Learning Goal: I’m working on a management writing question and need the explanation and answer to help me learn.
please a comprehensive response to each peer/student. Needs to be at least 3 paragraphs each and need appropriate citation.
Bradley Reeves
May 27, 2023 at 5:42 PM
How might the four components of a WP system apply to a hospital setting?
In looking at workforce planning the key components are 1) Talent Inventory, 2) Workforce Forecasting, 3) Action Plans, and 4) Control and Evaluation.
I have had to do this type of exercise in my previous careers but not in a hospital setting. With that, I believe that some of the concepts could be the same.
You will need to assess your current resources for talent inventory and figure out what you have. This includes current skills, abilities, and future potential. Thinking about a hospital setting I would first figure out how many doctors, nurses, technicians, admin, and financial folks I have on hand. I would consider what type of facility I am running and determine if I would need any specialty positions. Additionally, I would need to know if my facility is 24 hours or standard business hours. This is how I would figure out what skills I have on hand.
Once I have a lay of the land and know what my resources are I would move to assessing abilities. In every organization, there are highly skilled employees and employees who are still working towards their job proficiency. Specific information to be stored in the inventory varies across organizations (Cascio, 2011). This is where I would lean on the supervisors to give me a clean assessment of everyone. I would have the supervisors include performance appraisals and any other information that may be pertinent to the situation. Additional information to be considered should be as follows: Current position, any previous positions held, significant work experience, education, training and development received, and awards a person earned.
After you have a current inventory then it is time to start thinking about workforce forecasting. Workforce forecasts are attempts to estimate future labor requirements (Cascio, 2011). Forecasting and talent inventories work together. Once you know what you have, you can begin to think about what your future requirements may need to look like. Do you need more doctors or nurses? How many people do you have that may be eligible to retire? What are your normal gains or losses per year and month? Are there any big organizational changes coming that would require more new hires or potentially lay individuals off? Once you have some answers to the questions then you can begin looking at what the supply and demand looks like inside and outside of your organization. Knowing that we are talking about a hospital this will be one of the hardest parts of the process in my opinion. There are shortages across the nation of healthcare workers after the Pandemic. According to the American Hospital Association staff turnover due to COVID-19 increased from 18% to 30% for some hospital departments (e.g. emergency, ICU, and nursing). You cannot predict a pandemic, but you must consider this information when thinking about staffing levels.
Next, you need to develop your action plans. This will happen through recruitment, selection, training, placement, transfer, promotion, development, and compensation. Action plans are the follow-on to your workforce forecasting. Most of these are self-explanatory but careful planning will need to take place to maximize your efforts. In my last position working in HR, I was the lead on hiring new officers for two of my client groups. Recruitment seemed like it would be easy until I found out what other strategies other departments were using. My employer did not offer sponsorship or anything toward an officer’s peace officer’s license. If you wanted to work for my employer, you had to already have a license. Other departments were offering more money and sponsoring the officers license. Essentially, I had nothing to offer. The only thing I could do is hope there was someone in the peace officer school on their own and still looking for employment. My point is that there is always someone willing to offer more or do more to attract talent. It is more complicated than running a job ad on a website.
You have your inventory, forecast, and action plans now what? You must provide feedback to the system and monitor the degree of attainment. Control and evaluation are necessary features of any planning system (Cascio, 2011). You need to consider the qualitative and quantitative standards. Putting a number to a goal or objective will be easy to measure. But measuring quality is not that easy but not impossible. You will need to monitor performance often to ensure you are getting enough samples to analyze. The options are endless, so you need to be specific about what you want to measure. For a hospital setting an example of performance measurements would be the number of patients treated daily/monthly/yearly. To take it a step further to measure quality you can measure the number of complaints that have been filed. You will be able to pinpoint if it is a person or a department that is struggling. Usually, the data will tell all. At the end of the day, you just need to know what is most important to the organization to be able to be successful in the future.
What determines specific workforce needs in various areas?
Workforce planning is dictated by the needs of the organization. Ultimately, business needs internally and externally will evolve, and when that does you may need to evaluate your organization to fill the needs. For example, during the pandemic, everything was shut down, so organizations had to lay off workers to survive. Post-pandemic organizations are struggling to keep up with demands so there are massive efforts to hire new or experienced talent.
What programs might you suggest would meet such needs?
Organizations should consider implementing a quality control section to monitor key indicators the organization wants to keep an eye on. I would want them to monitor for any deviations from the norm. This would be a good way to monitor and address any issues that may come to light. I would have a dedicated training section to keep developing the staff to better contribute to the organization. Quality control and training sections would work together. Training would use the quality control reports to address any training gaps. Additionally, I would make sure to have a staffing analyst to monitor any fluctuating staffing levels. I would attach them to the recruitment section for collaboration efforts.
Reference: Cascio, W. & Aguinis, H. (2011). Applied psychology in human resource management (7th ed.). Pearson
Melissa Colon
May 30, 2023 at 7:15 PM
Chapter 10.
In a hospital context, effective use and deployment of employees is critical to ensuring efficient service delivery in terms of cost, quality, and quantity. According to Lopes et al. (2015), failing to do so may result in an oversupply or lack of clinical professionals (p. 1). Furthermore, Lopes et al. (2015) state that labor shortages may result in increased costs due to supply and demand, which is linked to lower quantity and quality of medical services. Work overload can eventually lead to a breach in patient safety (p. 1). WP attempts alleviate the safety impacts. WP’s four components: talent inventory, workforce forecast, action plans, and control and evaluationare used in the following ways:
-Talent inventory. Hospitals can analyze their staff’s abilities, credentials, and competencies by assessing their current personnel. This analysis aids in identifying personnel shortfalls or surpluses, sectors with high turnover rates, and new trends or technologies that may necessitate specialized knowledge.
-workforce forecast. This is done to forecast the numbers. Population trends, patient demographics, and healthcare utilization rates are all used to anticipate future demand for healthcare services. This include estimating the number of patients, the types of services required, and the necessary manpower.
-Action Plans. This is accomplished by leveraging inventory and forecasting elements like as succession planning, career development, and workforce diversity.
-Control and evaluation. It entails establishing a closed loop to execute the WP, such as recruitment and retention initiatives, and so on. And the continuous WP feedback process.
The specific workforce needs in various areas of a hospital, I would say, are skill and expertise. A hospital has different areas of expertise; for example, an operating room might need a specialized surgeon, anesthesiologists, and nurses, while pre-surgery will require a specialized laboratory and X-ray technicians.
The programs I would suggest to meet the workforce needs in the hospital field are recruitment and retention programs. Developing a good recruitment strategy is important to attract healthcare professionals with the required skills. Offer things like a competitive benefits package, career advancement, and a good professional development program. To add to the professional development program, I would suggest providing ongoing training and education to ensure healthcare professionals have the necessary knowledge and skills to meet the growing demands of healthcare. I would also suggest a performance management and feedback system that can provide regular feedback, recognize healthcare professionals, have a rewards system, and address proactive performance issues. WP will be able to point out the demand programs that are most needed in the hospital workforce to ensure they have the skills to deliver high-quality care to their patients.
Lopes, M. A., Almeida, . S., & Almada-Lobo, B. (2015). Handling healthcare workforce planning with care: where do we stand?. Human resources for health, 13, 1-19.
