Human resource departments are responsible for evaluating an organization’s business strategy and providing insights, especially from the human resource perspective. Human resource managers are responsible for forecasting the demand and supply of employees in organizations (Snell & Morris, 2019). In the current case scenario, the hospital’s remodeling from exclusive inpatient care to ambulatory services calls for downsizing the workforce from the current 1,000 employees. As an administrator at the hospital, I would recommend that the number of employees be reduced to allow the hospital to grow its clientele for the new services. The current number of employees is too high for the new services. Consequently, some support staff, nurses and other healthcare professionals will be laid off while others will be furloughed. The layoffs will be effected while following the laws on employees’ hiring and dismissal. Employees’ productivity, knowledge, and skills alignment to the new services will be considered while selecting the employees to be laid off.
Downsizing efforts may have detrimental effects on the laid-off employees, organizations and survivor employees. The survivor employees’ work attitude, motivation, and productivity may be negatively affected and, consequently, the organization’s performance (Chipunza & Berry, 2010). The surviving employees may also worry about their jobs’ security (Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), 2019). Some employees may also decide to voluntarily leave their jobs (Nyberg & Trevor, 2009). They may also experience a sense of guilt for having retained their jobs while their colleagues were laid off (Peppercorn, 2020). HR managers, in this case, the hospital administrator, ought to institute some measures to keep the remaining employees motivated and enthusiastic about their jobs. Maintaining transparent and consistent communication is one strategy that can be deployed to mitigate the aforementioned adverse effects of downsizing (Peppercorn, 2020). The hospital administrator should candidly disclose to the remaining employees the reasons for the downsizing. The administrator should also inform the surviving employees of some of the career transition services offered to the laid-off employees. The surviving employees should also be informed of the employees who have been furloughed and who would be rehired once the hospital achieves some level of growth in its new business model. Peppercorn (2020) argues that such efforts help the surviving employees realize that the organization is treating the laid off employees with dignity and makes them motivated to offer their services. The open communication approach should also allow for questioning from the employees and provision of satisfactory responses to their inquiries and worries, including the concerns on the security of their jobs.
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The hospital administrator could also help boost the remaining employees’ morale by organizing training for employees whose job responsibilities have been realigned (SHRM, 2019). Conducting trainings helps the employees to be confident while going about their duties. Another effort that could improve the employees’ motivation is a positive readjustment of the compensations and benefits for the employees who will handle increased work (Katcher, 2019).
References
Chipunza, C., & Berry, D. M. (2010). The relationship among survivor qualities attitude, commitment and motivation after downsizing. African Journal of Business Management , 4 (5), 604-613.
Katcher, B. L. (2019, January 24). After the layoff: Managing the survivors . Online Business & Corporate Training Seminars, Classes, and Courses | AMA. Retrieved February 3, 2021, from https://www.amanet.org/articles/after-the-layoff-managing-the-survivors/
Nyberg, A. J., & Trevor, C. O. (2009, June). After layoffs, help survivors be more effective . Harvard Business Review. Retrieved February 3, 2021, from https://hbr.org/2009/06/after-layoffs-help-survivors-be-more-effective
Peppercorn, S. (2020, May 29). How to support your remaining employees after a layoff . Harvard Business Review. Retrieved February 3, 2021, from https://hbr.org/2020/05/how-to-support-your-remaining-employees-after-a-layoff
Snell, S., & Morris, S. (2019). Managing human resources (18th ed.). Cengage Learning, Inc.
The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). (2019, August 16). Managing employees in a downsized environment . SHRM. Retrieved February 3, 2021, from https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/toolkits/pages/managinginadownsizedenvironment.aspx
