Human Resource at North Shore-LIJ Health System - Assignment Example

Human Resource Human Resource at North Shore-LIJ Health System North Shore-LIJ health system is a health care system with its headquarters in Great Neck, New York. It is one of the most popular not-for-profit secular health care system that offer a wide range of out-patient services to over 7 million residents in the United States. The human resource managers in this health system work with a team of over 46 thousand employees, making it a big challenge to streamline all the employee operations. In fact, it is the third largest private employer in the United States. Although the hospital has shown a great commitment to engage in effective human resource management activities, it is still a great challenge to ensure that there is optimal team performance. In the contemporary business environment, the human resource management has become a critical part of organizational performance as it deals with the formation of a strong work force that deliver the organizations objectives and goals. The essay is an assessment of the efficiency of human resource operations in North Shore-LIJ, and it aims at detecting any flaws and providing new strategies towards efficient work force management. North Shore-LIJ health system started in 1997 as the largest healthcare system and the best of its kind on the region. In US, it is the second largest health care system with revenue of about &6 billion. The organization employs about 9,000 physicians, 10,000 nurses not forgetting students and resident service people within its 15 hospitals. The name of the hospital was coined after a merger between the North Shore University Hospital and the Long Island Jewish Medical center. The CEO of the hospital, Michel Dowling integrated the two hospitals after his election in 2002. Bowling has served as the CEO of the organization for a long time and most of the reforms of the hospital link to his efforts to make North Shore-LIJ the best hospital in United States. The hospital offers a wide range of medical services including pediatrics, cardiovascular, orthopedics, urology, neurosciences and women healthcare services (NCHL 3). The large population of employees in the hospital and the many branches of the hospital has been a great challenge for the organization. Bowling has worked along with the human resources to ensure that the organization runs smoothly in line with the organization customer-value model. The ability of the organization to manage a large number of employees is a result of an efficient organizational structure. When there is a large work force, an organization is bound to have a wide range of challenges due to the diversity of the employee origins and needs. For North Shore-LIJ, the organizational structure formation is the key feature of leadership transformation (NCHL 3). While there is the overall human resource officer in the headquarters as the central administration, there are single clinical leaders across all parts of the organization. Each leader is responsible of the work force in the entire hospital and answers to the central human resource manager. In addition, there are head of each health entity to ensure specialization of the work force. For instance, the head of the pediatrics oversees these services in all the branches while the leader of medicine oversees all activities in medicine irrespective of the branch. This kind of formation is a strategy to divide the work and form small efficient systems. While Bowling understands that this formation is not very efficient, he finds it the best approach to handle such a large work force. From a critical point of view, the decision of the administration to delegate different work entities is a reasonable human resource strategy. Since his election in the year 2002, Mr Dowling has focused on the employee-training program to establish a department for employee training. The organization collaborated with General electric and Harvard University to develop training facility. Together they opened a $3 million training school, the center for learning and innovation, which is involved in training health professionals. In the year 2010, the institution had 12 classrooms, two computer labs and the clinical simulation center. The focus of the institution was to develop a world class learning organization that develops students who can help in implementing the goals and the objectives of North Shore-LIJ health center. This institution provides training for employees at all levels, mentors leaderships and constructs ideal teamwork expertise within their work force. In addition, this facility allows employees to advance their education at any particular time so that they are able to serve in higher ranks within the institution. This institution is one of the best efforts that benefited the health service provider. This organization has used this facility to develop a strong team of employees with relevant skills in health care provision (NCHL 5). It has helped the institution to remain dynamic in line with the changing health needs within the society today. The organization selection and recruitment process is an activity that the human resource managers take seriously to obtain the best work force within the institution. The selection process is an activity that involves selection of only qualified employees who suit the minimum requirements of the position and fill the existing employee gaps effectively. For an organization to achieve its goals, it requires skilled personnel with adequate skills and experiences to handle the needs of the organization. In North Shore-LIJ, the selection process takes at different stages. The applicants undergo scrutiny for academic qualifications, skills, experiences and leadership qualities. The human resource managers set clear the qualifications of the position in their advertisement to ensure that only the qualified candidates apply. Those with less than minimum requirements are dismissed at the preliminary stage even before the first interviews. This saves on time and cost that is used for hosting the interviews, regarding the high number of applicants who turn up to their advertisements. In the oral interviews stage, the human resource officers scrutinize for personal qualities and leadership skills. The human resource managers provide a former orientation to the successful candidates. The orientation process is a good way to facilitate employees work behavior and this helps them to adapt more quickly and to work become part of the work team more quickly (Fottler, Naresh, and Grant 123). From this point of view, the health service provider provides an efficient recruitment system, which links to the ability of the organization to have a competent work force. Employee performance evaluation is a key element of human resource management that ensures that employees remain within the service delivery plan. As an organization, the North Shore-LIJ has a specific plan that the employees must help in implementing. The work plan ensures that all the operations of the employees are directed towards the final goals and objectives of the employee. Performance evaluation seeks to ensure that all the employees perform as per the expected standards and helps to identify any deviations from the set path. In North Shore, the human resource managers have formed a performance evaluation team to monitor the work of the employees throughout the working calendar. The organization has set key metrics as benchmarks for evaluating the team employee performance. The board of directors is actively involved in the team evaluation to ensure that every employee perform optimally for the accomplishment of organizational goals (Ostojić, Vlatika and Sanja 217). With this strategy, the organization has managed to achieve its goal year after year, with high revenues and effective goals accomplishment. The employee welfare is a priority for the organization within the work environment. The employee optimal performance depends on the ability of the human resource manager to develop a habitable work environment that motivates the employees to work. In the contemporary work environment, employee loyalty is a crucial factor that the management must achieve if their operations have to succeed. Research has shown that employees perform well if the organization provides them with a healthy working environment. In North-Shore, an employee welfare team collects employees complains and provides solution in the most effective manner. The employee welfare committee helps in creating effective communication channels through which employees can present their problems. The ability of the organization to create a two-way communication between the management and the employees has won the loyalty of employees. Resultantly, the company has witnessed very few cases of employee leaving the organization (Nica 23). The organization emphasizes on cleanliness, safe treatment of wastes as one way of providing a habitable environment not only for the patients but also for the employees. In addition, the organization has complied with all the conditions of the employee act ensuring that the employees are comfortable while working in this organization. Employee appraisal is a topic that has generated a lot of attention within modern work environments. The employee appraisal theories provide that an organization has to provide opportunities for the employees to grow as the organization grows. This motivates the employees to become establish long-term goals while working within the organizations. This way an organization profits from working with a committed team. For instance, employees must be able to benefit from sharing the organizational profits. This motivates them to work harder to generate more profits for the organization, as this is proportional to the reward that they get. The human resource management in North Shore-LIJ have development a talent development plan that ensures that all employees are recognized for their hardwork. Each departmental manager identifies employees who have worked for than one year in the organization and have set a strong performance record (Claude 13-24). The organization has set up key merit factors to measure exceptional performance in employees. The six core organizational values include excellence, caring, innovation, teamwork, integrity and patient experience. The process of nomination of employees who meet the promotion criteria is genuine and transparent. The departmental heads have to write reasons for their selection to ensure that the process if genuine and void of any form of corruption. The genuine process of promotion helps motivates the employees to work harder and prevents any complains as regards the promotion criteria. Additionally, the organization has develop an efficient employee improvement plan. The organization subjects the employees to extensive training programs to facilitate their expertise in those areas they seem to have a potential. The CLI institution helps in providing training and mentoring leaders within the organization. Performing employees are provided with free training to ensure that they unleash the potential to work better to serve the needs of the organization. First, the leaders assess potential talents within the work force and design training programs that fit the employee’s needs. The emotional intelligence inventory helps to measure the employees’ potential of becoming leaders in the organization. The employees are then trained to become either team leaders, operational leaders or emerging leaders (Cardinalhealth 12). The employees in this organization have shown their satisfaction through improved performance within every year. As a result, the organization accomplishes its goals effectively without much straining. Diversity management is one of the global strategies that organization uses to address cultural difference within the organization. The different cultural attitudes within a society influences the way employees form teams within a business entity. Thus, the human resource managers have the mandate to identify the various cultural differences that influence the way employees relate during their daily duties. In an interview with Bowling, he identified the various strategies that the organizations use to maintain cohesive teamwork within a diverse work force. First, the managers pay particular attention to understanding their work force. Since the time of recruitment, the human resource managers select employees who have a diversity experience to ensure that they are able to cope with the new environment easily (Nisen Paras 3-5). Secondly, the organization provides employees with an orientation to ensure that they understand the new work environment easily and that they are able to familiarize with the working teams. In addition, the organization provides social function in which all the employees meet and interact fostering the chances of them meeting new friends and understanding and appreciating different cultures (NCHL 6). These strategies have worked well in ensuring that the diverse work force remains cohesive works towards common goals derived by the organizational management. The most interesting perspective of North Shore-LIJ is the compensation system that makes me desire to secure a position in the organization. According to the CEO, the organization benefits from proving excellent compensation to the employees to win the loyalty of the employees. While he feels that this is an expensive strategy for the organization, he feels that employee loyalty has greater value for the organization. Paying the employees a fair wage ensures that they maintain their experienced employees and do not lose them to better paying health organizations. The organization reviews the employee compensation every two years to adjust to the changing economic scales in the global arena. In addition, the employees’ compensation increases each year as part of their plan to reward employees’ loyalty. Resultantly, employees in this organization work for many years and remain motivated by the regular salary increases (Healthcare Financial Management 12). If employed in this organization, I would have a chance not only to earn well but also to rise into a leadership position. As a human resource manager, I would aim to become part of the central governance within the shortest time possible. Working with an organization that treats employees fairly and sees them as a priority to the organization project implementation is a privilege for many scholars. Although the organization has succeeded in managing a large work force, it is clear that their strategies may be inefficient in future, if the population of the employees continues to grow at a rapid rate. As the CEO pointed out in an interview, the various departments do not function perfectly even though they are efficient. For the organization to manage a larger employee work force, they have to find new strategies to manage the work force. For this reason, it would be recommendable to fix the size of work groups to ensure that there is a discrete structure of team formation (NCHL 8). For instance, it would be crucial to provide a team leader for each group of 50 employees. This will help them to have a clear leadership plan and to maintain a good management to employee ratio, which is crucial in managing the work force. In addition, this ensures that the group leaders do not overwork. Managing small teams ensures that any issues arising are easy to address that it is easy to control and facilitate them during their working periods. In conclusion, the North Shore-LIJ health services provider is one of the most efficient health organizations in the United States. Despite the fact that the organization has a large number of employees, the human resource managers pay keen attention to teamwork development. Their talent development plan starts right from the time of recruitment as they focus on selecting only those candidates who fit in the specific positions. The organization pays attention to employee training and promotion to foster employee loyalty and to ensure that the employee have the right skills to handle different customer problems. The efficiency of the organization is depicted in the way that the employees have shown high satisfaction. However, it would be recommendable for the management to maintain a constant leader to employee ration to ensure that they have optimal teams that can perform efficiently. Works Cited Cardinalhealth. Taking Control: How Long Island Leading health System Achieved Reduced Risk and Increased Control Through a Joint Supply Chain. 2013. Accessed from: < http://www.cardinal.com/mps.pdf>[Accessed on 26th, April, 2014] Claude, Solnik. "North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System Opens Islandia Ob-Gyn Facility." Long Island Business News (Ronkonkoma, NY) (n.d.): Regional Business News. Web. 26 Apr. 2014. Fottler, Myron D, Naresh Khatri, and Grant T. Savage. Strategic Human Resource Management in Health Care. Bingley: Emerald, 2010. Print. Healthcare Financial Management: Journal of the Healthcare Financial Management Association. Oak Brook, Ill.: Healthcare Financial Management Association, 1982. Print. NCHL. Best Practices in Health Leadership Talent Management and Succession Planning. 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