Introduction
The HRM practices embraced in Children’s National Medical Center (mostly known as Children’s Hospital) are diverse and strategic. Nonetheless, the hospital has gathered a momentous legacy since its inception in Washington, DC.
The hospital provides exclusive pediatric cares due to its strategic human resource provisions, novel managerial tactics, and exemplary customer focus. It has served in this capacity for decades and has reaffirmed itself as a leader in the industry not just in terms of patient care, but also as a research and development center.
It has also focused on a growth-centered business strategy in order to continue offering high quality healthcare services to its clients (Rotter et al., 2011).
Formerly, the hospital realized that it needed to change its customer care services, expertise, and human resource management so as to serve the increasing number of patients who were coming for medical services.
With over 300 bed capacity and a huge potential to grow, the hospital focuses on capacity development and a profitable coexistence with other healthcare providers including Medstar Washington Hospital Center adjacent to it.
In addition, HR management contributes credibly to the health systems, administration, and service provisions in this hospital (Home Facts, 2012). In order to manage HR in pediatrics properly, the hospital has structured its job execution provisions virtuously. This should consider the provisions of emergency cases.
HRM is designed to uplift the clinical and non-clinical sectors in the quarters of healthcare. Currently, several healthcare systems across the world have put much of their attention in the human resources management.
In particular, they form great part of the health system contributions, budget making, and health services provisions in regard to pediatrics (Storey, 2007). Arguably, the management of the health sector depends entirely on knowledge and proper management of human resource persons in the health sector (involved in health services delivery).
Additionally, the issues addressed by such professionals are dependent on their talents and inspirational aspects. It is vital to foster respect and boost self-esteem within the entire workforce. This constitutes proper management of the human resources within an organization in regard to pediatrics.
In the context of employment, the jobs available at Children’s Hospital can be divided into two major groups: clinical jobs and non-clinical jobs. As the positions at Children’s Hospital vary widely, the organization naturally has an interest in drawing in a wide range of candidates to fill the positions.
While this is largely done by tapping the provincial labor market, some positions, at times, are filled by reaching beyond the local labor market and into the national labor market. Examples of positions such as these include high-level clinical occupations such as surgeons.
Nevertheless, the labor market from which the majority of the staff is drawn is the labor market found in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan area.
Therefore, an assessment of the labor market from which Children’s Hospital draws candidates for open positions is essentially an assessment of the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan area labor market. Such an assessment reveals that out of 5.7 million people, 5.1% of the population are unemployed and in the market for a job (BLS, 2012).
This is equivalent to approximately 300,000 people. This is the group of people which composes the core labor market from which Children’s Hospital and all other employers in the area have to choose from.
Casting overarching and blanketing adjectives on this large number of people to describe them would be misleading as the basic demographics, level of education, and required training for specific position would vary greatly from person to person.
Keeping this in mind, it is more useful to systematically review the various characteristics which define the labor market.
Developing a set of HRM practices viable for the Children’s Hospital
Evidently, good HR practices are recommendable to promote viable human resources practices in the realms of recruitment, training, and evaluation of prospective employees. The paper discerns strategic HRM management practices that can be adopted by The Children’s Hospital to enhance its workforce provisions (Storey, 2007).
This organization should fix most of its HR practices because some of them are either not in place, not defined, or not carried out effectively. As the HR manager, it is vital to understand that HR management aspects have numerous roles that influence the operations of any given national corporation in the health care sector.
Similarly, it can affect the financial performance of this hospital; however, this might vary from one season to the next depending on the HR practices that the organization embraces.
It is vital to recognize that the decisions that the Children’s Hospital makes on who to hire, what to pay, what training to offer, how employees’ performance is appraised, and other credible HR provisions directly affect employees’ motivation and ability to provide services that customers value.
Consequently, Children’s Hospital must consider such factors through the HR department so as to realize credible organizational performance. Generally, HR manager’s roles in this MNC might eventually affect its prosperity, market relevance, and financial aspects.
The strategic HRM management practices chosen in this context incorporate recruitment, selection, training and development, compensation, employee relations, and performance management.
However, three of them have been discerned in diverse ways so as to understand the novel HRM concepts that the hospital can establish and implement so as to remain relevant in the HR management arenas.
They have been intertwined so as to emerge with a concrete management provisions that the hospital, through its newly managed HR department, should establish, implement and embrace to benefit the its pediatric clients.
Children’s Hospital should implement various HRM management practices in order to remain relevant in the American and global healthcare market (Kocher, 2011).
Due to its services and child care capacity, the organization demands novel HRM practices in the context of HR planning, recruitment of employees, selection criteria, training and development provisions, compensation plans, as well as performance management.
Another credible provision is the establishment and ratification of diversity provisions within the hospital’s workforce. Cultural diversity is increasingly being a challenge and a captivating feature of both individual lives as well as the contexts in which companies and institutions operate.
Because of the obvious challenges of the culturally-sensitive areas in which the hospital operates, it has to take credible policy initiatives to ensure that it attains its diversity tolerance initiatives. A policy herein refers to a statement of procedures guiding the stakeholders of an organization on how responsibilities should be conducted.
Foremost, successful organizations apply diversity within their workforce to gain competitive advantages. Children’s Hospital should adopt policies that increase the cultural, gender, and racial variety within its workforce. To enhance its competitive advantage, diversity recruitment policies will propel the hospital to the global limelight.
The hospital should also understand the benefits of a diverse workforce. In this regard, the management should use training programs to elucidate the advantages of indulging diverse ideas within the hospital. Teamwork policies have been critical in most culturally diverse organizations (Storey, 2007).
When adequately incorporated, the policy helps to develop the feeling and spirit of unity as well as togetherness towards a collective goal. In teamwork, the objective for a collective goal overrides the diversity of members. This forms a quality recipe for competitive advantage within organizations.
The vision statements as well as the hospital’s policies should be sound and solid to enhance competitiveness amidst cultural diversity of its workforce. The corporate vision statement ought to be constructed in a manner that reflects the organization’s commitment to cultural diversity.
This should be backed-up by a powerful vision. The company’s time-off policies should also prop up cultural uniqueness for holidays as well as religious observances. Other policies should also outline the training of managers on cultural diversity sensitivity.
The hospital needs high-caliber pediatricians to propel its services considerably. In this context, there are best practices employed by the HR department through the social media to attract such characters (Kocher, 2011). This is a considerable provision. Social media can be used to advertise the hospital in a positive manner.
Potential doctors and other employees should be allowed to access viable information regarding the company through the available and widely used social media. Evidently, it is agreeable that the hospital’s HR departments should focus more of its resources in using social media in the staffing activities.
This is because many people are connected through social media. It possible to advertise vacancies through the media and attract a large number of interested employees. Links to the hospital’s website can also be provided.
As a modernized HR provision, cultural diversity training is important in the organizational context. To improve it, the training should contain racial embracement provisions, ethnicity tolerance, religion aspects, and cultural fusion among other aspects. This is important since it broadens the aspects of diversity beyond cultural barriers.
Concurrently, the national shortage of competent nurses, especially those with the specialized skills needed to support Children’s specialized mission, need to be well documented and resourced.
In this context, the role of nurses in paediatric care can be augmented through viable and effective plans for staffing, performance appraisal, and equality embracement. In this context, the decisions that Children’s Hospital must take are obvious despite their incomplete definition.
The hospital must embrace expansion in both physical and organizational arenas (Our Leadership,2012). Currently, the composition of the labor market in the Washington area is varied.
Contextually, as indicated by Home Facts (2012), there are nearly 60% African Americans, 30% Whites, 10% Hispanics, 3% Hispanics and 7% others with males dominating this market incredibly.
It is important to note that the age of the age of those in the labor market ranges from 18-85 as at 2012. The hospital should cease this rich human resource to enhance its service provisions and quality management.
In the context of technology, IT has brought both positive and negative impacts to the hospital’s HR management. Even though there are some few negative impacts, the positive impacts have counterbalanced them. Arguably, IT is vital in the development and organization of any business activity.
The hospital currently embraces IT since it is both economical and faster (Williams & Boren, 2008). It also prefers IT since the technology entails everything that the hospital needs ranging from expertise to customers and advertisements.
Besides, it is important to the human resource management. It provides a suitable ground for recruitment purposes. Through the introduction of Information Technology (IT), the hospital can nowadays advertise jobs and organize for interviews online.
IT is also helpful in keeping employee’s information. With IT, HRM can easily record and retrieve both patients and workers’ data when needed. In this context, it is possible to give employees job directives online based on their performance records.
Besides, workers are able to perform more complicated tasks as well as improve the performance rates of their respective organizations. IT has also improved employees interaction with their organizations. Workers can easily interact and share their views/opinions without fear.
Consequently, this improves the image of the HR managers and the entire company. They (resource managers) can easily and effectively keep, manage and examine worker’s data with limited challenges (Yan, 2010).
Through information technology, most managers can easily monitor the performance of the workers, carry out job analysis and recruit new employees as discussed earlier. Consequently, this will improve performance of both the organization and the human resources.
It has also improved the level of transparency in the system as the information stored cannot easily be distorted. The accuracy and speed at which the managers and workers perform their duties has greatly improved.
Moreover, it assists the human resource professionals to have information about current changes in policies and employment practices in the organization. By obtaining the relevant information mentioned above, the value and involvement of the resource managers is improved.
They can easily interact with other professionals online to help improve their image and performances. Eventually, the performance and image of the hospital will be improved.
Contextually, employees require diverse skills and management provisions to enhance their performance and growth in their respective careers (Children’s National, 2012).
Another credible HR provision on how to manage human resources in the hospital is the establishment and preparation of young workers by providing them with relevant skills. This will eventually ensure that the retiring health workers are replaced with other competent young health personnel.
Additionally, this will solve the problem of inadequate health practitioners in the hospital and continuously increase the HR management provisions. Through the development of numerous human resource initiatives, there will be increased efficiency in providing the healthcare facilities and proper management.
Conclusion
Conclusively, it is recommendable for the Children’s Hospital to promote viable human resource practices in the realms of recruitment, training, compensation, and evaluation of prospective employees.
The report focused on Children’s National Medical Center in the context of strategic HRM management practices that can be adopted by the hospital to enhance its workforce provisions.
Children’s National Medical Center should implement various HRM management practices in order to remain relevant in the American and global Health Care market.
Due to its medical provision capacity, the hospital demands novel HRM practices in the context of HR planning, recruitment of employees, selection criteria, training and development provisions, compensation plans, as well as performance management mentioned before.
It has a rich history and service provision capacity that can be harnessed for the benefit of the country.
References
BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics). (2012). Local area unemployment statistics. Unemployment rates for Metropolitan Areas. Web.
Children’s National. (2012). Children’s National Medical Center. Web.
Home Facts (2012). Washington, D.C. Demographics. Web.
Kocher, R. (2011). Hospitals’ Race to Employ Physicians—The Logic Behind a Money-Losing Proposition. New England Journal of Medicine, 364(19): 1-67.
Our Leadership. (2012). Children’s National Medical Center. Web.
Rotter, T. et al. (2011). Methods for the evaluation of hospital cooperation activities. Systematic Reviews, 1(11): 1-5.
Storey, J. (2007). Human Resource Management: A Critical Text. London: Thomson.
Williams, F., & Boren, S. (2008). The role of the electronic medical record (EMR) in care delivery development in developing countries: a systematic review. Ohio, OH: Cengage Learning.
Yan, H. (2010). On the Clouds: A New Way of Computing. Information Technology & Primary Care, 16(2), 139-145.