The County General Hospital
The County General Hospital is a small 200 bed-facility 150 miles outside of Chicago. Due to its location and low pay to the new nurses, it suffers from high turnover among the nursing staff. As new employees’ training is expensive and time-consuming, it has an adverse effect on the organization. This case study will examine the existing HR strategy pursued by the County General Hospital and discuss applicable programs for the turnover reduction in the organization.
Currently, the County General Hospital has an ineffective HR Strategy due to the turnover rates among nurses reaching almost 100%. It can be argued that the Bargain Laborer strategy is utilized in the hospital (Stewart & Brown, 2019). There is a low emphasis on high performer retention, and most of the hired nurses are recent graduates with no ties to the community. Although moderate turnover is tolerable when the Bargain Laborer strategy is employed, in this case, it cannot be justified due to the extraordinarily high rates (Stewart & Brown, 2019).
Cost leadership strategy is utilized as the hospital offers low wages, which it cannot increase due to external factors, including the Medicaid program and insurance policies. Furthermore, the labor orientation is external because the organization is willing to hire new employees to fulfill its needs, while the current workers’ needs are not fulfilled (Stewart & Brown, 2019). Overall, high turnover indicates a need for replacing the county General Hospital’s HR strategy.
Considering the organization’s HR strategy and the hospital’s inability to secure a meaningful raise in pay, other programs for reducing turnover must be examined. The best approach would be to use the Loyal Soldier HR strategy to promote loyalty to the organization (Stewart & Brown, 2019). Thus, a program for embedding staff into the local community should be developed. The program can include several approaches for promoting young nurses’ interest in the town’s life.
The hospital can offer its assistance to local charities and voluntary organizations to build stronger community relations and offer new employees a chance to participate in local society. The organization can also offer memberships in various interest groups and sports teams to promote staff involvement. Thus, a comprehensive program for embedding nurses into the community will affect turnover.
A program for increasing loyalty to the County General Hospital itself will also improve retention rates. The hospital can implement a mentor program for new nursing practitioners to promote better integration into the organization. Mentors selected from the pool of long-term workers can be tasked with easing employees’ transition into the routine of working in the hospital, their team, and the community. Research shows that collegial support and encouragement can lower turnover rates among staff (Ten Hoeve et al., 2020). Moreover, the hospital should review its scheduling policy to ensure new nurses work in the same teams to promote embeddedness into the collective. Similar schedules and days off can also contribute to the new staff socializing outside of work. Overall, promoting loyalty to the hospital is imperative for reducing turnover.
In summary, the County General Hospital’s HR strategy needs to be reviewed to include programs for new employees’ community and organization embeddedness. The reduction of turnover will result in financial savings for the hospital as there will be no need to advertise new positions. The long-term staff will also benefit from the lack of necessity of training new employees every six months. Low turnover will also result in better patient care due to more experienced nursing staff. Overall, utilizing a new HR strategy to promote staff retention via community and organization integration programs will be highly beneficial for all stakeholders.
Performance Evaluation
Performance evaluation is a vital part of the work of any organization. It allows to discover low and high performers, and improve employees’ individual and overall organizational performances (Stewart & Brown, 2019). As accurate evaluation can increase the company’s productivity, it is essential to develop an efficient assessment process. This case study will discuss the format and tools used for appraising workers, steps for providing regular feedback, and rater error prevention measures.
There is a vast number of tools that can be implemented to keep track of employees’ performance. Self-assessment tools (SAT) can be used for personnel to provide an appraisal of their accomplishments. According to Etalong (2020), SATs help staff to develop their professional skill set and better understand their work expectations and how they affect their performance. Management by objectives (MBO) can also be utilized to assess the workers and their ability to reach their goals. MBO is highly objective and helps to prevent rater bias (Islami et al., 2018). Combining these two tools will result in a more comprehensive and unbiased evaluation.
Moreover, it is important to ensure that all employees receive feedback from their appraisals to modify their performance. The following steps can be used to guarantee all staff members are aware of their evaluation results. First, assessments should be scheduled at the beginning of the year to ensure that every person is appraised. Second, the feedback meetings should be arranged within two weeks after the review. Third, personnel must be informed about the feedback meeting in advance so that these discussions do not interrupt the company’s day-to-day workflow.
For a midsize company of 300 employees, the narrative format is the most appropriate. This format will allow the human resource manager to collect accurate and individualized performance reports for each member of staff (Stewart & Brown, 2019). Narrative evaluations are also better suited for providing meaningful feedback to workers and can contribute to improving organizational performance (Stewart & Brown, 2019). This format will be implemented to ensure accurate and personalized reviews.
Rater errors can substantially impact appraisals and lead to inaccurate results. Several strategies can be applied to avoid such mistakes, including blind assessments, frame-of-reference training, and performance journals. The HR manager can evaluate employees by reading coded reports from their direct supervisors to avoid the halo effect of allowing general impressions of the workers to impact the assessment (Stewart & Brown, 2019).
According to Sharma and Sharma (2017), supervisors’ cognitive ability to recall the performances of all personnel over a long period of time can be highly subjective, leading to observational and rater errors. Therefore, it is recommended to implement evaluation journals, where the performance and behaviors of the staff are recorded and documented to avoid recall bias. Finally, to prevent primacy errors, frame-of-reference training should be offered to all HR managers (Stewart & Brown, 2019). Deciding a standard frame of reference for assessing each of the company’s departments will contribute to a more accurate and unbiased appraisal. Using the three suggested strategies can improve the review process and provide staff with impartial and helpful feedback.
In summary, regular evaluation is key for improving the individual and collective performance of employees. In a midsize company, appraisals can be completed using the narrative format or such tools as SATs and MBO. All assessments must be scheduled 12 months ahead, and feedback delivered within two weeks of each review. Strategies to avoid rater error should also be employed, including blind evaluations, developing standard frames of reference for each department, and keeping performance records.
References
Etalong, T. A. (2020). Self assessment tools (SAT) as one of the basic tools for performance management: A critique. Journal of Economics, Management and Trade, 26(11), 1–10. Web.
Islami, X., Mulolli, E., & Mustafa, N. (2018). Using management by objectives as a performance appraisal tool for employee satisfaction. Future Business Journal, 4(1), 94–108. Web.
Sharma, A., & Sharma, T. (2017). HR analytics and performance appraisal system: A conceptual framework for employee performance improvement. Management Research Review, 40(6), 684–697. Web.
Stewart, G. L., & Brown, K. G. (2019). Human resource management (4th ed.). Wiley Global Education.
Ten Hoeve, Y., Brouwer, J., & Kunnen, S. (2020). Turnover prevention: The direct and indirect association between organizational job stressors, negative emotions and professional commitment in novice nurses. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 76(3), 836–845. Web.