Week 8 Thought Question #4
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Running Head: WEEK 8 THOUGHT QUESTION
Week 8 Thought Question #4
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2
WEEK 8 THOUGHT QUESTION
In your opinion, how will the future human resource department in a health care setting
look? What do you believe will be the most critical issue facing human resource managers and
leaders in health care in the future? How do you plan to response to these future pressures in
a consistently changing and evolving environment?
The Future of HR department in healthcare
Human resource has rapidly evolved in recent times and it is expected to further evolve with the
managers having more and complex roles due to the changes in technology, organizational
structures and operations and employee needs. The primary roles of HR were traditional; paper
work, hiring, keeping the business out of trouble and monitoring employees. Currently, paper
work still remains a primary function but there is a significant shift, HR department is currently
dealing with much of employee needs and is concerned majorly at their welfare and personal
development (Barajas, 2020). Clearly, the role of HR departments and especially in healthcare
has dramatically changed. The change will continue as long as the workplace is evolving due to
technology and other workforce and market trends continue to emerge. The machines computer
and machines are rapidly replacing some of tasks that were formally done by humans. Covid 19 disrupted most of industries with healthcare being among the most affected. The
human resource managers were forced to rethink differently about their changing roles to
accommodate the new normal that had not been foreseen (Lewis, 2020). The healthcare working
environment had to be adjusted to accommodate the remote workers needs, support needs and
employees’ well-being – both within the hospital environment and those working remotely. It led
to a strain that required their roles to diversify. Organizations without a remote-work policy had
to come up with one. Those that had, had to modify it to cancel the effect of the crisis. The new
policies had to be structured to accommodate the large numbers of employees working remotely.
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WEEK 8 THOUGHT QUESTION
The HR will be expected to support and come up with strategies that support the current blended
taskforce. Research indicates that 86% of the employees that have been working remotely prefer
to continue working remotely even after the pandemic (Lewis, 2020). This requires the HR to
create a people-centric work culture that supports flexibility. Some organizations are already
making use of collaboration software like the slack. Such programs can greatly help teams that
are collaborating remotely. Healthcare workers were affected by stress and anxiety as pandemic skyrocketed. The pandemic
that stressors from home affect employees in their workplace and vice versa. The HR is and will
be required to prioritize mental health and wellbeing of its workforce. The workforce will not be
able to perform efficiently without access to mental health and ultimately the cost involved n
acquiring such services (Lewis, 2022). The HR teams are expected to shore up the current
benefits plan with a robust mental coverage. Such benefits will be able to support employees as a
whole to the best they can on behalf of the patient. In the future, I anticipate that the HR department will champion coaches, guiding employees
throughout their careers and becoming more essential than ever to business analytics and
strategy. The future HR leaders will need more knowledge in the healthcare industry to be
broader thinkers. Their access to scientific, technological, and organizational knowledge will
support them to be better tech-savvy to deal with je increasing and restless workforce (Lewis,
2022). The HRs of the future will be required to think on improving employee experience
through technology. For example, if exit survey data shows that employees are leaving the
company due to lack of development opportunities, the organization could plan to have an
internal Learning Management System (LMS) program that supports virtual simulation,
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WEEK 8 THOUGHT QUESTION
augmented reality and holographic workspace (Lewis, 2022). This will help the HR create a
development pathway thereby increasing employee retention. Critical issues facing the HR managers and leaders
There are a number of critical challenges that continue to face the healthcare HR departments. A
number of challenges have helped in shaping the healthcare industry. These challenges are
discussed below;
i.
Staffing deficiencies
Staffing deficiencies in healthcare are likely to scale up as indicated by the current research data.
According to the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the number of healthcare jobs in the US
will experience a growth of 12% between 2018 and 2028 (Milligan, 2019; Lewis, 2022). This
estimate is double the rate at which other occupations from non-medical industry will
experience. The reason for growth is partly driven by the massive Baby Boomer population who
will likely utilize healthcare services as they age. Some of the aging population comprise
healthcare practitioners who are exiting the industry for a retire despite along the increasing
demand for healthcare services. Despite the numerous strategies of training, the available
training institutions are not able to keep up with the demand. The HR will need to get creative on
how to recruit talent in healthcare organization. Research conducted by SHRM.org indicate that
about 90% of the hospital executives believe that by 2028, the healthcare organizations will
experience crisis as a result of deficiency in specialists, general physicians, nurses and other
clinicians reducing healthcare organization’s ability to deliver quality healthcare services
(Milligan, 2019).
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WEEK 8 THOUGHT QUESTION
ii.
Wage competition
The higher the demand for specialists, the higher the wages. Smaller healthcare organizations can
not be able to compete for better talent due to the higher wage rate set by larger organizations.
For such organizations, it becomes difficult to retain or find a talented employee. Human
resource managers from such organizations have to restructure their branding and how they look
for talent. Implementing a better form of brand advocacy will place the organizations at a better
platform to compete for skilled and talented workforce. Healthcare practitioners are more
interested with better pay, job security, and increased satisfaction of a noble calling. Brand
advocacy should capture some of these elements. iii.
Employee turnover rate
With reduced supply of workforce, HR teams will experience problems in recruiting with too
much time and resources being used to attract the targeted candidates. This is followed by a
struggle to retain them as a result of abundance in position opportunities in the job market.
Employees are likely to leave the company if they feel dissatisfied with the current position or if
they are offered more attractive positions than the current company can possibly offer. Human
resource must develop career development plans to attract and retain more employees. Research
indicates that millennial employees prefer advanced training, career growth, or comprehensive
benefits programs as compared to pay rise (
NJSNA Nurses, 2021). If their needs are not offered
by an organization, they leave immediately for better opportunities which are always available.
Hire rates of employee turnover are costing organizations millions of dollars every fiscal year.
Registered nurses have been recording the highest rates of turnover of about 18.7% in 2020
(
NJSNA Nurses, 2021). A percentage increase in turnover rate for registered nurses costs an
organization about $ 270,800 in a fiscal year. A report by the NJSNA.org indicates that about
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WEEK 8 THOUGHT QUESTION
62% of the American healthcare organizations have a vacancy rate of 7.5% for registered nurses
(
NJSNA Nurses, 2021). iv.
Burnout
The difficulty is closely related to high staff deficiencies and increased rates of employee
turnover. Burnout has a direct effect on the patient as it tends to reduce the quality of service that
the employee can provide. It is often difficult for medical practitioners to efficiently perform
their tasks with the physical, emotional and psychological exhaustion of the workplace. To
achieve job satisfaction among the employees, the HR has to make imperative considerations in
addressing the stress that the workers have to bear (
Pathak, 2021). If the employees feel that they
are underappreciated, burnout sets in, they end up losing a connection with their patients thereby
affecting quality of services that they provide. Nursing departments are mostly affected by
burnout more especially due to the number of patients that they are assigned per employee. With
the data available on rates of turnover as a result of burnout among nurses, I feel that HR
departments needs to focus and come up with organizational policies or programs that are
specific to the employee requirements.
v.
Development and training
The constantly changing healthcare environment, the employees are requiring newer skills for
the current and future healthcare industry. The role of development and training is enshrined as
one of the HR primary roles. It is crucial for the HR to come up with programs that support the
employees’ personal development necessities and also provide employee engagement
opportunities as training opportunities. The quality, and level of training and development has a
direct influence on the organization’s employee retention rate (
Pathak, 2021). Training on
leadership, digitization skills, and soft skills can help the organization to effectively regulate the
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current and futures of employee retention. Training and developing the employees is a way of
investing in the organizational workforce and it can get expensive at times. However, comparing
the cost of developing and training against higher turnover cost effect, the former is cheaper than
the later (
Pathak, 2021). Apart from retention, it helps the employees to effectively perform their
tasks, and promotes employer-employee relationship. vi.
Response to future pressures in a consistently changing and evolving environment in HR
Training is an important tool in preparing a workforce for a forecasted challenge. But how often
do we think of training the HR personnel to support the future workforce? We often think of
preparing the workforce and not the HR. An HR team with sufficient training will be best at
handling problems that are common within a healthcare workspace. The HR needs to be able to
support the needs of the changing market needs and challenges. It is only possible if the HR
have sufficient leadership skills, digital expertise, soft skills among other skills that are a specific
to an organization (
Westfall, & Rogers, 2021). Training is a primary factor that improves
competency of a workforce. Both the HR and the employees should remain up to date through
periodic training and research. It is the responsibility of the HR to ensure that the employees are
updated as per the market trends and advancement in technology. The HR team also needs to be more analytical when dealing with employees rather than making
assumptions. Employing technological tools such as HR document management system can
facilitate the function of HR by automating tasks and managing a significantly large amount of
employee data. An employee engagement tool like an engagement software should be integral
part of HR. An employee engagement tool helps the HR to collect employee feedback analyze it
and synthesize a report in a simpler format, and improve lines of communication within the
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WEEK 8 THOUGHT QUESTION
facility. Feedback helps the administration and the HR to easily make changes in critical areas
where employees and patients might be affected.
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WEEK 8 THOUGHT QUESTION
References
Barajas, B. (2020, September 9). The Future of Healthcare Human Resources After COVID-19
.
PreCheck. Retrieved April 27, 2022, from https://www.precheck.com/blog/future-
healthcare-human-resources-after-covid-19
Lewis, N. (2020, March 30). HR Technology’s Role in Health Care Is Growing
. SHRM.Org.
Retrieved
April
27,
2022,
from
https://shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-
topics/technology/pages/hr-technology-role-health-care-is-growing.aspx
Lewis, N. (2022, April 22). HR Managers Rethink Their Role During the Coronavirus Pandemic
.
SHRM.Org. Retrieved April 27, 2022, from https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-
news/pages/hr-managers-rethink-their-work-coronavirus-pandemic.aspx
Milligan, S. (2019, August 16). HR 2025: 7 Critical Strategies to Prepare for the Future of HR
.
SHRM.Org. Retrieved April 27, 2022, from https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-
magazine/1118/pages/7-critical-strategies-to-prepare-for-the-future-of-hr.aspx
NJSNA Nurses. (2021, October 15). The Cost of Nurse Turnover
. New Jersey State Nurses
Association. Retrieved April 27, 2022, from https://njsna.org/the-cost-of-nurse-turnover/
Ohio University. (2020, June 8). Human Resource Management in Health Care
. Retrieved April
27, 2022, from https://onlinemasters.ohio.edu/blog/human-resource-management-health-
care/
Pathak, A. (2021, May 21). How HR Challenges Are Shaping the Healthcare Industry
. HR Daily
Advisor. Retrieved April 27, 2022, from https://hrdailyadvisor.blr.com/2021/05/24/how-
hr-challenges-are-shaping-the-healthcare-industry/
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Westfall, B., & Rogers, S. (2021, November 22). 5 Predictions for the Future of Human
Resources
. Top Business Software Resources for Buyers - 2022 | Software Advice.
https://www.softwareadvice.com/resources/the-hr-department-of-2020/