Human Resource Planning in Healthcare

Human Resource Planning in Healthcare The most important resources in healthcare is the human beings. Equipment such as machines and devices are essential parts in healthcare. However, it requires the expertise and commitment of a human being to fully utilize their features in the delivery of care. This is the reason why human resource planning is vital in the provision to any healthcare establishments. The human resource policy has many objectives: to entice, hire, retain and improve proficient employees and develop a constant healthcare learning organisation. The main focus of all healthcare personnel is the client or the patient itself. There are many personnel involve in the process of providing the best healthcare services. In the medical aspects: physicians, nurses, healthcare assistant, med-techs, pharmacists, and resident doctors are the direct provider of outpatient and ward care for patients. While the admin, public staffs, laundry, food caterers, electricians, and other maintenance personnel are also involve in the success in providing safety in delivering care to the clients. Planning is indeed an important thing to do for all these personnel for them to work effectively on rendering best service towards their patients. These are the three ways on how to improve human resources: Work system: The goal of a work system is to obtain cooperation and collaboration among all employees. Healthcare personnel seek for a better system so that their deeds will have favorable outcome without wasting much time on activities. Employees may feel important as they participate on such activities. On the other hand, tasks or activities that are forcedly delegated to them can build doubt as they believe of not owning it. In order to be a part of the system, employees must participate actively in the planning. This will create efficiency on the workforce as they work together regardless of what department. These are some examples of an effective work system: Organize a team either short-term or long-term. Examples would be the infection control, waste management, and quality control team. Encourage further higher education, offer staffs greater responsibilities and help them to determine trainings that they need. Rotation of nursing and nursing attendants to avoid boredom in work. Also emphasize the importance of multi-tasking. Management in performance system: each employee must work according to their job description. The performance of each employee is evaluated towards their target in a timely manner; this helps employees to achieve their targets annually. Reward practices: the reward system is either monetary or non-monetary. An example of monetary rewards are promotion of the position, special increase in the salary, and long service awards. Non-monetary awards are given through formal or informal letter or a simple gesture of tapping the back of an employee in front of other employee as a sign of a job well done. Proper communication: a sense of unity in an organisation is present among workers who have proper communication on their superiors and subordinates. Recruiting and selective hiring of new staffs: during the recruitment process, the hospital or the company must identify the work requirement and at the same time during the interview, attitude and aptitude survey of the applicants must be completed. Moreover, there should be a transparent explanation to the applicant about his future growth upon staying in the organisation. Lastly, an induction process must be handed to the new employee of the working environment in order to have familiarity of the situation. Employee development through training and education: there must be a continuity in learning and development process for employees. Employees are trained with the following aspects: technical (proper handling of equipment and devices), managerial (the ability to handle work environment), and behavioral (the proper attitude in a given situation). The training program has two goals: the short-term and the long-term; the former aims on achieving client’s satisfaction and reducing time cycle while the latter is aimed on having a more efficient technology. These trainings are provided to achieve the ultimate goal of healthcare, to provide safe and best service to patients and family members. There are various trainings provided for the staffs in the Kindly Residential healthcare. Physicians, nurses, and technicians are offered with a continuous medical education. This is to render effective health teachings to their patients. Also, healthcare assistants are trained on proper waste disposal, oxygen therapy, and proper use of HOIST. The training programs provided by the company is not enough to measure the effectiveness on the performance of employees. In order to determine the effectiveness of the training program, there must be an evaluation process. During evaluation, factors that are monitored closely must have a direct link with the well-being of the client. Factors like the rate of occurrence of illness and death, feedback of the client and family members, quantity of re-admission having the same medical problem and most of all is to retain the trust and confidence of the client towards the healthcare. The well-being and satisfaction of the workers: the satisfaction of employee is vital to the motivation on the whole organisation. The following aspects make a big contribution on the satisfaction of employees: The work environment: The working environment is one of the essential aspect in providing satisfaction for the workers. A safety environment by enforcing precautions creates a healthy environment. Employees may work freely because they know they are safe and they have the proper gadgets or devices to protect them as they carry-out their tasks. Such precautions are: emphasis on proper waste disposal, compulsory annual check-ups and vaccination should be done, and continuous research on unsafe practices. The work climate: Awareness programs and accessible facilities are provided for workers by the company in order for them to feel proud because they are taken good care by the organisation as they render service to their clients. These are some programs that improve the work climate: health awareness program, awareness of AIDS program, mess hall, fitness gym, education and library access. The satisfaction of an employee: the satisfaction of an individual worker is difficult to achieve. There are only few hospitals who are successful on making their employees satisfied. The human mind is very dynamic; people may not be contented on what they achieve because of the belief that they can do more. Therefore, expecting an employee to become satisfied on the company’s facility is far from the truth. However, the organisation collects feedbacks by doing a formal or informal assessment process and correlate these results on determining improvement priorities. Through this action, it makes the worker feel that the organisation or management is very sincere regarding their concerns.