Individual Research Portfolio

Background

This research portfolio is based on the people management strategies followed by Human Resource department of National Health Services, England in the perspective of case studies coming into the healthcare sectors. In these study the role of health sector manager and human resource manager (HRM) has been reviewed in the light of people management strategy which is the pillar of the HR management in the healthcare sector. The healthcare manager along with some leadership quality manage the shortcomings and problems in the healthcare sector. Being a healthcare manager the management over different case studies were needed. The healthcare sector is not only depends on the patients, those are coming for taking the care, but also the whole management strategy should be followed for different case studies. To make the approach feasible the main key role played by the HR manager of healthcare sector. So the HRM and other managers have to be very strategic to plan the overall people management. According to the NHS in People management strategies three basic areas are encountered to make an effective people management policy namely leadership and its associated management, development by training and management of talent.

Leadership and Management

The people manager is just not a managerial post, but this person must have some leadership quality that will ultimately lead to the development of healthcare sector. The leadership task effectively combine three types of activities which are again interrelated to each other. This is called John Adair’s action-centred leadership model. This model is presented as three overlapping circles, individual, team and task. These are the core management responsibilities. Therefore the action of a team leader is to assign a task, build a team and manage it properly. (Adair, 2011) This model has high relevance with the management areas emphasised by NHS in the current scenario of covid-19 in this hospital case study. Leadership is the basic pillar of management and they make team and trained their team members. By the management of their talent the development happens in a spontaneous way. This model also gives some ideas about mitigating team conflicts. Swanwick et al, have discussed the importance of leadership model in relevance with current development of NHS leadership strategy (Swanwick, et al, 2011). Managing individuals must focus on the economic rewards like the National Health Services in their 70 years celebration which was on 2018, declares that they are rising the financial budget. The different departments will be benefited by this economic and financial management (Majeed, et al, 2018). In my view the current scenario of COVID-19 needs more emphasis on this point. Along with the economic rewards the leadership needs job satisfaction and boost up in social relationship. The checkpoints of this model is based on reviews of performance development. The performance data can be checked and can be analysed to make future objectives and performance standard along with this coaching of management team is important for management skill. Developing skills at grassroots level enhances the quality of team work. Integrated HR management model is a summed up model which takes care of profile and post, hiring, internal communication, career orientation, training, economic facility and competency.(Gianni, et al, 2017) This model is followed by HR department of NHS to make an integrated development in the three areas stated primarily.

The role of HR manager of NHS has always been important especially in the current scenario of cov-19. The role of HR department is to clarify the terms and condition of employment, payment options, safety issues and they has been renowned for their role of providing and cancelling jobs. HR department has done significant strategic upliftment of NHS by incorporating competitive strategies. Recently NHS has mostly focused on the corporate strategy to improve the quality of healthcare by incorporating experts other than doctors and nurses into strategy making body. (Pollock, et al, 2011) In current scenario the role of HR is many fold. It includes planning of work, checking and evaluation of the work, taking care of clinical supervision, chalking out the needs of training and arranging programs for training. (Boella, 2019) To do this in a best way they go through this processes in regular intervals and from leadership to the management of human resource through the strategic way of training and development is nowadays their day to day jobs. Hutchinson et al have successfully discuss the role of HR teams in solving the issues related to conflict, ambiguity, stress and heavy workload. They have discussed these roles with respect to a case study research (Hutchinson, et al, 2010). In the current scenario NHS has gone through scarcity of work force and therefore recruiting efficient staffs is very important. I found that NHS has tried to recruit same group of people. So that they can work together without conflict which is the part of conflict management by following John Adair’s action-centred leadership model (Swanwick, et al, 2011). Training is needed for treatment of covid-19 patients, recruitment therefore will provide talent management at the same time. Though as a whole these strategies are also a part of change model generally followed by NHS (Martin, et al, 2013).

The key role of HRM in management of performance according to NHS is a day to day surveillance over the performance of different care giving sectors, especially when it comes to the current scenario of Covid-19. The feedback from patient can be helpful in this way. For performance in NHS includes improving day to day life of COVID-19 worker, absence rate due to sickness, duty hours of junior doctors, health and safety matters inside NHS, appraisals, development plans for individuals and training programs. In this current cov-19 pandemic as the day to day direct surveillance over the presence of employees is not possible therefore NHS has implemented an electronic staff record to the Covid-19 related absence. (NHS Employers) Within NHS from interview of staffs it has been found that most of them focuses on the appraisal and career development. Other than this staffs also emphasised on communication and involvement qualities. Therefore the common duty of manager includes appraisal, training and career development. (Jackson, et al, 2014) The other duties includes communication, team working and employee development (McDermott, et al, 2013). As stated earlier NHS has started e-training procedure for cov-19 health workers. They have made this process user friendly by making the registration easy by using their personal e-mail addresses. This is an open platform and anybody can access this. It has also been confirmed that in spite of crisis an apprentice can continue their apprentice in the current scenario. So in my view this will encourage the whole community of worker to work commutatively towards a common goal without added work pressure. (NHS Employers; Mahase, 2020)

During the way towards HR management several internal and external factors effects the three areas of leadership. The role of a HR is to clarify the relation between the employee and employer. (Trudel, et al, 2011) The external factors that hamper or propagate HRM’s duty are political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental. However the internal factors are people, resources, innovations, marketing, operation and financial. The external factors are affected or promoted by Government policies, activity of unions and several other factors. (Stone, et al, 2013) In this current scenario of covid-19 the state has declared life insurance for the frontline health worker. This will also cover hand on caregiving workers irrespective of whether they are full time or part time. This external force of providing support can be very much helpful for increasing performance of workers under this deadly scenario.

Here in this part of my research portfolio I like to focus on the COVID-19 cases in UK scenario and the role of line managers in terms of people management. NHS has circulated a few master plan for the line manager when it comes to the case studies of cov-19 patients. The healthcare sector everyday faces different cases of cov-19 patients. (NHS Employers) The line manager of this sectors have to deal with these scenario, like the care given by nurses to the patient, the post caring after the patients recovery by health worker, the sufficient supply of personal protection equipment (PPE) kit for health workers and communicating about the insurances policies for health workers. The collection of digital signatures for buying the above stated health equipment is a necessary job in this process. (NHS Employers)

Training and Development

Training and development is an integral part of people management and for a new pandemic disease like COVID-19 this is very much relevant and important to encounter. NHS change model has been introduced which deals with mainly training and development, includes within its framework, experience based changing strategy.(Braithwaite, 2011) This model is focused mainly on the potentiality of development by change, commitment towards healthcare service by involving intrinsic and extrinsic motivators. According to Martin et al. this model has been found to be valuable in terms of outcome from the participants. This outcomes often benefited the change by altering basic framework, toolkits of structure and training (Martin, et al, 2013). Recently NHS has devised new leadership theoretical model by making a few changes in its older format. The elements of this new model based on clarification of the goal of purpose and its contribution. In this model motivation has been given to the workers to work effectively.(Storey, et al, 2013) This efficiency can only be achieved by proper training processes. In the current case study on cov-19, I reviewed the NHS has declared a few new methods of work force supply, modes of communication and staff management policies. These changes make a large pool of team to work effectively by maintaining social distance and safety. Under this policy NHS has employed e-learning processes for healthcare and has made an e-learning platform. This plans will navigate the workers to work according to statutes and mandate that are newly implemented under relevant situation.(NHS Employers) This should be the best possible way to implement the change model by NHS (Martin, et al, 2013). In the general hospital under consideration these training programs were made mandatory and found very much effective. After training it was found that the effectiveness of treatment became two fold and the rate of co-morbidity decreased significantly within 17 days. The transformational leadership model is a key model of leadership where a leader convey the visionary of how an institution needs to change its strategies to survive and grow, to his/her workforce.(Bottomley, et al, 2014) I found NHS has exactly done this duty by changing its mandates and has circulated it to the workers.

Talent Management

Talent management is a key process of running a proper HR management system by selecting best quality of talent to yield best outcome. The model of talent management is manifold but the common process is a cyclic one and it is a key duty of HRM. First planning is needed like any other process and after planning as key step of recruitment attracting proper talent is required. From a pool of talented mind proper selection of best persons is needed. After selection, training is required to develop. After training, the talented and trained mind should be boosted up by encouragement and then by promotion and appraisal to keep him/her in the organisation. As a cyclic process the trained experienced person should then harvest their skills and knowledge to other people. In healthcare sectors like NHS a frequently encounter talent management is High Impact Talent Management Model. In this models the key features are, acquisition of talent by recruitment, management of performance by setting the target goals, management and succession planning, development of leadership by caching and mentoring. The NHS has acquired several strategies to develop the talent management process. They have made provision for potential persons from the outside to fulfil the leadership needs. For the working managers training sessions like Management Training Scheme (MTS) has also been arranged. Persons from different ethnicity are now frequently encouraged to join the institute. It is worth to mention here, the current scenario of COVID-19 needs a thorough talent management skill. Therefore they have declared a number of new schemes of recruitment of doctors, nurses and other allied professionals. In this regard, overseas persons with good skill are also under process of hiring. (NHS Employers)

Here it is worth to mention that, conflict in any sector decrease work flow and here line managers takes a prominent role in conflict management. In other words conflict management is a sub set of people management. (Boxall, et al, 2011) Conflict arises among health care workers, between the subordinate and his/her supervisor. These cause needs to be minimised beforehand, but if not possible then the line managers need to proceed quickly towards amicable solutions. Hutchinson et al have discussed the role of HRM in NHS suffers during conflict due to heavy workload and stress using a detailed case study model. They have concluded that these problems can be circumvented by clarifying the expectations from job, developing training strategies and designing better HR policies that can be grasped by ward mangers and they can implement it properly (Hutchinson, et al, 2010). In the general hospital under current study it was found that, conflicts arose due to insufficiency of nurses and they found to be under stress due to higher workload. This problem partially supressed the outcome of treatment. It is therefore required to get proper talent management to get most efficient work-force. Therefore the line managers continuously helped the system by providing caregivers and asked the nursing staffs to train them and make them work. This strategy was found to be very effective and the conflicts were found to be mitigated after 5-6 days.

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Recommendations

From the above stated primary and secondary research outcome it can be concluded that, at the current scenario of COVID-19 the key management plans and models are very much effective. Therefore, proper implementation of them by the state and NHS has been very much effective.

The key challenges associated with COVID-19 is, it is a very rapid spreading disease and the planning strategies need to be very careful and super effective without any dangerous flaw. Therefore very careful review of previous and current scenario is required and the people management problems should be handled with much more professional and personal care.

These plans the finance of the NHS should be managed in most appropriate way for the period of 5 years to get best outcome. In another strategy, 29 different areas were chosen (from about 269) which will pilot new models called Vanguard. This plan includes to mitigate the challenge that NHS is facing day by day while improving the care delivery system. (Ham, et al, 2015; Ham, 2017). Under current condition of COVID-19 these plans has shown positive effects for instant critical care of pandemic.

Another key problem is supply of workforce. This need to be circumvented by incorporating more volunteers in the service. The line managers can do the job while staying at home with the help of professional electronic media.

References

Adair, J., 2011. Effective Leadership (New Revised Edition): How To Be a Successful Leader. Pan Macmillan.

Boella, M.J. and Goss-Turner, S., 2019. Human resource management in the hospitality industry: A guide to best practice. Routledge.

Bottomley, K., Burgess, S. and Fox III, M., 2014. Are the behaviors of transformational leaders impacting organizations? A study of transformational leadership. International Management Review, 10(1), pp.5-9.

Boxall, P. and Purcell, J., 2011. Strategy and human resource management. Macmillan International Higher Education.

Braithwaite, Jeffrey. "A lasting legacy from Tony Blair? NHS culture change." Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 104, no. 2 (2011): 87-89.

Gianni, M., Gotzamani, K. and Tsiotras, G., 2017. Multiple perspectives on integrated management systems and corporate sustainability performance. Journal of Cleaner Production, 168, pp.1297-1311.

Ham, C., 2017. Next steps on the NHS five year forward view.

Ham, C. and Murray, R., 2015. Implementing the NHS five year forward view: aligning policies with the plan. London: King's Fund.

Hutchinson, S. and Purcell, J., 2010. Managing ward managers for roles in HRM in the NHS: overworked and under‐resourced. Human Resource Management Journal, 20(4), pp.357-374.

Jackson, S.E., Schuler, R.S. and Jiang, K., 2014. An aspirational framework for strategic human resource management. The academy of management annals, 8(1), pp.1-56.

Mahase, E., 2020. Covid-19: medical students to be employed by NHS as part of epidemic response.

Majeed, A., Allwood, D., Foley, K. and Bindman, A., 2018. Healthcare outcomes and quality in the NHS: how do we compare and how might the NHS improve?. Bmj, 362, p.k3036.

Martin, G.P., Sutton, E., Willars, J. and Dixon-Woods, M., 2013. Frameworks for change in healthcare organisations: a formative evaluation of the NHS change model. Health services management research, 26(2-3), pp.65-75.

McDermott, A.M., Keating, M.A., Hyde, P., Sparrow, P., Boaden, R. and Harris, C., 2013. High performance HRM: NHS employee perspectives. Journal of health organization and management.

Pollock, A.M. and Price, D., 2011. How the secretary of state for health proposes to abolish the NHS in England. BMJ, 342.

Stone, R.J. and Stone, R.J., 2013. Managing human resources. Wiley.

Storey, J. and Holti, R., 2013. Towards a New Model of Leadership for the NHS.

management styles—antecedent or antidote?. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 22(4), pp.395-423.