Take forward your human resource agenda: manage performance and reward

Examines managing performance as an integrated, dynamic process, involving strategic decisions, people value, management of change and communication. Concludes that it is better to be a learning company than an excellent company, as this leads to commitment to employee development, which in turn leads to managing human resources effectively, therefore managing their reward and performance.     

Quality management of human resources. Providers should begin by focusing on education, performance management, and reward systems

For a quality management transformation to occur, a healthcare organization must focus on education and development, performance management, and recognition and reward systems during the first years of implementation. Education and development are perhaps the most important human resource management functions when implementing quality management principles and processes because behavioral changes will be required at all organizational levels. Specific programs that support an organization's quality management effort will vary but should include the conceptual, cultural, and technical aspects of quality management. The essence of quality management is to always satisfy the customer and to continuously improve the services and products the organization offers. The approach to performance management should therefore rely on customer feedback and satisfaction. An organization committed to quality management should base its performance management approach on customer orientation, process improvement, employee involvement, decision making with data, and continuous improvement. Managers and trustees are being challenged to provide innovative recognition and reward systems that reinforce the values and behaviors consistent with quality management. Such systems must also be aligned with the behaviors and outcomes that support the philosophy, mission, and values of the Catholic healthcare ministry. The following components should be considered for a recognition and reward system: base pay, incentives, benefits, and nonmonetary rewards.     

Fifty-two effective, inexpensive ways to reward and recognize hospital employees

Effective reward and recognition programs are important in order to retain well qualified hospital employees and actively engage them in satisfying patients, managing scarce resources, and improving performance. The rewards and recognition bestowed may be modest in scale but must be symbolic of genuine caring and appreciation by management. This article outlines a number of reward and recognition tactics that can be used singly or in combination to begin demonstrating management's commitment to improving employee satisfaction.     

浅谈绩效考评工具

绩效考评工具在整个人力资源管理与考评系统中处于核心地位。科学的绩效考评工具应具有工作分析、考评工具的信度、效度3个必要的、不可缺的基本特征。绩效考评工具主要包括特征导向、结果导向和行为导向3种。开发绩效考评工具应针对企事业单位的实际情况；针对不同领域、不同层次的员工开发出以工作分析为基础、信度和效度良好、实用性强的绩效考评工具，从而发挥绩效考评的作用；对员工的工作进行开发和指导，以提高员工的业绩和对工作的成就感、满意度。     

工作嵌入、组织承诺对儿科医务人员工作绩效影响的路径分析

目的:探讨儿科医务人员工作嵌入、组织承诺与工作绩效的关系,为医院管理者提高儿科医务人员的工作绩效提供参考。方法:采用分层随机抽样的方法,对某市三级甲等儿童医院194名医务人员进行问卷调查。结果:儿科医务人员的工作绩效得分为(141.38±13.77)分,路径分析结果显示组织承诺对工作绩效有直接正向影响,工作嵌入对工作绩效既有直接又有间接正向影响。结论:医院管理者应“以人为本”,给予儿科医务人员充分的组织支持,使儿科医务人员保持稳定且较高的工作绩效水平。     

Implementing performance management in the Irish Health Sector

To realize the goals of successive health strategies, managers in the Irish Health Sector will have to proactively facilitate optimal employee performance in line with policy objectives. Along with developing employee and teams' capabilities, these managers have begun to implement performance management to achieve the latter. However, there typically are a variety of foundational organizational characteristics required for the successful implementation of performance management. These include providing top-down support for line management buy-in, providing ongoing managerial and performance management training so that trusting relationships and a culture of consensus and cooperation are developed, and appropriately managing expectations. Agreement on employee role definitions and provision of team-based conflict resolution training is also needed to facilitate performance management. There is a need for negotiated performance indicators that are of various types, specific, measurable, and aligned with strategy objectives. Associated reward systems need to be holistic and imaginative, and personal development plans need to have a broader focus than merely improving current job skills and performance. Performance review needs to be ongoing, conducted in a transparent manner, and allocated sufficient discussion time. Managers also need to be mindful of managing overperformance.     

The language of mentoring in a health care environment

In this article, 4 models were tested on the relations among mentoring, job expectations, job reward value, job involvement, and organizational commitment of hospital nurses. In the model with the best fit to the data, mentoring and job expectations were positively related to job reward value. Organizational commitment and job involvement were increased by job reward value. A direct effect on organizational commitment was found for mentor assistance in learning skills. Specific methods used by mentors to convey supportive communication to their protégés included encouraging them to do their best, helping them gain additional training, providing support and encouragement when others criticize, helping deal with jealousy, and providing protégés with needed information. Nurse mentors were admired for standing up to administration and for challenging unfair decisions, thoughtless actions, and lack of respect on the part of administrators, doctors, and patients. Nurses indicated that working hard and not having anyone notice, being frequently criticized and rarely rewarded, and being exposed to serious diseases were particularly challenging and stressful aspects of nursing. Implications of this study for nurses and those working in health care environments are that mentoring and organizational commitment may be avenues for increasing the degree to which nurses feel that their job is rewarding.     

A multi-level performance appraisal tool: transition from the traditional to a CQI approach

The commitment of many health care organizations to CQI calls for the introduction of tools, principles, and procedures to ensure that the performance improvement in all parts of the organization is initiated. In order to determine whether the desired performance standards are indeed being achieved on all organizational levels, it is necessary to apply a holistic performance appraisal tool that would allow for an assessment of the company's progress from multiple dimensions. This article details the design of the multilevel appraisal model, explicates where the evaluation errors may occur, and presents managerial implications for successful implementation of this evaluation tool.     

The Language of Mentoring in a Health Care Environment

In this article, 4 models were tested on the relations among mentoring, job expectations, job reward value, job involvement, and organizational commitment of hospital nurses. In the model with the best fit to the data, mentoring and job expectations were positively related to job reward value. Organizational commitment and job involvement were increased by job reward value. A direct effect on organizational commitment was found for mentor assistance in learning skills. Specific methods used by mentors to convey supportive communication to their prob5gCs included encouraging them to do their best, helping them gain additional training, providing support and encouragement when others criticize, helping deal with jealousy, and providing proteges with needed information. Nurse mentors were admired for standing up to administration and for challenging unfair decisions, thoughtless actions, and lack of respect on the part of administrators, doctors, and patients. Nurses indicated that working hard and not having anyone notice, being frequently criticized and rarely rewarded, and being exposed to serious diseases were particularly challenging and stressful aspects of nursing. Implications of this study for nurses and those working in health care environments are that mentoring and organizational commitment may be avenues for increasing the degree to which nurses feel that their job is rewarding.     

A systematic review of effort‐reward imbalance among health workers

The purpose of this article is to systematically collate effort‐reward imbalance (ERI) rates among health workers internationally and to assess gender differences. The effort‐reward (ER) ratio ranges quite widely from 0.47 up to 1.32 and the ERI rate from 3.5% to 80.7%. Many studies suggested that health workers contribute more than they are rewarded, especially in Japan, Vietnam, Greece, and Germany—with ERI rates of 57.1%, 32.3%, 80.7%, and 22.8% to 27.6%, respectively. Institutions can utilize systems such as the new appraisal and reward system, which is based on performance rather than the traditional system, seniority, which creates a more competitive working climate and generates insecurity. Additionally, an increased workload and short stay patients are realities for workers in a health care environment, while the structure of human resources for health care remains inadequate. Gender differences within the ER ratio can be explained by the continued impact of traditional gender roles on attitudes and motivations that place more pressure to succeed for men rather than for women. This systematic review provides some valued evidence for public health strategies to improve the ER balance among health workers in general as well as between genders in particular. An innovative approach for managing human resources for health care is necessary to motivate and value contributions made by health workers.     

Many large medical groups will need to acquire new skills and tools to be ready for payment reform

Federal and state policy makers are now experimenting with programs that hold health systems accountable for delivering care under predetermined budgets to help control health care spending. To assess how well prepared medical groups are to participate in these arrangements, we surveyed twenty-one large, multispecialty groups. We evaluated their participation in risk contracts such as capitation and the degree of operational support associated with these arrangements. On average, about 25?percent of the surveyed groups' patient care revenue stemmed from global capitation contracts and 9?percent from partial capitation or shared risk contracts. Groups with a larger share of revenue from risk contracts were more likely than others to have salaried physicians, advanced data management capabilities, preferred relationships with efficient specialists, and formal programs to coordinate care for high-risk patients. Our findings suggest that medical groups that lack risk contracting experience may need to develop new competencies and infrastructure to successfully navigate federal payment reform programs, including information systems that track performance and support clinicians in delivering good care; physician-level reward systems that are aligned with organizational goals; sound physician leadership; and an organizational commitment to supporting performance improvement. The difficulty of implementing these changes in complex health care organizations should not be underestimated.     

Focusing on the software of managing health workers: what can we learn from high commitment management practices?

Knowledge of what constitutes best practice in human resource management (HRM) in public‐oriented services is limited and the operational aspects of managing health workers at provision level have been poorly studied. The magnet hospital concept offers some insights into HRM practices that are leading to high commitment. These have been shown to lead to superior performance in not only industrial business firms, but also service industries and the public service. The mechanisms that drive these practices include positive psychological links between managers and staff, organizational commitment and trust. Conditions for successful high commitment management (HiCoM) include health service managers with a strong vision and able to transmit this vision to their staff, appropriate decision spaces for healthcare managers and a pool of reasonable well‐trained health workers. For this, adequate remuneration is the first condition. Equally important are the issues of cultural fit and of ‘commitment’. What would staff expect from management in return for their commitment to the organization? Salary buys indeed time of employees, but other practices ensure their commitment. Only if these drivers are understood will managers be able to make their HRM practices more responsive to the needs and expectations of the health workers. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Gaining and maintaining commitment to large-scale change in healthcare organizations.

Healthcare administrators have sought to improve the quality of healthcare services by using organizational change as a lever. Unfortunately, evaluations of organizational change efforts in areas such as total quality management (TQM), continuous quality improvement (CQI), and organizational restructuring have indicated that these change programmes have not fulfilled their promise in improving service delivery. Furthermore, there are no easy answers as to why so many large-scale change programmes are unsuccessful. The aim of this analysis is to provide insights into practices that may be utilized to improve the chances of successful change management. It is proposed that in order to effect change, implementers must first gain commitment to the change. This is done by ensuring organizational readiness for change, surfacing dissatisfaction with the present state, communicating a clear vision of the proposed change, promoting participation in the change effort, and developing a clear and consistent communication plan. However gaining commitment is not enough. Many change programmes have been initially perceived as being successful but long-term success has been elusive. Therefore, maintaining commitment during the uncertainty associated with the transition period is imperative. This can be done by successfully managing the transition using action steps such as consolidating change using feedback mechanisms and making the change a permanent part of the organization's culture.     

Emotional structure and commitment: implications for health care management

PURPOSE: This paper aims to determine if the emotional structure of direct healthcare workers was related to their commitment to the organization. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: A total of 105 direct healthcare workers completed self-report surveys to determine their emotional intelligence, emotional coping ability, and affective organizational commitment. Pearson Product Moment Correlation and independent sample t tests were used to analyze the data. FINDINGS: A significant correlation was found between emotional intelligence, emotional coping ability, and organizational commitment. In addition, emotional intellect served as a moderating variable between coping ability and commitment such that those direct care workers who exhibited higher emotional coping abilities were more committed when emotional intelligence was high rather than low. RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS: This was an exploratory study. Larger sample sizes across multiple healthcare settings should be examined before definitive inferences should be drawn. Future studies should likely introduce other variables such as satisfaction, effort, and even performance appraisals to delineate causal relationships. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: It appears that personality constructs such as emotional intelligence and coping ability could possibly be used as predictive instruments to determine who might be most successful in operating in the highly emotionally charged environment of healthcare. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: This is the first study that examined the constructs of emotional intellect and coping ability and organizational commitment using a direct healthcare worker sample. It provides support for the conjecture that interpersonal emotional dynamics are critical in emotionally charged environments. This knowledge could assist healthcare managers in addressing the shortage and attrition rates associated with many direct healthcare fields.     

浅析桂林市卫生系统人力资源管理现状与思考

分析了现阶段桂林市医院人力资源管理在旧体制行政约束下存在的6个问题:医疗资源过剩;人才流失严重;人事管理模式陈旧;职称晋升非学术化;薪酬机制缺乏有效的激励作用;缺乏有效的绩效评估体系。提出了改进人力资源管理的思考:人事管理工作应向人力资源开发和管理转变;加强在职员工的技术人才培养;建立科学合理的激励机制;建立正确合理的绩效考核评价体系;建立有效完善的绩效薪酬分配制度。     

医院行政后勤岗位绩效考核的实践探索

医院行政后勤科室作为医院管理的关键岗位,其绩效考核一直是医院实施绩效考核的难点。以岗位管理为导向,以工作标准为考核依据,建立起＂岗、责、编、绩、酬对应管理＂与＂日常KPI综合目标考核＂相结合的医院行政后勤岗位绩效考核体系,为医院内部分配提供了依据,使绩效管理转化为医院发展的内在驱动器。     

基于委托代理关系的公立医院院长激励约束机制研究

只有把代理人的贡献程度和其报酬结合起来,把医院的社会目标和医院院长的个人目标联系在一起,通过对院长行为和绩效的度量,并实施有效的激励和约束,才能有利于解决代理问题。通过对我国公立医院院长激励机制现状的分析,在全面绩效评价的基础上,提出具体的激励和约束办法。     

Making culture a forethought. What to do when strategy meets organizational culture

Organizational culture is a key ingredient in successfully managing monumental strategic change initiatives. Those who are successful in managing change are actively integrating organizational culture into their total planning process. Organizational cultures should be a forethought in the management of the change process. Managers should give the same care and thoroughness to culture that they allot to the other major aspects of a plan. The culture of any organization in the midst of rapid change will not tolerate an information vacuum. People affected by change want to be able to ask questions and be heard. Communication should be interactive. Create opportunities that allow people at all levels of the organization to close the past. Without closure, some of the best people may feel that the organization has betrayed them. Creating a process that allows people to work through the change and motivating people to reinvent their approach and role in the new ways of doing things is what healthcare leadership in the 1990s is all about. It is part of the critical skill set that is necessary to lead Catholic-sponsored health services into the future.     

Compensation in the year 2000: pay for performance?

Notes the attempts by many companies today to identify innovative compensation strategies that are directly linked to improving organizational performance. Observes that there are many approaches to incentive compensation such as cash bonuses, stock purchase and profit sharing. Examines the individual and group incentive concepts that reward performance based on predetermined organizational goals and metrics, several behavioural theories that can be associated with reward and compensation, and convergent and divergent views and conclusions from the business community.     

Performance appraisal systems in health care administration

The application of performance appraisal systems to personnel administration represents an important development in health care administration. As health care administrators seek to more effectively manage their resources, performance appraisal systems offer the opportunity to reward and improve productivity by identifying behavioral performance criteria and relating them to promotion, retention, and evaluation systems.