Human resources’ management is a complex process that requires not only strong leadership and organizational skills but a proper strategy development and choosing the right management model as well. Normally, the models of management can be of the three types: authoritarian, legalistic, and humanistic. Different epochs were marked by using different approaches to work arrangement. Some of them are widely criticized these days, while others are regarded as the only appropriate to put into general practice. In my personal view, there is no such concept as an ideal management model. For a healthcare organization to raise its performance and the working productivity of an entire staff a mixture of models is needed. The combination of various approaches will allow one to praise employees when it is required and use strict measures whenever a discipline break-down is tracked.
As to the mentioned approaches to employee relations management, the first to emerge was an authoritarian model. It is known to take origins from the times of ancient civilizations when slavery was an accepted norm. As derived from the name, authoritarian model involved all the harsh measures to force workers to execute their master’s will. As Fallon and McConnell (2013) point out, “a fundamental motivating force in authoritarian management is fear” (p. 385). For long centuries this model of work organization remained the only available and was used throughout the developed countries. The introduction of legislation, however, has changed the situation entirely. The legalistic movement began in the 1930s and led to changes in the wage-and-hour laws. After the adoption of the Civil Rights Act in 1963, the policy regarding human resource management significantly improved. None of managers or employees wished to violate the act’s terms. The further model evolution has led to the occurrence of humanistic approach, in which a satisfied worker was viewed as a motivated and a high-performance employee, whose requirements were always given priority.
A brief description of the key concepts of staff management helps one to clearly understand what principles are put into the structure of each particular model. Eventually, choosing either authoritarian or humanistic model cannot be viewed as an objective approach to the problem resolving. As the researchers point out, a combination of methods “can be used to facilitate and improve employee engagement and result in positive outcomes that will help organizations achieve a competitive advantage” (Albrecht, Bakker, Gruman, Macey, & Saks, 2015, p. 7). Thus, an authoritarian approach can assist in forming a strict working discipline and arranging a continuous work of all of the healthcare units. A developed penalty system can serve as a formidable background for the model implementation. However, one cannot neglect a widely used humanistic concept when it comes to the management model development. Marginson (2015) stresses that the landscape of applied management strategies has changed markedly over the past half century. This fact leads to the conclusion that appealing to the currently used appraisal systems can be regarded as an effective way of building proper relationships with employees.
In closing, one needs to highlight that the management models that are viewed as outlived today still contain enough potential to be used in modern practices. The combination of various strategic principles can assist in developing an approach that can totally correspond to the needs of any healthcare organization. Usage of the most efficient principles of the three available models allows one to create a system that boasts the advantages of all of the methods and contains no noticeable shortcomings.
References
Albrecht, S. L., Bakker, A. B., Gruman, J. A., Macey, W. H., & Saks, A. M. (2015). Employee engagement, human resource management practices and competitive advantage: An integrated approach. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance, 2(1), 7-35.
Fallon Jr, L. F., & McConnell, C. R. (2013). Human resource management in health care. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
Marginson, P. (2015). The changing nature of collective employment relations. Employee Relations, 37(6), 645-657.