HR In Healthcare: Better Management Means Better Care

When thinking of patient care quality, the state of a health care facility’s Human Resource Management system may be the last thing on your mind. But of course, you would; both things are separate entities within health care facilities and, therefore, have no correlation and nothing to do with one another, right? That couldn’t be any farther from the truth.

On the contrary; the correlation between patient care and human resource management within the health care sector are very closely related, and, co-dependent upon one another. How can this even be possible, you ask? The answer is as complex as it is simple: a comprehensive human resource management suite can track, analyze, organize and provide all the necessary tools to help your staff succeed with pride, and keep your facility at the top of its game – including the quality of patient care.

Burnouts, shortages, turnover rates and compliance changes.

The health care sector puts tremendous strain on its workforce; with each shift carrying a weighted average of 12 hours or more, with 24-hour shifts becoming more and more common -if you’ve ever worked over ten hours a day in a high-stress environment, you know how fatiguing this can be. Add to that the increasing shortage of health care professionals, lack of resources and training to new and existing employees, low nurse-to-patient ratios (numbers go as low as 1:8 in some scenarios) and an aging baby boomer population, currently straining the entire system with long-term care needs, you’ve got a recipe for burnout.

Alternatively, this aging baby boomer population makes up a considerable percentage of all health care workers. In considering their decline from the workforce due to retirement -and, with Gen Xers lagging not too far behind them – you’ve got a rapidly declining workforce.

Worse still, the health care sector is plagued with high turnover rates, with the majority of those happening within the first year of employment. To put that into perspective, Emergency Departments experienced a loss of 40% of their RN staff in the last two years alone. This means that there is an ongoing problem with employee shortages, and they’re not expected to slow down.

Now, add into the mix a broad range of compliance changes and you’ve got a veritable red tape nightmare.

When you compound all these factors together, you’ve got one over-worked and physically exhausted workforce. And trust us, they feel it, too.

And it affects patient care.

Of course, the demanding nature of the health care sector not only puts a tremendous amount of strain on its workers, but on the quality of patient care.

Imagine, if you will, having one nurse for every eight patients – with one for every four as a weighted average – and that these nurses continuously work twelve to twenty-four hour shifts for multiple consecutive days. As a result, patients are seeing a decline in the quality of care they’re receiving at health care facilities across the country (it’s only natural right? Consider working for twelve hours and having to care for eight people), and its not because health care professionals don’t want to give each patient the time they need; they just simply can’t.
Over extended periods, the long-shifts and over working work to everyone’s detriment. It can lead to burnouts and leaves of absence – which subsequently leads to a greater need for patient care, because doctors need doctors too – and, in extreme cases, employee turnover.

Now, imagine you’re one of three nurses at a local emergency room that serves eighteen patients a night and your colleague leaves. Whether they return or not, you are now obliged to take care of nine patients each. Is it realistic to think they’ll get the same care as before?

The workforce and their needs are changing …

One way to combat the ongoing issues within the health care sector is through recruiting. Though it sounds too obvious and commonplace, HR professionals in health care now need to get creative and leverage technology if they are going to not just replenish their staff but retain it with the right talent.

As retirement rates in healthcare increase, this inevitably opens the door for a paradigm shift: the entrance of millennials into the workforce, and with it must come a certain evolution of the heath care sector.

As well, the challenges facing the industry have shifted the job market in the applicant’s direction, which now means that HR professionals now need to sell the job to the applicant Now, don’t take it the wrong way; this is not to say that the nature of the job needs to evolve – oh, no – it simply means that the job offering must evolve to coincide with the needs of this changing workforce.

No longer content with just competitive salaries and job security, today’s top talent requires something a little more copious. Though all of these are inter-connected, they’re all equally important to highlight when recruiting in today’s talent.

• Learning and Development – Top talent craves knowledge and the ability to develop and perfect their craft. Offering a comprehensive benefits package to quench this never-ending thirst for knowledge is a step in the right direction when it comes to health care employee retention.
• Opportunities to advance – As indicated, today’s talent isn’t looking for just stable employment – they’re looking for opportunities to advance their positions.

The solution is effective Talent Management

When these factors affect an employee’s willingness to stay and ability to perform, simply hiring new employees to pick up the proverbial slack is not the answer: there’s no guarantee you’ll find the top talent, and, even if you did, there’s no guarantee they will stay.
This is where effective Talent Management comes into play. Like any other business component, your talent must be effectively managed to ensure talent retention and to successfully attract and acquire the best new talents.

A comprehensive Talent Management Suite, like those offered by Cegid, can help to successfully map out your employee’s careers through the management of various pay scales and reviews, keep track of all inoculation requirements (and when it’s time to renew), arrange and execute training and development exercises – effectively paving the way to where your professionals want to go. And when it comes to attracting talent, it can help you get your job posted to over two thousand job boards at once and refine all applicants based on the criteria you’re looking for.
Your talent makes you what you are, and Cegid understands that. That’s why we tailor our solutions to match your unique needs, because we don’t do software – we attract talent with precision, we drive performance with insight and we save time with smart processes. We do innovative solutions for HR.

Find out more about how to better manage your workforce from hire to retire, with a modern Talent Management Suite designed to fit your industry best practices.