Health Care Human Resources Management – Policies & Procedures

Human resources play a key role in the effectiveness and performance of any healthcare/ medical centers i.e. having quality human resources largely helps the medical centers in attaining its strategic objectives. In this essay, human resources management in healthcare shall first be examined by discussing the effects of the Joint commission on the human resources management and the possible effect on the human resources management’s future. The essay shall also discuss the significance of collaboration between the department managers and the human resources managers in ensuring an appropriate outcome from the hiring process. The assay shall also extensively discuss the hiring process, compensation and benefits plan, performance appraisal of the human resources and lastly provide strategies to help firms in dealing with the performance and behavioral problems.

Joint commission influences and impacts to the functions of the healthcare HR management.

Establishment of the Joint Commission in the healthcare sector greatly influenced the improvement in the quality of care provided by the medical centers. Establishment of the Joint Commission majorly aimed at ensuring quality care offered to the patients through ensuring that the accredited measures/ standards are met by the medical centers. The standards set by the commission includes ensuring qualified personnel usage in the healthcare centers and by ensuring the employee’s safety is covered and protected by the HR standards of the healthcare centers (Resources, 2008).

Joint Commission standards emphasize healthcare firms to incorporate and employ only the qualified personnel in providing services to the patients i.e. by providing standards to guide the employee selection processes (Resources, 2008). The standards have greatly influenced the change in the functions of the HR management in the healthcare centers i.e. as the previous policies that majorly focused on educational background greatly changed to focus on an individual’s competence and mental and physical abilities. It has thus made the HR managers in healthcare to develop new procedures to help them in selecting the most-appropriate employees as stated in the standards of the Joint commission.

The establishment of the Joint Commission has also led expanded the HR manager’s functions as the standards tend to emphasize on employee protection. The health care centers have to develop critical measures to ensure all the employees’ needs are met for the healthcare center to get accredited by the Joint commission (Resources, 2008). Protection of the employees extensively covers employee’s needs such as protection from harm, protection against exploitation from employers and effective employee compensation measures.

Focusing on development of the employee qualification and protection standards, the acute hospital’s performance is prone to improve as the hospitals will be equipped with highly qualified practitioners as per the Joint commission’s requirements. Having qualified employees will have direct improvement in the quality of services provided to the patients thus enabling the acute hospital meet its strategic objectives i.e. efficiency in service provision (Resources, 2008). The acute hospital is also prone to face a high number of patients as an improvement in the quality of services provided tends to increase the community’s trust in their services thus causing most of the community’s populate to visit the acute hospital. The increase in the number of patients visiting the acute centre also tends to enable attainment of the objectives set i.e. increase in the revenue rates/ income to the acute hospital.

Importance of collaborations between the HR and the department managers in the hiring process

Attaining a potential and effective employee requires total collaboration between the HR department and the department managers so as to ensure an effective hiring process. Effective hiring process in this case entails selecting a competitive and efficient employee being hired to undertake and provide services for the firm. Incorporating the department managers in the hiring process ensures proper decisions get arrived at from the hiring process i.e. ensures all the employees hired are per the firm’s requirements (Condrey, 2010). Collaboration between the HR and the department managers enables sharing of the ideas concerning the department’s requirements thus enables the HR managers hire the most-effective employees. The hiring process involves the development of job description outline to guide the hiring process thus requires incorporation of the department managers to come up with a suitable employee with a combination of qualities that align with the firm’s objectives (Condrey, 2010). For example, when a medical center wants to hire a new employee, the Human resource department must ensure collaboration with the department managers so as to help in the development of the most-appropriate combination requirements i.e. both skillful and talented.

Collaboration between the HR and the department also ensures acquisition of honest employee i.e. employee with right skills for the job at hand with no malpractices. Incorporation of the department managers ensures developments of the most-appropriate questions to guide the HR department acquire both skillful and honest candidate who will enable the firm meet its goals (Condrey, 2010). Incorporation of the department managers in the hiring process firm’s HR department will be able to determine and select the most-appropriate candidate to help the medical center meet its obligations i.e. most of the responsibilities in a healthcare firm require employing honest employees that will ensure quality service provision (Condrey, 2010).

Outline for manager’s training program

An appropriate training program ensures the managers attain the most-effective skills and knowledge to effectively select quality employees and also meet the government laws concerning employment. To ensure exclusive acquisition of skills from the training program, appropriate training program has to be developed so as to ensure total understanding and acquisition of skills and knowledge. An appropriate program outline would be; by fist ensuring development of the program’s goals/ objective so as to guide the program running to ensure total equipment of the managers with skills. These objectives have to entail all the areas to get covered to enable the managers understand the skills being taught (Thompson, 2002).

Incorporation of the practices/ methods such as a discussion, use of the multimedia, role plays, physical activities and group activities would also be vital in ensuring total understanding of the managers in the training program. For example on the use of the role plays as a method of ensuring manager’s understanding,  helps the managers in knowing the most-appropriate means of identifying a quality employee as different qualities will get examined in the role plays. Proper logistic measures might also get used in the program i.e. preparing the reading materials in advance and location of the training so as to ensure availability of the most-appropriate materials to ensure understanding of the managers (Thompson, 2002).

The managers might have to be taught proper interviewing skills to ensure sticking to the employment goals.  Teaching them on how to ensure all the candidates seeking for jobs given the opportunity to show/ present their skills in the field being interviewed in that is by diversifying their selection outside the knowledge field to talents.  Providing a candidate with an opportunity to show his/ her strengths in the field ensures a fair and sound candidate selection that will not lead a manager into claims of being discriminatory during the interviews (Thompson, 2002). To provide a chance to a candidate to present his/ her personal; skills require the managers to get taught how to engage questions that would provide  the candidate with a chance to express his/her strengths in the field in question. On seeing total understanding of the managers, an evaluation might be undertaken to assess the possible impact of the training program to the managers so as to make early adjustments to ensure total understanding of the managers i.e. this might get done through the use of feedback from the managers (Thompson, 2002).

Significant Factor in developing compensation and benefits plan that is fair, competitive and aligned to the firm’s objectives.

The firm’s objectives play a vital role in the process of developing a compensation/ benefits plan as  it outlines the main goals that the compensation/ benefits plan is developed to realize. With the firm’s objectives in mind, the firm will be able to develop a benefit/ compensation plan that will enable the firm realize its core goals. The firm will be able to allocate the benefit/ compensation funds fairly as per the individual’s competency (The WorldatWork Handbook of Compensation, Benefits & Total Rewards, 2007). Allocation as per individual’s competency will enable the firm realize its goals appropriately without any discrimination practices involved as the one who performs well gets rewarded, and each employee gets paid a salary as per his efforts given to the firm to meet its objectives.

Basing to the firm’s objectives, the firm will also be able to develop the most appropriate and effective compensation and benefits plan that will see the organisation meet its core objectives. Creation of more effective plan will thus provide the firm with much-competitive advantage over its major competitors in the industry as it ensures attainment of the firm’s goals (The WorldatWork Handbook of Compensation, Benefits & Total Rewards, 2007). Based on the firm’s objectives, it will also enable the firm set/ develop compensation/ benefits plan that will ensure ultimate morale of the employees in working towards attaining the firm’s goals that are also a competitive advantage both internally and externally.

Performance appraisal method

Checklist method stands to be the most-appropriate method to get incorporated in undertaking a performance based appraisal i.e. as it entails the use of yes/ no answer questions with direct questions aimed to gauge an individual’s performance. The questions then get evaluated by the HR department who examines the answers provided by the employee who then provide an employee performance results and support towards the organizational goals (Goel, 2008). The method stands to be the most appropriate as it makes the HR’s work much easier as the employees tend to provide direct answers to the questions that would have been provided in a complex manner if they were asked to write their opinions. Provision of direct questions enables standardization of the answers provided by the employees thus the HR department can provide proper/ accurate statistics concerning the overall performance of the employees in the organisation (Goel, 2008). It is also the most appropriate as it requires less supervision and training to enable the employee appropriately answer the questions asked.

Managing the performance and behavior-based employee problems

Managing both performance and behavior based problem requires incorporation of the most-appropriate problem-solving skills and strategies to ensure attainment of the firm’s strategic objectives. Solving the problem as it arises would be the most-effective strategy that would help in managing both performance and behavior-based problems in the firm i.e. when a problem arises; it has to get discussed with the staff causing the problem. (The WorldatWork Handbook of Compensation, Benefits & Total Rewards, 2007) Discussing the problem with the staff causing the problem helps the HR department in developing a solution to the problem in time before the problem gets out of hand i.e. before it becomes a barrier in the attainment of the firm’s objectives. Discussing the problem with the employees entails providing reasons for the unsatisfactory to the staff in an effort to make them understand the problem and proper ways to elude from making the same mistake.

Ensuring correction of the problem the HR managers have to develop strategic solutions to guide the employees in eluding from the same problem thus working towards the attainment of the firm’s objectives. Monitoring the performance of the staff members might also be helpful in ensuring a total solution to the problems caused by the staff members. Monitoring the staff member’s performance and behavior might be undertaken by involving the employees themselves in discussions to discuss their behavioral and performance (The WorldatWork Handbook of Compensation, Benefits & Total Rewards:, 2007). Discussing the employee’s progress ensures provision of the most-appropriate solutions to the problem thus enabling the employees easily attain the firm’s goals.

References

Condrey, S. E. 2010. Handbook of Human Resource Management in Government. United States: John Willey and Sons.

Goel. 2008. Performance Appraisal and Compensation Management. New York: PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd.

Resources, J. C. 2008. 2009 Accreditation Process Guide for Hospitals. United States: Joint Comission Resources.

The WorldatWork Handbook of Compensation, Benefits & Total Rewards. 2007. United States: John Willey and Sons.

Thompson, C. 2002. Interviewing Techniques For Managers. India: McGraw-Hill Professional.