Abstract
Hospitalised patients depend on nurses for the provision of health care services. Hospitals, on the other hand, must recruit qualified nurses and ensure that the nurses continue to offer their services for prolonged periods.
The discovery of new diseases and advancements in health care provision means that nurses need to develop their careers by undergoing continuous training. The recruitment process, therefore, needs to incorporate career programs to ensure that newly recruited nurses can advance their careers to offer quality services to patients.
Introduction
A hospital requires a dedicated team that works diligently. The ability of hospital staff to work harmoniously is mainly influenced by the personal characteristics of the members of staff. However, training also plays a significant role in the behaviour of hospital staff.
The hiring of nurses in hospitals is becoming more complex since the assessment of core competencies requires more time and close monitoring of an individual’s ability to work. Though academic qualifications are crucial in gauging one’s ability to work, they are not the absolute standards for defining an individual’s competency.
An organisation’s success is highly determined by the competency and dedication of its staff. Staff performance is a result of career development and core competencies of its members. The role of the human resource department in career development is crucial due to the importance of career development in the nursing field.
The human resource department needs to have opportunities to develop its staff. In addition, the department should receive support to enable it motivate the staff members to develop their careers. Novel diseases are regularly discovered as new disease management programs continue to be developed.
Therefore, new knowledge regarding the management of various medical conditions is continuously generated. The ability of a nurse to remain updated in the nursing field through training and research is thus mandatory. This paper discusses the various models and methods that a hospital can use in the hiring of nurses.
The paper illustrates the integration of career programs into the hiring of nurses since the importance of intensive recruiting underscores the basis of developing careers. The paper also outlines the various models and approaches used in developing the careers of nurses in a medical organisation.
Career Development Models
Career development entails the continued enrichment of one’s professional knowledge on a given job. There are various career development models proposed by different authors. These models assist in the evaluation and mapping of the career developments over time.
Career development is not a short-term activity, but a lifelong process that requires continuous action of an individual in deliberately creating time to learn and conduct research in the area of one’s specialization. Career development is essential and takes a different aspect during and after the hiring process.
The individuals under recruitment get chances to state their career plans during the hiring process, which forms the foundation of the individuals’ assessment on their career plans. Curson and Dell (2010) define career planning as a continuous process of developing the self, which is influenced by an individual and his working environment (2010).
The two approaches to career planning as stated by Curson and Dell (2010) emphasize the organisation’s needs and individual objectives. The authors explain that organisation-centred planning systems aim at developing human resources to suit an organisation’s needs and increase productivity.
Organisation-centred planning systems are organisation-based models of career development, which are applied to further the objectives of the organisation. According to Curson and Dell’s model of individual’s drive for career development, individuals develop their careers to increase their professional aptitudes (2010). Prior to joining any organisation, individuals have their aspirations and career plans that may also be important to their employers in the future.
The various individual plans as stated by Curson and Dell (2010) are mainly on individual career prospects and goals, which can be useful to the organisation. Various career development models are suggested. However, career development is mainly individual centred and organisation determined.
Organisations that make it compulsory for individuals to advance their career have employees with great skills and knowledge as opposed to those organisations that do not make career development compulsory. Career planning on a personal level should start early enough to identify the key aspects of special training that an individual requires (Grumbach, 2012).
Individual career advancement and development is important as it helps in increasing the odds of securing an appealing job in one’s area of specialization. The process of hiring nurses needs to integrate a career advancement program because it is an industry requirement that needs to keep professionals with suitable capabilities.
The Hiring Process
Hiring involves the process of identifying suitable candidates and assessing their capabilities to fill vacant positions in an organisation. Hiring has various importance to the organisation. For instance, it helps in the replacement of employees who quit their jobs for various reasons.
It also aids in meeting demands or filling up of new vacancies that come up due to expansion of the organisation. The hiring process is thus important in ensuring that an organisation is not understaffed. When hiring nurses, a number of factors need to be put into consideration.
These factors include government regulations concerning the training and certification of professionals from accredited institutions. Therefore, the hiring process is time-consuming and costly and can only be done successfully with meticulous planning.
Hiring Considerations of Hospitals
Hiring of nurses results from hospital requirements and considerations as determined by the management of the hospital. Those individuals who wish to join particular hospitals need to go through orientation programs prior to being appointed as nurses.
Graduate nurses require a transition period from college to practical work. The services offered by nurses form an integral part when rating the quality of services offered by the hospital. Therefore, improving the quality of services starts with recruiting nurses with quality training.
In addition, nurses are in direct contact with patients, who are the hospital’s clients. Consequently, it is crucial for the nurses to be highly motivated to perform their duties with the highest level of competency and professionalism (Girot & Aibarran, 2012). The team that is charged with the responsibility of interviewing potential recruits in the hiring process needs to prepare in advance by outlining the needs of the organisation.
During the preparation process, the relevance of the questions to be asked needs to be considered, and any alterations to the questions need to be done. Hospital needs form the main reason for hiring new graduate nurses. These needs vary and determine the criteria for selection of the graduate nurses.
The evaluation of academic performance helps in assessing the ability of an individual with respect to their college discipline. However, the academic performance needs to be supplemented by other activities and roles played while in college, for example, leadership and organisational roles.
The complexity and magnitude of the tasks assigned to a workforce often determine its effectiveness. On the whole, the population of patients in a hospital determines the number of nurses required (Girot & Aibarran, 2012). The new graduates get an orientation program to assist them acclimatize to the work environment.
The orientation program enables the inexperienced nurses to get mentorship from senior nurses. Nurses in managerial positions delegate duties to the new nurses and assign them mentors. Orientation equips graduate nurses with practical knowledge needed in the field of nursing (Young, Stuenkel, & Bawel-Brinkley, 2008).
There are different areas to be considered when interviewing an individual. Individuals have certain personality characteristics that are crucial for the success of their careers. The individuals’ academic qualifications also need to be considered and should be subjected to scrutiny.
On the other hand, the candidates for nursing positions have their expectations that the recruiting and hiring team should know. Individual needs range from salary packages, holidays, loan resettlement in the case of student loans, mortgage, car loans to medical insurance and pension.
The hiring team should be aware of these needs and thereafter determine what the hospital can offer to potential nurses. In some instances, the expectations of the nurses may be above the realistic standards. In such cases, the recruiting team is charged with the responsibility of using tact to convince suitable candidates to take up the jobs at the remuneration rates that the hospital can afford.
Graduate nurses who join the hospital workforce immediately after their studies lack practical skills in the nursing field, which necessitates their orientation. According to Douglas (2013), self-evaluation by a new graduate nurse provides dedication to the specific skills and practices resulting in higher levels of comfort.
Practical skills are highly valued in the nursing field as they help in developing one’s career. The ability of the hospital to offer a supportive work environment helps the nurses to learn practical activities easily thus attracting more nurses.
Hiring is a time-bound event unlike retaining, which is long-term and more holistic in the management of staff in an organisation. The hiring process is often rigorous and detailed. The candidates who join any hospital must be experienced or be willing to learn practical skills to become competent professionals (Valentine, Nash, Hughes, & Douglas, 2008).
One of the main concerns for many hospitals is maintaining the best nurses in their hospitals. In order to maintain an employee, the working conditions and environment need to be conducive to motivate the employee to stay (Grumbach, 2012). If the working conditions are unsatisfactory, employees may move to other organisations that offer better employment terms compared to their current workplaces.
Losing talent is normally a big problem in organisations because training new individuals to perform the roles and duties of the employees who have left is a challenge to the hospital. Losing talent also has a negative effect on the clients who have become accustomed to the services of a particular employee.
The hiring process causes an organisation to incur certain costs. Therefore, the cost borne by the process should be proportional to the expected quality of services from the recruited nurses. Successful nurses should indicate their desire for career development and contribution to the hospital.
It is also crucial for the nurse to have a signed commitment to the hospital. The integration of career programs when hiring nurses helps hospitals to maintain their new employees for prolonged periods. The hospital integrates career programs into the recruitment process by offering the newly appointed nurses opportunities to specialize in various nursing fields (Kanak et al., 2008). The hospitals also offer diverse career advancement programs through scholarships and study leaves.
Nurses’ Considerations
Nurses also consider various aspects of the hospital during the recruitment process. Aspirations to join particular hospitals over others are common, and recruiters should bear this in mind. Other aspects that nurses are likely to consider before seeking employment in a particular hospital include the number of patients that the nurse will be expected to attend to.
An elevated nurse to patient ratio implies that there is a likelihood of work overload hence leading ineffectiveness. The ability of a nurse to offer effective services is influenced by the time spent attending to a patient (Douglas, 2013). With more patients, a nurse can only spend limited time with the patient.
Nurses also consider the benefits they derive from the services they offer. These benefits include vacation packages, housing and medical covers, salary, study leaves, and scholarships (Curson & Dell, 2010). Most nurses are likely to prefer working in hospitals that offer better benefits. Consequently, such hospitals are likely to have the best nurses.
Conclusion
Nursing is an important field in any hospital that provides inpatient services because it forms the basis of patient monitoring following admission. Looking at the hospital as a business entity portrays nurses as the employees and patients as the clients.
Therefore, the hiring process of nurses is crucial to the hospital because it entails bringing onboard nurses to cater for patients’ needs. Since nurses are in constant contact with patients, their services greatly influence the success of the hospital. Nurses have numerous opportunities to interact with patients, which gives them an upper hand in making important decisions that positively influence the success of hospitals.
Therefore, hired nurses should be competent and career development conscious to keep offering exemplary services that keep patients reassured and confident.
References
Curson, J. A. & Dell, M.E. (2010). Who does workforce planning well? International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, 23 (1), 110-119.
Douglas, K. (2013). Talent management, the next frontier: retaining, nurturing, and growing our workforce. Nurse Leader, 11 (2), 23-25.
Girot, E. A. & Aibarran, J. W. (2012). Sustaining the education workforce in healthcare: challenges for the future. Nurse Education Today, 32(1), 32-38.
Grumbach, K. (2012). Fighting hand to hand over physician workforce policy. Health Affairs, 21 (5), 13-27.
Kanak, M. F., & Tilter, M., Shever, L., Fei, Q., Dochterman, J. & Picone, D. M. (2008). “The effects of hospitalization on multiple units.” Applied Nursing Research, 20 (1), 15-22.
Valentine, N. M., Nash, J., Hughes, D., & Douglas K. (2008). “Achieving effective staffing through a shared decision-making approach to open-shift management.” Journal of Nursing Administration, 8 (7-8), 331-335.
Young, M. E., Stuenkel, D. L., & Bawel-Brinkley, K. (2008). Strategies for easing the role transformation of graduate nurses. Journal for Nurses in Staff Development, 24 (3), 105-112.