Essay on Attracting and Retaining Employees in the Australian Health Care System

Question

Task: You will write an essay on the key challenges in attracting and retaining a workforce in Australia in your selected sector (one sector from a choice of construction, health or retail).

Your essay will draw on at least five themes from Week 1 to Week 11 of this unit, being those most relevant to your selected industry sector.

Your essay will draw on the academic literature (including the articles from ‘Reviewing the Literature’ you developed for Assessment 2), and develop an argument applying that literature to your selected sector.
You must cite at least ten (10) relevant peer reviewed journal articles, and 3 chapters from the Nankervis et al textbook. You can cite other academic references such as books, conference papers, and book chapters but these will NOT be counted as part of the 10 journal articles.

Answer

Introduction
The health care system of the Australia is one of the top in the world, giving affordable and safe health care for people of the country. It is jointly managed by all Australian level of government such as state, federal, local and territory. There are several health care providers in the country covers medical specialists, primary care services given by general practitioners, nurses and allied health employees. Public system of hospital and Medicare gives low cost and free access for all public of the country to such health care facilities. The Private health insurance provides you option of the public system. The government of the country gives most of the expenditure through Medical facilities and other system. However, there are certain challenges faced by employees of health care sector such as Demographic changes, increasing cost of technology, Public and Private fundingof health care, issues in the research sector of medical, health inequality and equity problems, fast urbanisation health problems. In this essay, there is a description given about the major challenges faced by the health care industry in retaining and attracting qualified employees.

Major challenges faced by Health care sector in Retaining and attracting employees
The qualified and talented employees are important tool of the health care industry for the objective of increasing the best outcome and profitability. So, better planning and policies are required for retaining and attracting sound doctors and specialists to deal with patients in the selection and recruitment process. The environmental changes are connected to outside forces that present in the external environment of the health care organisation and may influence the management performance (Shantz, et. al., 2016). As per Crettenden, et. al. (2014), proper planning done for the workforce can meet the future challenges of the Australian workforce. There are many challenges like thedemographicchallenge, distribution challenge, coordination challenges and more. Long term governmental policies and training can be done for providing a platform to the employees and this could lead to the better workforce development for the healthcare organisation.The HR department must adopt the policies that avail the latest opportunities of the industry and keep the health care organisation away from arising trends. Retention of qualified doctors and specialist means keeping such employees and bringing decrease in the turnover by motivating them, and making positive working culture, enhancing staff engagement and providing extra benefits. The changing environment gives threats and opportunities to the HR management of the organisation. The planet is converting into global business and high competition is begin between national and foreign organisation of the health care and it needs a better planning management to upkeep the talented employees. When an organisation has high turnover of employees then it increases the expenditure by making a negative image on its productivity and ability (Baum, 2019).

Going forward is the traditional function in the growth of medical facilities, and design is now increasing its scope in making the future of health care practice. Health care needs new methods of helping patients like supporting them to understand the causes of extended lifetime and new treatments, motivating proactive decision making to avoid illness and manage complicated situations, facilitating the latest techniques to control the health on continuous manner. Design researchers and design add to healthcare in various manners, design played significant role in the execution of advanced technologies and medical tools in care domains to make the interface between technology and people.The Verified challenges shown in research ethics, potential troublesome affect of technological interventions and lack of best policies in working design of global environment (Hamad, et. al., 2019) The wages given to the doctors perform the task in attracting the talented and new specialist towards the health care sector. In case, lower wages are given to the doctors then it is difficult to attract and retain for long term. In a global working environment, establishing a workplace that employees may relate to is essential for retaining and attracting top faculty. Technology advances have enhanced the capability of remote access, managing staff and employees on a 24/7, telecommunications are important for working design challenges

The first step of the recruitment process is capturing the attracting the attention of employees and start to make positive influence on the perception of health care sector. The selection is the important stage in which best suitable and qualified employees are recruited who fulfill the demands the organisation. The best doctors in hospitals are attracted by providing them better wages as per their ability and skill. The high living cost and inflation rate makes it so typical for the workforce to keep them active in the organisation that provides them less wages. The supply of health care specialist will regularly decrease, with lack of talented nurses and physicians. The number of publics is ageing, and the number of nurses and doctors are diminishing. There is a dilemma between experience of doctors and education in the health care sector. Recruiting current graduates is important for several healthcare suppliers because it is vitalising and cost effective. It is not easy to select new alumni who tend to receive gobbled up very fast. Due to these issues, employees must join different organisations that provide better facilities and better wages to talented candidate. To retain and attract the employees it is necessary to adopt a reasonable method of payment and advanced facilities andgives monetary and non-monetary rewards. Health care organisation must; provide benefits like paid holidays and sick leaves, disability advantage, life insurance, increased retirement savings plans etc for selection and attraction of talented and qualified workforce.

The successful healthcare firms focus on attracting best doctors and nurses try to prevent and resolve high turnover of employees by providing them training development programs. Evaluating employee turnover in a healthcare sector is basis to the growth of organisation and care of quality it provides. The dissatisfaction in salary, high opportunities in job due to cutthroat rivalry, no job rotation is involved because of which the employee gets bored within the working culture. The lack of training and development programs, lack of tools and technology in learning activities are the major causes of talent development and retention.According to Dawson, et. al (2014), there is a high turnover of nurses in the healthcare organisations recently which is affecting the overall productivity of the health sector. The research done by the author shows that most of the female candidates leave their jobs because of limited career options or poor workplace culture This demonstrate the workplace cultures which needs to be improved in the healthcare organisations. The health care sector addresses the difference between the dedication of employees towards their job and organisation and provide better opportunity for success, hold the managers to be accountable etc. the health care sector must adopt effective HR strategies for marinating the doctors and nurses motivated and satisfied in the current working situations. Retention of employee is the ongoing strategy that can help in reducing the turnover, enhance the satisfaction of patient and increase the whole experience of employees. Working in group among healthcare employees is an important tool in making a positive experience of patients (Hamad, et. al., 2019).

The management of business organisation employee’s performance by developing skills in communication among team members is important for decreasing errors, solving issues, and making clarity in task assessments. Retaining qualified employee’s needs keeping engagement and job satisfaction among doctors and nurses, and compensation is basic driver in this field. To increase the professional success of the qualified health care employees, sound induction programs are required to improve the learning of doctors and nurses, this enhances the complete growth of sector. Orientation and development programs will create positive attitudes, job satisfaction, and long-term obligation among the workforce. To reduce the employee turnover in the sector, the organisations should have sustaibale HRM policies which focuses on the development of employees along with the development of the business. The performances should be rewarded, and different employment options should be given so that the career development options can eb broadened. When the qualified employees will be retained, then health care organisation will not be get effected by the issue of supply and demand of talent. The health care sector will learn about the cost linked in development and training programs of the employees is really an investment that will give the better returns over a longer period.

As per Roche, et. al. (2015), the turnover of nurses in the clinical settings is critical and can lead to the high costs to the health care organisations. The costs can be related to the job seminars, recruitments, training, inductionand termination losses. Moreover, the factors which are responsible for the retention of employees include friendly management, good working conditions, Job satisfaction and enough resources available. The strategies which can eb adopted for reducing the turnover includes testing the practice environment for the job satisfaction of the employees. The participation of employees in the affairs of hospitals or clinical settings, performance appraisals and resource adequacy provided to the employees (Twigg & McCullough, 2014). Strategic Reward management is the execution and formulation of policies and strategies that objective is to reward people equitably, fairly and regularly as per the organisation values and morals. Reward management object is to create and effectively operate a best reward system to the health care sector. The employees of the health care industry face certain challenges such as transparency and pharmaceutical cost that creates impact on care quality. Incentives are essential that business organisations can use to motivate, attract, improve and satisfy the employee’s performance. Incentives can be negative and positive, tangible and intangible, financial and non-financial (Najib, et. al., 2019).The World health organisation’s describe rewards as all the punishments and rewards that providers face as consequences of the business organisation in which they are working. To attract and retain the employees for longer period it is essential to adopt a positive working environment by providing financial and non-financialreward system. Terms and conditions of employment include salary, wages, allowances, insurance, paid leave, service length, achievement of target performance etc. The reward system of the health care organisations must be designed after the consideration of dynamic environment requirements, HR policies and plans and selection processes and strategies. The decisions concerning to the basic payment of the health care employees must be made after relating into account the skills need, the kind of competency and job of the candidate. So, the recognition and rewards must be made as a portion of the strategy of health care organisation. In order to retain and attract the employees, the health care organisation must consider branding as a segment of the recruitment and selection strategy (Jackson, et. al., 2020). The organisations will be capable to consider the global changing environment and to undertake the strategic HR planning for retaining the employees. It will improve the effectiveness of the organisations and will decrease the cost of expenditure. According to Vainieri, et.al. (2019), the managing workplace safety and health needs to be improved by the healthcare organisations which includes the communication of the long-term plans and enacting them properly. The findings of the research show that the managerial competencies of the companies in healthcare sector is directly related to the performance of the organisation. The information sharing processes developed in an organisation helps in developing the managerial competencies. The effective strategy by the top professionals of the organisation can be the systematic information sharing process about the results, structure of the organisation and the goals decided. This adds up the value to the organisation and its performance.

According to Song and Tucker (2016), in any organisation, performance improvement is an important capability which helps in delivering the excellence in the company’s performance and productivity. This will helps in evaluating the human resource management towards the growth and future prospects.The author suggests the model of Transformational Performance Improvement which adopts the system level approach and is made up of the six components which includes communication, performance measures, understanding interdependencies, projects aligned with the project goals, systematic improvements and organisational improvements.

According to Shacklock, et. al., (2014).To improve the healthcare business and the performance, workplace negotiation processesis what all the organisations need in the health sector. Employees are the most important asset of any health care organisation and when the people succeed in these organisations, the organisationautomatically succeeds. If the performance of the workforce is overlooked in the organisation, the patient care will be overlooked which is not correct. A performance management framework is required for the healthcare organisations. An organisation should not only focus on how to reform the industry but also on building the consensus on the reformation of the industry. It is not possible to predict the future, but the performance of the employees can be anticipated by using the policies and market conditions. Also, certain performance management tools can be used by the healthcare settings which are helpful in analysing the performance of the employees and then the necessary actions can be taken.

As per Gorman, et. al. (2014), it is very important to manage the healthcare and safety at the healthcare sector workplaces. The Safety Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 suggests that the employers are required to maintain the safety and health at workplace. It is evident that many organisations who are committed to health ns safety of the employees gets better commitment from the workers. There are many organisations like the Worksafe, which provides guidelines as to how the workers can be protected and be healthy at the workplace. It is because the workers in the healthcare sectors are exposed to many risks at daily basis which are to be controlled and managed properly so that these workers cab be protected against infectious diseases, harmful chemicals and other harmful factors at the workplace.

Conclusion
Health care sector includes workers which are necessary for the operation of the sector. Without theemployees or workers, this sector cannot function. It is very important to plan for the workforce of this sector and to improve their performance so that the organization is benefitted along with the patients. The retention of the employees will improve, and the turnover will decrease which will decrease the costs of the sector and improve the level of the services of the healthcare sector. This essay on the key challenges in attracting and retaining the workforce in the Australian healthcare sector discusses that the employees in this sector faces a lot of challenge to remain in the sameorganisation. Their growth of career and pay are restricted by the organisations which leads them to change their jobs very frequently and like this turnover is increased. The essay focuses on different themes like performance management, workforce planning, work design challenges in global environment, strategic reward managementto discuss how important it is to retain the workforce in the industry and improve the performance of the industry. The critical understanding has bene developed for the future trends of the HRM and the suggestions are also given as to how the workforce challenges can be met in the healthcare sector.

References
Baum, T. (2019) "Does the Hospitality Industry Need or Deserve Talent?" International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management 31.10 (2019): 3823-837. Web.
Crettenden, I. F., McCarty, M. V., Fenech, B. J., Heywood, T., Taitz, M. C., & Tudman, S. (2014). How evidence-based workforce planning in Australia is informing policy development in the retention and distribution of the health workforce. Human Resources for Health, 12(1), 7.
Dawson, A. J., Stasa, H., Roche, M. A., Homer, C. S. E., & Duffield, C. (2014). Nursing churn and turnover in Australian hospitals: Nurses perceptions and suggestions for supportive strategies. BMC Nursing, 13, 11.
Gorman, T., Dropkin, J., Kamen, J., Nimbalkar, S., Zuckerman, N., Lowe, T., Szeinuk, J., Milek, D., Piligian, G. and Freund, A., 2014. Controlling health hazards to hospital workers: A reference guide. NEW SOLUTIONS: A Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy, 23(1_suppl), pp.1-169.
Hamad, Y., Burhanuddin, M. A., Ghani, A., Khanapi, M., Elzamly, A., & Doheir, M. (2019). Identifying Critical Factors to Adopt E-HRM Based Cloud Computing System for Healthcare Organizations. International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology, 28(8), 30-46.
Hamad, Y., Mohd Aboobaide, B., Ghanir, A., Khanapi, M., Doheir, M., & Elzamly, A. (2019). Controlling electronic human resource management (E-HRM) issues based cloud computing system by using bayesian regression for healthcare organizations. RELIGACIÓN Revista de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, 4(17), 865-884.
Jackson, A., Thompson, R., and Meis, J., (2020). The Impact of Human Resources on Nurses' Turnover Intention. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses. Web.
Najib, M., Abdullah, S., Narresh, S., & Juni, M. H. (2019). BRAIN-DRAIN PHENOMENON AMONG HEALTHCARE WORKERS. International Journal of Public Health and Clinical Sciences, 6(3), 90-103.
Roche, M. A., Duffield, C. M., Homer, C., Buchan, J., & Dimitrelis, S. (2015). The rate and cost of nurse turnover in Australia. Collegian, 22(4), 353-358.
Shacklock, K., Brunetto, Y., Teo, S., & Farr?Wharton, R. (2014). The role of support
antecedents in nurses' intentions to quit: the case of Australia. Journal of advanced nursing, 70(4), 811-822.
Shantz, A., Alfes, K., & Arevshatian, L. (2016). HRM in healthcare: The role of work engagement. Personnel Review. Song, H. and Tucker, A., 2016. Performance improvement in health care organizations. Foundations and Trends® in Technology, Information and Operations Management, 9(3–4), pp.153-309.
Twigg, D., & McCullough, K. (2014). Nurse retention: A review of strategies to create and enhance positive practice environments in clinical settings. International journal of nursing studies, 51(1), 85-92.
Vainieri, M., Ferre, F., Giacomelli, G. and Nuti, S., 2019. Explaining performance in health care: How and when top management competencies make the difference. Health care management review, 44(4), p.306.