Irish Health Service Human Resource Management

Irish Health Service Human Resource Management



Irish Health Service Human Resource Management

Introduction

The human resources crisis in the health sector in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is receiving increased global attention. Policymakers and planners are realising that it is simply not possible to achieve the Millennium Development Goals if health workers' availability and performance are not addressed more effectively. Poor performance leads to inappropriate care, which contributes to reduced health outcomes, as people do not use services or are mistreated when they do. Problems relating to health workers' poor performance have been documented in various articles and reports but there is a dearth of evidence on 'what works' to improve health worker performance. Moreover, evidence on effectiveness of Human Resource Management (HRM) interventions is essential, but not sufficient to assist policy makers and planners in LMIC to identify appropriate interventions to improve the performance of professional health workers in their own countries. They also need an understanding of the context within which the reported interventions produced positive outcomes as well as an insight in their mechanisms (how they worked).

Guest's model of HRM

David Guest's (1997) model of HRM has 6 dimensions of analysis:

HRM strategy

HRM practices

HRM outcomes

Behaviour outcomes

Performance outcomes

Financial outcomes

The model is prescriptive in the sense that it is based on the assumption that HRM is distinctively different from traditional personnel management (rooted in strategic management, etc.). It is idealistic, implicitly embodying the belief that fundamental elements of the HRM approach (essentially those of the Harvard map) such as commitment have a direct relationship with valued business consequences. However, Guest has acknowledged that the concept of commitment is 'messy' and that the relationship between commitment and high performance is (or, perhaps, was - given the age of this material) difficult to establish. It also employs a 'flow' approach, seeing strategy underpinning practice, leading to a variety of desired outcomes.

In all industries and companies, human capital is still the most essential and critical part of the system. The goals of all organizations are achieved or not mostly based on the crew. Therefore, organizations always have the desire to get and keep good people. Dealing with people is one of the most complicated tasks that require exceptional leading and managing skills. That is why the human resource department was born. The ultimate mission of human resource department is to strengthen the internal power of the company by seeking, retaining and motivating employees to obtain the mutual goals of the organizations. Let us have a look at one practical illustration in reality.

Harvard Model

The Harvard model (Beer, Spector, Lawrence, Quin Mills and Walton, 1984) works as a strategic map to guide all managers in their relations with employees and concentrates on the human or soft aspect of HRM. It strives at employee commitment (Wood, 1995) not control. It also works on the premise that employees needed to be congruent, competent and cost effective.

Human resource flows into the organisation are used for recruitment, selection; through the organisation, placement, promotion, out of the organisation ...