Abstract
Effective human resources management plays a crucial role in the success of health care system. Proper management of human resources is very important in the recruitment and retention of health-care staff and providing opportunities for professional development. This book is designed for people who are preparing to work in any area of health care or health services. It is also beneficial for students and practitioners. The book covers topics such as recruitment, training, manager-employee relationship, performance appraisal, termination, legal issues, labour unions, HR consultants and more.
This book contains 23 chapters, along with relevant tables and figures. Each chapter includes learning objectives, discussion points and listing of resources (books, periodicals, organizations and internet sites) that provide supplementary materials.
The opening chapter of the book gives the history of human resources in health-care organizations and the rationale for having a human resource department. This chapter also describes the mission of a human resources department in a health-care organization.Several models for organizing a human resources department are also discussed in this book. It also talks about the relationship between human resources, executive management and other organizational departments. The authors also explain the role of human resources management when implementing changes within an organization. Background of employment legislation and the effect of law on the activities of the department manager are wonderfully shown in the chapter. Several laws, such as National Labour Relation Act, Social Security Act, Fair Labour Standards Act, Labour Management Relations Act, Equal Pay Act, Occupational Safety and Health Act, HMO Act and Rehabilitation Act, are reviewed by the authors.
Four major activities of HR department are highlighted which are acquiring employees, maintaining employees, retaining employees and separating employees. Within these, several specific activities, such as employment and recruitment, compensation and benefits administration and employee relations, are identified. Labour relations, training and development, employee health and safety, security, childcare and other employee services are also identified as HR activities by the authors.
The value and importance of employee participation is shown marvelously in the book. Position description includes the duties and responsibility and compensable factors such as level of responsibility, the number of person supervised, experience, minimum level of education needed.The authors discuss the recruiting process. They also talk about the legal issues involved in recruiting. Civil service system and objectives of discipline and appeals systems are shown in the book.
This book also tells the points which need to be kept in mind by the interviewer before and during the interviews, like review the job description; review the resume and prepare questions. Employee training and its importance is highlighted and also various forms of training, such as new employee orientation, mentoring, on-the-job and off-site training, are discussed. Compensation, benefits, performance appraisal, its primary objectives, traditional approaches, common obstacles and legal implications are shown in various chapters of the book, which will be beneficial for the readers.
According to the author, sexual harassment, workplace violence, etc., are the work-place problems which can be avoided by employee participation and involvement in programmes intended to raise awareness about these issues. Several forms of documents, which are maintained by the human resource department in an organization, are discussed in the chapter. It provides details about the formal and informal documentation. The role of human resource managers in terminating employees is explained in this book. Various case studies, which deal with various aspects of human resources, are magnificently shown in the chapter.
Overview of succession planning, its need in an organization, motivating factors behind the creation of succession plan, principals of succession planning and the reasons of not creating succession plan by an organization are discussed by the authors. Unionization is discussed with its legal framework. The authors discuss the evolution of employee relations through three distinct philosophies, that is authoritarian, legalistic and humanistic and also review the human motivation theories. At last, various future directions for human resource department are suggested by the authors.
Every chapter starts with a case study which is concluded at the end of the chapter with expert commentary and suggestions that can be useful for the human resource managers in their day-to-day activities.