Management of Human Resource In Health Care Sector in Asian Market - Term Paper Example

 Table of Contents Introduction 3 Human Resource Management in Asian Market 5 Human Resource in Health care 6 Improvement of Human Resource 8 Healthcare Infrastructure Growth 10 Challenges Faced in Healthcare 11 Attrition among Nurses 12 Conclusion 15 References 17 Bibliography 20 Introduction Asian Market is one of the fastest developing markets. The health care sector is a very important sector for tackling any disease and epidemic. Human resource in a very crucial component in any sector nowadays and health care sector is not an exception either. The management of a business organization has to take care of its human resource as they are the pillars of success and growth of the organization. Asian Health care Market consists of strong economies like South Korea, China, and also developing countries like India. Hierarchical Structure of “Asian Health Care” consists of Asian health care sector is facing certain difficulties. The problem basically is “inefficiency of human resource to meet its responsibilities”. This industry is working towards the goal to achieve A+ grade in customer delivery process by facilitating them with extreme care and simple, accurate, reliable and fast administrative activities. For this they have overloaded responsibilities in their existing ground and level1 staff. Problems faced by the staffs are many fold and they include inefficiency on prioritizing and handling multiple tasks together on time, dissatisfaction regarding wages and culture of organization. To resolve these problems, the top management came out with the two following solutions: 1. Separate patient care and managerial function from the nurse managers. 2. Hire administrative managers to take care of the managerial functions. For understanding the problem thoroughly, a study of the core of this problem is required i.e. “Human Resource Management (HRM)”. HRM is one of the most important functions in any organization because people are the main assets who are mainly responsible for any successful organization. The HRM function consists of hiring of the right person in right time and in right place, providing facilities to all employees so that they can polish and sharpen their skills, being updated with new technologies and policies so that they can position their company in this competitive environment. The HRM also consists of maintaining transparency among all policies and regulations among all employees and managing all approaches towards compensation and employee benefits. HRM can be stated as a link between management and employees (Emerald, 1999). Human Resource Management in Asian Market A decade ago, in Asian Industry norms HRM was an unknown term. Here all requirement and appraisal were handled by “Personal Manager” who used to be one of the members of administration. Asian industry had a staffing culture which also played a major part in this. Most of the companies were family controlled so decisions were only made by them. Asian Universities also did not show any interest to take any steps. Developing countries like China totally ignored HRM and soft science in comparison to science and technology. In Asian companies only profit and growth plays a part in spite of better management. The result of this ignorance compiled in increasing attrition rate. The Asian Health industry was also facing a similar scenario. In this sector, the management concentrated more on developing quality service for the industry but they generally ignored the employees and their benefit. They increased their responsibilities but forgot to facilitate them with trainings to teach them how to prioritize, balance and complete their scheduled tasks in time, increment in wages and benefits, balance personal and professional life of their employees. As a result of this it caused an increase in attrition rate, unmotivated and inefficient employees, no achievement of targets. Human Resource in Health care Success of health care depends on both external customer (patients) and internal customer (employees). A balance between the two can result towards organizational success. In concentrating more on the patients and their benefits, the management should not loose track of the employees and their benefits. Current research and studies concluded the various satisfaction areas for patients and employees: So, from the research it is clear that for satisfying patients it is more critical to satisfy the employees of an organization because they are the one who are the face of the organization and will serve the patients. Therefore a contented employee will put better effort in to his service which in turn will build the reputation of the health care unit and bring in more patients and more profits (Pradhan, n.d.). Consumable HRM and physical capital are the principle health related system inputs. Human resource in health care industry includes both clinical staffs and also non clinical staffs. Responsibility of these staffs is to facilitate individuals and public health. All the benefits from organization towards employee entirely depend upon knowledge, skills, motivation and experience of employees. Three trends i.e. of efficiency, equity and quality have an identical impact on employees in the healthcare sector all over the world. Steps towards improvement of these three trends had been employed. To increase efficiency, fixed cost are been converted to variable cost by methods of outsourcing. Similarly, to increase equity many mechanisms are being introduced, namely, financial protection mechanism. This mechanism facilitates patients by providing customized services developed according to customers’ need. Obstacles faced by HRM professionals includes increasing rate of attrition and absenteeism, high amount of turnover rates, poorly motivated employee, and budget. Improvement of Human Resource Improvement in human resource can be primarily done in three following ways: 1) Work System, 2) Educating employees for effective work through training and development, and 3) employee satisfaction. 1) Work system: Improvement in the system is done through providing high end technologies, cooperation among employees and providing feel good factor to all employees by providing them with due authority and importance and increasing cross sectional department participation. Examples of this can be given as total quality management adapted by Tata Main hospital (TMH) for improving quality with infection control team and waste management team. It also adopted quality circle and value engineering and feedback formula for motivating employees and making them to sense that they are important. They have provided training needs for higher positions and more responsibilities, adopted rotation method to avoid boredom from monotonous work and also incorporated a performance management system for transparent promotional activity for employees and to help them to achieve their targets by continuous evaluation. The scenario has helped them to work efficiently in compensating job profile and industry standard. It also helped them to defeat the inflation scenario. 2) Employee education, training and development: Improvement by way of continuous process in terms of technical, behavioral and managerial roles according to employees need results in more efficiency in work with employee satisfaction and it also helps in reducing cycle time which ultimately results in customer satisfaction and delight. In TMH training is imparted in every level. CME (Continuous Medical Education) is provided along with bed side teaching facility for the doctors and also nurses. For attendants, JDC (Joint Departmental Committee) training is given. MAT (Motivational, Attitude and Time management) programmer has been designated for helping employees to deal with customers. 3) Employee well being and satisfaction: This is achieved by providing friendly and open work environment where employees can speak their mind. They should also feel safe to work. This can be done by benefiting them with periodic health checkup, proper waste management, also by providing awareness program e.g. ADIS, IOD (Injured on duty) for them to avoid from getting infected. Also, satisfying employees by regularly taking their feedbacks and implementing their needs so that it can benefit all can be very helpful. In this area also TMH had taken a step. They started DNB (Diploma in National Board) course for identifying long term needs of graduating doctors (Ray, n.d.). Healthcare Infrastructure Growth Infrastructure plays an important part in success, proper management and employee and patient satisfaction in any healthcare organization. In Asia, healthcare spending has increased from $44 billion to $54 billion from 2006 to 2007 and in 2008 it increased to $62 billion. In the public hospitals in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong it has increased but in India it decreased in 2006-2007. This facilitated rise is successfully attracting for outsourcing their clinical research activities in Asian countries by pharmacy companies (Marina Bay Sands, 2010). This shows that Asia health sector is booming. Senior vice president for healthcare practice at Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific, Reenita Das, said in 2009 that Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific Excellence debuted for Healthcare Awards that “We (in the healthcare industry) are at the beginning of witnessing the biggest economic boom that we have even seen in our careers,” she said. “Biology is likely to become the greatest single driver of the global economy. Over the past decade, the rise of Asia as an important location for such (technology) work, or ‘innovation offshoring’, has come to challenge the notion that the US will remain the innovation capital of the world” (Asian Development Board, 2009). For financial support of the organizations, one can get loan on projects for capacity building and technical assistance from organization like ADB. Recently ADB has approved $ 50 million loan to Philippines (Asian Development Board, 2009). Challenges Faced in Healthcare If one looks at the global prospective, one can find that there are quite a few issues that the healthcare sector is facing in relation to human resource. key issues are size of industry and country, distribution of workforce related to their skills, on the job training, attrition rate, brain drain, economic development and growth in a particular country and also issue related to culture, and diversification within geography. This issues mainly arises due to human resources available in country particularly in healthcare sector, their education level, opportunities available, technologies used, compensation structure, work environment, culture, country economic development, its GDP, government contribution in healthcare sector (Kebene, 2006). Most important challenge faced by healthcare is that of attrition rate. This is a result of dissatisfaction among the employees regarding compensation, growth, benefits, environment, culture and many other reasons. Attrition among Nurses The highest attrition rate in healthcare sector is among that of the nurses. This has become an important point of concern. If we look at Indian health care market, average attrition rate is 10.1 percent out of which, among nurses it varied from 28 percent to 35 percent in 2005. Indian nurses population ratio was 1:1,264 in 2004 and in Europe it was 1:100-200. The reason behind higher attrition rate among nurses is high demand of quality nurses in foreign markets which also results into brain drain. Today in healthcare sector requirement is high for nurses but availability is less and it is almost negligible in case of specialized nurses. Another reason behind attrition is that of the limited growth for nurses and less paid wages. In China, workforce growth rate has been increasing periodically. Better healthcare service demand is on rise giving birth to new opportunities and infrastructures and subsequent employment. In China, government has also backed the sector by investing US $ 120 billion package in healthcare and in 2010-2012 its CAGR is expected to grow by 18% (Marina Bay sands, 2010). In Asian countries, also it is a crucial time for increasing awareness among people about many diseases. For this, it is extremely important to increase services in health care. Also, stopping brain drain by motivating to help those employees who are in need, is very essential because there are many places in Asia where people do not even have medical facilities available. Due to inefficiency of adequate equipments and resources and poor delivery employees are facing many problems in South – East Asia. This is because they are not noted for giving adequate service and also large number of patients is a big problem especially in countries like India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, some other lesser developed Asian countries (Imtiaz, n.d.). It is also same about nurses and the problems faced by them. Top management had decided to take steps to find out a workable solution Along with a single rule and implementation of certain employee benefit programs, attrition rate can be reduced but cannot be stopped. Looking at the case two solutions that management can come out with are 1. Separate the patient care and managerial function from the nurse managers. 2. Hire administrative managers to take care of the managerial functions. From the discussion, it can be analyzed that an employee generally wants job satisfaction. In this case, the nurse is firstly de-motivated because of low payment and secondly has more responsibility to perform. But this is not the main problem. The key obstacle in this case is lack of knowledge, training and compensation framework. Performance based compensation and designation is a tool used by which employers can successfully retain employees. It says that if an organization is a place where full transparency is in place through laid own rules and forms and where recognition of work takes place with appreciation, it helps a lot in retention process. Second way of retention is to make a person feel important by listening to them, giving them authority (Vij, 2010). All this can help but the other important scenario is to be analyzed, where the management might deduct certain responsibilities from one and transfer it to other. In this case, two things can happen either that person will feel relax or feel neglected and lost authority that can also result in to ‘switch off’. To tackle this situation a solution has to be discovered. Demerits of such measure can be: de-motivation, attrition, and increase in capital expenditure while the merit lies in sharing of the work load. The solution of such situation can be many folds. Firstly, when company is ready to invest capital by opening different department they can spend the amount on the present employees by increasing their wages according to their designation as this will help in motivating them to work. Secondly, keeping incentive system for achieving targets would also facilitate the organizational goal. Next, provide such training programs that will assist them in better time management, resource management and total quality management as TMH has done. Fourthly, provide special administrative training for nurses. Fifth, keep promotional structure transparent and it should be based on the successful achievements of the targets. Sixth, help employees in balancing their personal and professional life. Seventh, appoint new employees below the position of nurse manager who will work under them. This will solve two problems like it will help in dividing work but the authority will remain the same and also it will help in making employees proud and satisfied. Eighth, divide work according to skills and educational level. Finally, provide the employees with open working environment, and also involve them in all major activities and decisions by taking their feedback, listening to their problems and asking them the solution they want, also the incentives in a way of equity can be given to retain them along with the new technologies that can be implemented which will help employees to simplify their work. Also, employees should be educated by the governmental policies and regulation that the organization faces, about its challenges, why company is paying less, about its annual report and all internal information. This will help employees to understand the industry condition and the stand of the company in the market. Companies can also take suggestion from employees regarding these issues so that they can understand more clearly the situation and will also inculcate a sense of pride to be an important part in the organization. Conclusion Healthcare sector is facing the prime problem of “inefficiency of human resource” to achieve its target. Reasons behind this are low motivation level, heavy work load, no training facilities available as well as less skilled staff. To tackle this scenario solutions provided by the top management have been to have segregated patient care and managerial functions for the nurse managers and to have dedicated administrative managers for the managerial functions. Both results in coming up with new department. From the analysis of the scenario, it can be said that healthcare market is booming in Asia. The present trends suggest that the people are demanding for better service and high cost facilities. Therefore, the reason behind the dissatisfaction among employees in healthcare sector is because of low compensation style, low growth opportunity, no training for new task, higher growth opportunities available outside the border of their own country as well as unmanageable work load. And as a result of all these, it creates an increasing challenge for human resource management to retain employees for longer time frame. For eradicating such situation, investment should be made on new technology and training of the employees and new recruitment who can work under those authorized persons like that of nurse manager in this case, so that they don’t feel like loosing authority and feel proud to be of the organization. Also increase in salary, providing performance appraisal, making appraisal system more transparent, making employees a part of company’s decision and helping them to balance their professional as well as personal life are other pressing facets. The management can share with them, the problems and ask them to have feedback as it will help in gaining honesty, transparency and understanding between the management and employees. All this can help the organization to reduce burden of work, getting work done on time, achieving targets and also keeping employee attrition to a lower level. References Asian Development Bank, (2009). Health Sector. ADB. Retrieved Online on June 12, 2010 from http://www.adb.org/health/default.asp Emerald, (1999). Human Resource Management. Asia Pacific Management Forum. Retrieved Online on June 12, 2010 from http://www.apmforum.com/emerald/human-resource-asia.htm Intiaz, R. (No Date). Healthcare in South Asia. Journal South Asia. Retrieved Online on June 12, 2010 from http://www.southasianmedia.net/Magazine/Journal/14_healthcare.htm Kebene, S., (2006). The importance of human resources management in health care: a global context. Human Resource for Health. Retrieved Online on June 12, 2010 from http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/4/1/20 Pradhan, P., (No Date). Human Resource Development in Healthcare Organizations. University Of Pittsburgh. Retrieved Online on June 12, 2010 from www.pitt.edu/~super7/16011-17001/16151.ppt Ray, B. (No Date). Human Resource Planning in Health Care. HRM. Retrieved Online on June 12, 2010 from http://medind.nic.in/haa/t01/i1/haat01i1p14o.pdf Sands, M. (2010). China Health Sector analysis. Invest China. Retrieved Online on June 12, 2010 from http://www.hospitalbuildasia.com/LatestNews-Issue10-Invest1.html Sands, M., (2010). Healthcare Infrastructure support CRO growth in Asia. Asia. Retrieved Online on June 12, 2010 from http://www.hospitalbuildasia.com/LatestNews-Issue03-Plan-07.html Vij, S., (2010). Dealing with Attrition. Healthcare Life. Retrieved Online on June 12, 2010 from http://www.expresshealthcare.in/201005/healthcarelife01.shtml Bibliography Armstrong, M., (2003). A Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice. Kogan Page Publishers. Brown, D. & Et. Al., (2009). Human Resource Management Technology Diffusion through Global Supply Chains: Buyer-Directed Factory-Based Health Care in India. Stanford University. Retrieved Online on June 12, 2010 from http://aparc.stanford.edu/publications/human_resource_management_technology_diffusion_through_global_supply_chains_buyerdirected_factorybased_health_care_in_india/ Bratton, J. & Gold, J., (2001). Human Resource Management: Theory and Practice. Routledge. Catherwood Library, (No Date). Human Resource Management. Cornell University. Retrieved Online on June 12, 2010 from http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/library/ Fallon, L. F. & McConnell, C. R., (2007). Human resource management in health care: principles and practice. Jones & Bartlett Learning. GSMT, (No Date). Human Resource Management Specialization Description. University of Maryland University College. Retrieved Online on June 12, 2010 from http://www.umuc.edu/programs/grad/msm/human_resource_management.shtml HRH, (No Date). Human Resource Management. HRH Global Resource Centre. Retrieved Online on June 12, 2010 from http://www.hrhresourcecenter.org/taxonomy/term/68 UC Berkeley Extension, (No Date). Human Resource Management. UC Berkeley Extension. Retrieved Online on June 12, 2010 from http://extension.berkeley.edu/cert/pdf/hrm.pdf UCSB, (No Date). Human Resource Management. UCSB. Retrieved Online on June 12, 2010 from http://www.extension.ucsb.edu/certificates/HR.pdf Read More