Norton Healthcare services (NHCS) is one of the largest healthcare in Kentucky with is headquarters in Louisville. Its mission statement reads “ provide quality health care to all those served and be the region’s most comprehensive, strongest and preferred healthcare organization, setting the standard for quality and care ” (Norton Healthcare, 2018). With this in mind, the organization must keep a competitive advantage through their employees by emphasizing on employee development and training.
Organizational Importance of a Selected Group
This study focuses on the need pharmacists as some of the important work force at the hospital. The group comprises of highly trained professionals playing important roles in both patient safety and direct patient care at NHCS. This group is important because they offer services that no other group can offer such as mixing drugs, filling doctors’ prescriptions, compounding drugs, advising patients on how to take medication, entering information into hospital database and monitoring patient drug schedules. Overall, the pharmacists are responsible for the system that controls drug distribution and ensure that patients get the proper medication and dosage at the required time (Nimmo, 2000).
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The Norton Healthcare Scholars Program has enabled the facility to partner with various college and universities in a model called ‘Norton University.’ The purpose of this university is to offer organizational development, education and training opportunities which serve Norton Healthcare ( Career Development, n.d.) . Pharmacists from Norton Healthcare spend some of their effort and time at the University educating other medical professionals including physicians about drugs and their uses (Nimmo, 2000). Some of these pharmacists give lectures to Norton University, especially in areas of medicine, nursing, dentistry, and pharmacy. Moreover, the professionals may participate in the hospital’s and University’s research projects.
Training and Development Plan
Employee training and development is an important ingredient in the success of an organization and the career development of the employees (Chisholm-Burns et al. 2014). While organizations look to enhance their operations and efficacy, employees look to develop and learn new skills. Combined, the two can boost organizational development, employee retention and employee development. A good employee training and development plan contains the use of either one or more methods.
NHCS is dedicated to creating and sustaining effective and efficient training and development opportunities for the greater good of the pharmacists and the organization as a whole. The management has an employee development curriculum that is designed to create competent and accountable pharmacists at the Norton Healthcare. This curriculum targets all pharmacists; the newly hired and those that are already working at the organization. The Norton Healthcare has partnered with the Norton University. The organization has appointed this University to deliver its employee development curriculum to pharmacists and other groups of professionals. The purpose of this educational program is to offer pharmacists with career development opportunities that meet the interests of the Norton Healthcare (Chisholm-Burns et al. 2014). The Norton University guides and equips NHCS pharmacists so that they are adequately equipped and properly positioned for success hence making NHCS the premier regional healthcare provider.
NHCS believes that continuous education is the key to a better future, both professionally and personally. The organization helps its pharmacists become adequately equipped to survive in a multicultural and multiethnic world. It has opened doors for pharmacists to obtain new skills to advance their careers, for their personal benefit and the organization, as well. For this reason, Norton Healthcare, through the Norton University provides a vast array of training programs and classes to help pharmacists improve job performance, learn important interpersonal lessons, stress reduction skills, time management and to quality for other top positions within the organization if they so wish to change careers. Also, the organization offers special, employer-sponsored training programs for pharmacists who register above the standard performance during the bi-annual and annual employee performance reviews. These programs are also delivered at the Norton University.
Norton Healthcare also provides pharmacists with instructor-led and online courses. The organization is dedicated to providing continuing pharmacy education through the American Pharmacists Credentialing Center.
Employee training and development is critical to Norton Healthcare, particularly when dealing with the group of pharmacists. Ideally, customers are likely to remain loyal when they are advised and served by knowledgeable pharmacists (Chisholm-Burns et al. 2014). The pharmacists are then motivated to participate in the training because the organization gives them the necessary incentives to remain loyal. Furthermore, training and development activities provided by the healthcare organization are meant to either improve performance in a new job or train new skills to employees to meet organization’s current and future objectives.
Compensation Plan
Compensation is defined as the mix of salaries, benefits, and wages that the group of pharmacists gets in exchange for their pharmacy services. Compensation includes all the incentives, bonuses, salaries and benefits like insurance, contributions to group health coverage and retirement savings. Norton’s compensation plan comprises several components.
Hourly Wage
Pharmacists categorized as non-exempt are paid wages. Norton Healthcare calculates these wages on an hourly basis and gives them overtime pay for work done past 40 hours per week (Chisholm-Burns et al. 2014).
Annual Salary
Norton Healthcare has salaried pharmacists working as non-exempt employees and thus entitled to overtime pay. The organization’s salary scale for this group of professionals is based on education level, credentials, experience, and qualifications like functional expertise and job competency (Chisholm-Burns et al. 2014).
Raises, Bonuses, and Incentives
Usually, Norton’s performance management is what drives their performance ratings. The organization gives pharmacists raises based on their performance rankings. For instance, a good performance review may earn an individual a 3% salary increase (Chisholm-Burns et al. 2014). Bonuses and incentives given to pharmacists at Norton Healthcare include gift certificates and service award presents. The organization also provides additional rewards like referral awards which aim to encourage the pharmacists to refer job applicants. Appreciation incentives are provided to the group of pharmacists working at Norton Healthcare. They include things such as invitations to company parties, celebrations, company-sponsored social events, family activities, sporting events, group lunches, sponsored sports teams and birthday celebrations.
Performance Management Plan
Performance management refers to the process of setting clear employee expectations and giving periodic reviews about the current performance relative to the set goals. The process includes factors such as incentives, separation and employee retention.
Incentives
When Norton Healthcare wants to encourage the performance of its pharmacists, it uses an employee incentive program. This program refers to a systematic approach of rewarding effort and success in the organization by allowing this group of professionals to earn recognition and prizes. Norton Healthcare uses rewards such as gifts, gift certificates and service award presents (Nimmo, 2000). The organization also provides additional rewards like referral awards which aim to encourage the pharmacists to refer job applicants. Often, Norton Healthcare awards these incentives in conjunction with recognition incentives to send a positive image to the group of pharmacists about what behavior and contributions the organization wishes to see.
Appreciation incentives are also provided to the group of pharmacists working at Norton Healthcare. They include things such as invitations to company parties, celebrations, company-sponsored social events, family activities, sporting events, group lunches, sponsored sports teams and birthday celebrations (Nimmo, 2000).
Separation
Norton Healthcare has incorporated an employee separation process in its policies. This helps the organization to improve the performance of its pharmacists. This separation process can be voluntary or involuntary. Voluntary separation occurs when a pharmacist decides to quit without anyone influence. In such a case, the organization requires that the employee presents a resignation letter in advance (Nimmo, 2000). The organization has given two weeks as the standard amount of time for an employee to provide the notice. When Norton Healthcare learns that a pharmacist desires to quit, the human resource manager schedules a meeting with the said professional within 24 hours to discuss the decision (Noe & Wright, 2017). This meeting helps the organization to learn about any organizational issues or give the company an opportunity to negotiate with the pharmacist given that he/she decides to quit for another organization which offers better benefits and salary packages. After learning about a voluntary separation, Norton Healthcare gives the individual a list of tasks to complete to ensure that things remain in order and restricts the employee’s emails and seizes virtual and physical company properties. Then, the company gives the employee the last paycheck on the last day of work (Wognum, 2001).
Involuntary separation occurs when Norton Healthcare decides to fire or terminate a pharmacist (Wognum, 2001). The organization often documents all the events which led to this decision even in cases of at-will employment. Then, the human resource manager notifies the said physician of the decision and then immediately confiscates all the company properties in the employee’s possession including company files, computers, business cards, access cards and ID cards. After confiscation, the organization issues the employee with a written termination letter which outlines the reasons for the termination and the final paycheck.
Retention
Concerning the professionals, Norton Healthcare practices broad-based employee retention. Therefore, the organization emphasizes practices which ensure that all pharmacists are satisfied and productive. It concentrates more on ethical business principles to foster good working relationships with the group of pharmacists and incentives to convince them to stay (Noe & Wright, 2017).
Human Capital Development Issue
Norton Healthcare participates in the formal annual and biannual performance review. This method is not only outdated but has proven to be inefficient. Most of the time, there are only a few or no positive comments that result from these annual and biannual reviews (Noe & Wright, 2017). The pharmacists and managers alike feel that preparing for annual and biannual reviews are time-consuming and the time they spend preparing for these reviews could be spent towards achieving the organization’s goals. Moreover, the annual and biannual reviews cause stress for the pharmacists (Wognum, 2001). When the organization discusses their reviews only once per year in a formal context, it is difficult to give an honest and open conversation about their progress and areas of improvement. Norton Healthcare needs more frequent feedback and conversations about their performance. The pharmacists need feedback about their performance and progress in a way that does not disrupt their workflow. Therefore, Norton Healthcare should adopt periodic employee evaluations rather than the currently adopted annual model.
Conclusion
Healthcare organizations such as Norton Healthcare are able to provide quality services by absorbing and retaining the best talent in the industry. This analysis has emphasized the need for providing adequate training to pharmacists as some of the majority employees at the hospital. The organization can utilize various technological tools to ensure that knowledge dispensation is seamless and efficient. Later, the compensations plans should be modified to match the employees’ skill-set, workload, and experience. This can be achieved if the employee evaluation model is changed to quarterly from the annual one being used today. Focus must be placed on retention because losing such a resourceful workforce may impact the hospital negatively. Moreover, an improvement on the compensation plan will also help in the overall development to the human capital at Norton Healthcare. Whereas this study has focused on pharmacists, the management should also expand the strategy to cover the entire workforce.
References
Chisholm-Burns, M. A., Vaillancourt, A. M., Shepherd, M., & Birtcher, K. (2014). Pharmacy management, leadership, marketing, and finance . Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Publishers
Nimmo, C. M. (2000). Staff development for pharmacy practice . Bethesda, MD: American Society for Health System Pharmacists.
Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart, & Wright. (2017). Human Resource Management: Gaining a Competitive Advantage (10e). McGraw-Hill Education.
Wognum, A. A. M. (2001). Vertical Integration of HRD Policy within Companies . Human Resource Development International 4 (3): 407–421.
Career Development (n.d.). Career Development at Norton Healthcare. Norton Healthcare . Retrieved from https://nortonhealthcare.com/careers/career-development
