program would be disrupted by the instructor’s choice of venue or schedule (Larson and Hewitt, 2009). Such a program would be adequate in cases where the new employees are required to only perform primary HRM-related jobs in the organization. However, for the sake of motivation and performance, the program should be modified to fit the employee.
Trainees need to perceive the training program as valuable to their future in the organization. Otherwise, the HRM group in the organization would be short of motivation. The company, for example, can consider introducing job aids and computer-based multimedia training. While such an approach may be tedious on the part of the instructors, it is more effective that the instructor-focused approach in engaging new employees.
Crafting Employee Development Opportunities
The new HRM employee group would need feel wanted and confident that they have the capacity to perform their duties in the organization. For many workers, regardless of their field of specialty, such a feeling is enough to retain them in the organization. Thus, a proper strategy for the health care organization would be to support those employees who can be considered to be long-term and help them develop a career out of Human Resource Management (Larson and Hewitt, 2009). Many studies claim that a health care organization would register a high performance only if there is a provision for staff development for HRM workers. For example, the health care organization can provide support in the form of bonuses or time off to boost the job satisfaction of the new employees. Given that these employees would be working at an elevated level, they would feel positive and appreciate the efforts made by the organization to ensure they are working in a favorable environment. A motivated employee strives to put in extra effort and lasts longer in the organization as compared to an employee who is less motivated.
Problems Facing HRM in Health Care Organizations
Since the function and structure of HRM is quite uniform for health care organizations in the United States, the problems associated with such a department can be generalized ( Fallon and McConnell, 2013 ). Even though some of these challenges are longstanding, some of them tend to be due to recent developments in legislation and technology.
Reporting and Compliance
The new requirement stipulated by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are particularly challenging to HRM in the health care setting. For the implementation of this law, HR managers are required to closely monitor the workers in the organization as well as their day-to-day schedules and compare the information they gather with each worker’s health benefits. The process of gathering such data is quite complex for relatively large health care organizations, given the number of employees and departments involved ( Fallon and McConnell, 2013 ). In hospitals, for example, HR managers are required to carry out performance evaluations for hospital-based workers and prepare annual review reports for the organization for the purpose of state and federal funding.
The HR Management Software would be the most effective tool employed to mitigate the negative impact of these requirements on HRM in health care organizations. This software seems fitting for such a context because it has been designed for the sole purpose of advanced monitoring and reporting ( Fallon and McConnell, 2013 ). The software contains several monitoring applications that capture information regarding the hourly activities of an employee to determine whether the employee is entitled to benefits as stipulated by the ACA. Additionally, this software allows HR staff to compile the forms required by the IRS.
High Demand and Low Supply
Given that health care is one of the fields with a significant shortage in professionals, HR employees in such a context find it had to fill the vacancies in organizations in order to match the demand for health care. In any given state, there is barely enough professionals who are up to the standards called for by many health care organization ( Fallon and McConnell, 2013 ). The emphasis today is performance-based but many of the professionals available in the job market are not high-performers. It is also difficult to identify the highest performers in such a large pool.
To handle such issues, HRM in health care organizations can purchase advanced technology referred to as Applicant Tracking Systems, which make the hiring process much easier ( Fallon and McConnell, 2013 ). Such systems give automatic reports and workflows which would allow the HR staff to respond to suitable applicants in a timely fashion and also get access to their compensation data.
Talent Management
Given that many health care institutions in the country operate on a tight budget, HRM in these organizations find it hard to obtain the financial support required for talent management. Talent management is vital for any organization in a highly competitive industry in that it enables the organization to offer competitive benefits to its employees for the purpose of retaining them and attracting the best professionals in the market ( Fallon and McConnell, 2013 ). Currently, it is difficult for HR professionals to strike a balance between the competitiveness of the benefits they offer and the budget under which they are supposed to operate. In other words, it is challenging to reduce some of the organization’s expenses in order to invest in talent management.
A suitable target for such reductions would be IT department. By using the single cloud-based Human Resource Information System applications, a health care organization can cut on internal IT-related expenses. For example, cloud-based systems remove the expenses associated with hardware repair and replacement. The funds saved from applying cloud solutions can be channeled towards talent management.
Conclusions
From the discussion, it is clear that just-in-time training would be the best approach for new HR employees in a health care organization setting. It saves on costs and ensures new employees learn important skills at the point of application. This approach also tends to be learner-based, which is more effective in this context. The new HR workers would be more motivated during the training period if the company overhauls training practices and crafts employee development opportunities. Also, it is evident that even though HRM in health care organizations faces considerable challenges, there are solutions that can be applied to remedy the situation.
References
Fallon Jr, L. F., & McConnell, C. R. (2013). Human resource management in health care . Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
Harris, C., Cortvriend, P., & Hyde, P. (2007). Human resource management and performance in healthcare organisations. Journal of health organization and management , 21 (4/5), 448-459.
Larson , S. A., & Hewitt, A. S. (2009). Staff recruitment, retention, and training strategies for community human services organizations. Paul H Brookes Publishing Company.
