HRM Assignment Addressing Healthcare Challenges For Fortune 500 Company In US

Question

Task: HRM Assignment Requirements:
United States Business and Human Resources Projects: Healthcare Challenges, Strategy, Opportunities, and Execution You are the Vice President of Benefits Administrator at a Fortune 500 company in the United States that provides a "Competitive Level" of Healthcare Benefits (U.S. Corporation) to your employees and their dependents. As with other U.S. large employers, you have seen healthcare costs "Escalate Faster" than any other good or service in the economy and that expense has started to "catch the eye" of both your CEO and CFO. You also understand, as does the United States organization, the need for "Healthcare Benefits" to attract and retain the Right Talents as well as "protect employees from unforeseen health-related financial hardship." Your Senior Vice-President of Human Resources has approached you and requested a REPORT on “United States Company of HR Challenges, HR Strategy, and HR Opportunities.”
Your "Projects" is to write a REPORT for your Senior VP identifying:
1) 4 "HR Challenges" that Businesses face as it relates to providing Healthcare Benefits in the United States Company to your employees.
* Provide "Detailed Explanations" on what those 4 HR Challenges are
2) Develop a "Specific Healthcare Benefits" STRATEGY for your U.S. Company based, on those "identified" CHALLENGES!
3) Develop 4 "HR Initiatives & Actions" that could be taken to "Support and Execute" your STRATEGY. * Provide "DETAILS" that are "ACTUAL ACTIONS" that you would take to support your "CHOSEN STRATEGIC" approach.

Answer

Introduction
Human resource management is one of the most important sectors of management that helps to recruit people according to their skills and knowledge. HR management in healthcare benefits is an essential part that ensures the safety of the employees and company. In this report, challenges of HR in healthcare, their mitigating strategies and supporting actions have been demonstrated based on the case study of a Vice president of a Fortune 500 company in the United States.

Human Resource challenges in Health care benefits
Human resource management helps to maintain a balance between the workplace and the employees. In business, human resource plays an important role to recruit important staff and beneficial policies for betterment and growth of both the employees and the company (Gulzar et al.). According to the case study as a senior VP of the Fortune 500 Company there are some challenges to provide healthcare facilities to employees. The 4 challenges that have been seen are as follows;

Figure 1: Schematic diagram of the HR challenges for healthcare benefits
(Source: Influenced by Gulzar et al.)

Increase cost of healthcare
In the present condition of a tough economic situation, low supply and high demand of healthcare policies are too expensive. On the other hand, the cost of the beneficial healthcare policies increases faster than other important policies (Sarmaet al.). In fortune 500 company, the cost of the healthcare benefits escalated quickly which in turn created anomalies inside the management systems to take a proper pocket friendly benefit for both the company and the employee. Economic imbalance is another important reason behind the increase of the cost effectiveness of the healthcare benefits.

Retention of employees
Retention of employees is another important part that has surfaced as healthcare benefit plans ensure a good faith for the company. Employees on the other hand, want to get a proper beneficial package to maintain the financial stability of their own (Sarmaet al.). In order to maintain a better perspective for retention of good employees it is a growing challenge for the company.

Lack of management skills
In order to choose a proper health care plan for the employees and their dependents, it is necessary to maintain a proper crew of management team in this sensitive socio-economic environment. Lack of management skills makes it more challenging to maintain a proper balance of a good healthcare plan and retention of the skilled employees (Gulzar et al.). Lack of management skills has surfaced in the Fortune 500 Company as the increase in cost catches the attention of not only the VP but also the CEO and CFO of the company.

Shortage of training program
Shortage of the training programs beforehand can decrease the adaptive capability of the employees to cope up with the sudden changes in a company. Shortage of training programs regarding healthcare packages and maintaining a positive atmosphere is tough for this reason (Sarmaet al.). According to the case study, competitive mindset for picking the best healthcare plan and financial imbalance is another challenge for human resource management.

Mitigating strategy to overcome challenges in healthcare benefits
In a company like Fortune 500 of the USA, HR related problems regarding the healthcare benefit plans can be solvable with different mitigating strategies. It is an important step for the human resource management team to cooperate with both the company and the employees (Gou et al.). There are important strategies to overcome the above mentioned situation to maintain a better environment in the business organization and a specific strategy is as follows;

Social acceptance and Affordable scheme selection
In order to avoid healthcare benefit problems in a business organization it is important for HRM to check up on the current social problems that need to be covered for the employees. Affordable schemes in healthcare policies are also an important part to check up by the human resource department and incorporate it into the policies for betterment of the employees and the company (Gou et al.). It can also help the company to get a better knowledge about the market and it can also help to retain their skilled employees too.

Human resource initiative for supporting strategy in healthcare benefits
In order to execute the above mitigating strategy to overcome the challenges for the healthcare benefits of the Fortune 500, a US based company, initiative and proper execution planning is an essential part. There are many initiatives that can be taken to maintain this strategy to become successful for the company. There are some initiations that can be executed for the betterment of the employee and the company is as follows;

Figure 2: Schematic diagram of the HR initiatives and execution planning
(Source: Influenced by Greer & Charles)

Implementation of the IPU unit
IPU unit implementation can easily organize the units that have been selected for the picking up an affordable and beneficial healthcare plan (Rigby et al.). It can help to maintain the clarity of the management team and it can also create a more supervised way to overcome the excess expenses regarding it which can be influential and beneficial for the company.

Measurement of probable outcomes
In order to maintain a proper balance between the employee and the company, human resource management needs to assess the probable market assessment before picking up a healthcare plan for the beneficiaries (Ren et al.). It is an important execution to mitigate the strategy and thus can overcome the employee retention challenges.

Management for working conditions
Working environments need to be hazard free in order to prevent any health problems beforehand. Work environment conditions need to be clearer and more suitable for the workers (Greer & Charles). Recruitment of the skilled personnel and maintaining an affordable healthcare plan can also mitigate the lack of management skills inside the company.

Transferring of risk
Risk transferring can be an essential approach for the human resource management to maintain a risk free condition in the workplace. Premiums can be implemented to the families of the beneficiary which in turn helps them to use the premiums if anything bad happens to the employees (Rigby et al.). Thus risk management can be an essential part of HRM to maintain a successful business.

Conclusion
In this report a study on Human resource management has established the fact that there are some challenges and that need to be mitigated for the success of the company. According to the case study, a US based company named Fortune 500 has faced problems regarding healthcare benefits which by the proper initiatives and execution plans of HR departments can be overcome easily.

Reference list
Gou, Juanqiong, et al. "Barriers of knowledge transfer and mitigating strategies in collaborative management system implementations." VINE Journal of Information and Knowledge Management Systems (2019). Retrieved on; 31st October 2021, from: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/VJIKMS-09-2018-0072/full/html
Greer, Charles R. Strategic human resource management. Pearson Custom Publishing, 2021. Retrieved on; 3rd October 2021, from: http://dspace.vnbrims.org:13000/jspui/bitstream/123456789/4407/1/Strategic%20Human%20Resource%20Management%20view.pdf

Gulzar, Farzana, et al. "Performance Appraisal System: A Study On Employees Central Issues And Challenges In Healthcare." Journal of Organisation& Human Behaviour 9 (2020). Retrieved on; 1st November 2021, from: https://www.academia.edu/download/66278857/510_3.pdf

Ren, Shuang, Guiyao Tang, and Susan E. Jackson. "Green human resource management research in emergence: A review and future directions."HRM assignment Asia Pacific Journal of Management 35.3 (2018): 769-803. Retrieved on; 2nd October 2021, from: https://fardapaper.ir/mohavaha/uploads/2018/02/Fardapaper-Green-human-resource-management-research-in-emergence-A-review-and-future-directions.pdf

Rigby, C. Scott, and Richard M. Ryan. "Self-determination theory in human resource development: New directions and practical considerations." Advances in Developing Human Resources 20.2 (2018): 133-147. Retrieved on; 2nd October 2021, from: https://institute.welcoa.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Rigby-Ryan-selfdetermination-theory-hr.pdf

Sarma, Abhinav, and PratimBarua. "Challenges of Human Resource Management in Hospitals and their probable solutions: A study based on review of literature." Journal of Management in Practice (Online Only) 3.1 (2018). Retrieved on; 31st October 2021, from: http://journals.dbuniversity.ac.in/ojs/index.php/JoMP/article/viewFile/440/402