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Empowering the Human Capital
The performance management system (PMS) should be implemented
at all levels of hierarchy with clearly-defined reward and recognition system
Ankush Gupta |
Corporatisation of healthcare delivery is definitely bringing
investments to the industry and in last few years the bed to patient ratio has
increased for the affordable class of patients. The affordability has also gone
up with the increase in per capita income and improving GDP, availability of
easy and affordable healthcare insurance and increasing penetration of the third
party payers. Unfortunately, the availability of the trained manpower has failed
to match the state of the art buildings and the cutting edge technology available
with these hospitals.
With the IT boom, the academic arm of the country immediately responded by increasing
the number of intake of engineering students and increased number of IT training
centre. The IT talent requirement has gone up post 90's, but the requirement
of medical and paramedical trained human resource was their since decades. The
migration of staff nurses to the US and the UK is not a hidden secret, but still
the training institutes or the intake of students in the nursing training institution
has not drastically improved.
Most of the healthcare professionals would agree that today institutions are
not facing a challenge in terms of the best of medical equipment and expertise
available, but more in terms of finding the right man behind the mission of
healthcare delivery. The healthcare delivery mechanism is facing a huge trained
talent pool deficit. Hospitals are facing challenges in terms of:
- Identifying, recruiting, and retaining the right
talent and continuously training them.
- Better lucrative compensation offers from the competing
organisations for attracting the ready made talent resulting in pressure on
the compensation plans of the hospital.
- Opportunities available with the competing domains
for the talent like TPA trying to hire experienced nurses for claims verification
and clearance.
- Meeting the aspirations of the star performers and
selectively retaining them.
In the era of competition in acquisition and accumulation of talent, the organisations
will have to follow the path of implementing these solutions:
Performance Management System
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well-defined performance management system (PMS) with focus on talent development,
career progression and succession planning can be a good HR practice to establish
an organisation as preferred employer. The PMS should be implemented at all
levels of hierarchy with very clearly defined reward and recognition system.
This not only motivates the employees, but also creates an environment for healthy
competition for performance improvement. PMS should be used to assess the achievements
/ failures of the employee concerned in the areas of his responsibilities. It
should also help to know the strengths and weaknesses of the employee and suggest
for his training to strengthen his positive qualities and overcome his weaknesses.
Training and Development
Since the basic objective of the hospital is to provide quality healthcare service
to the patients, a very high degree of professional skill, knowledge and dexterity
is called for on the part of its knowledge workers, viz doctors, nurses and
technicians. It requires dedication, commitment and 100 per cent loyalty of
these professionally qualified personnel. It equally calls for similar dedicated
service on the part of the other employees, to maintain clean, hygienic and
congenial conditions in the hospital. The administrative staff is equally required
to contribute to this.
For the above purpose, the hospital should be fully aware of its responsibilities
in providing the necessary training inputs to employees at all levels. These
programmes should be need based and should be organised with due care, thought
and planning. The training programmes should be organised for the lower level
of employees also which are aimed not only to improve their skill and knowledge,
but also to bring about attitudinal changes and thus ushering a new work culture.
Grievance Handling Mechanism
It is very important for hospitals that they have happy and satisfied employees
because then only they will be able to provide superior quality service. When
the grievance pertains to an individual employee, he/she should verbally represent
his grievance to his/her immediate superior who should provide solution within
a day if the grievance relates to emergency leave health problems or similar
matters that require immediate attention and within three working days if grievances
relates to matters that do not need immediate attention.
If the immediate superior is unable to settle the grievance, the employee should
be allowed put up his grievance, in writing, to the Department / Section Head.
The HOD concerned should settle the grievance himself within the next three
working days or call the workman along with his immediate /superior, department
head and try to resolve the grievance.
If the matter is still unresolved, it should be discussed jointly by the HOD
and the HR department in an attempt to resolve the grievance. If the grievance
remain unresolved, the matter should be taken up with the Chief Executive and
his decision in the matter should be binding to all concerned.
The HR practices suggested are the need of the day for any organisation and
if the human asset is taken care of, the hospital can be on the way to be the
super brand of healthcare.
The writer is HR Manager, PD Hinduja Hospital, Mumbai
Email: ankushgupta@hindujahospital.com
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