Challenges Of Recruiting And Retaining Healthcare Professionals In Europe

Select an organisation or industry as the case study for your report. Identify some of the key challenges for recruiting the workforce for this organisation/industry, and recommend strategies to address these challenges. Your report should make reference to factors such as labour supply/demand, organisational image, demographic issues (such as an ageing workforce, generations, diversity etc), as well as recruitment strategies such as employer branding and types of advertising.

Inadequacies in Human Workforce in the Healthcare Industry

The recruiting and retention process for health professionals should be everyone’s priority; every single one of us is probably a patient somewhere in their particular lives. Patients ought to be given access to quality healthcare given by an adequately qualified staff. Additionally, healthcare professionals deserve working in an adequately supported condition, with employee degrees that ensure safety as well as quality healthcare. Most European states indicate challenges in the retention as well as the recruiting of healthcare professionals with growing deficiencies estimated in future (Merrifield, 2015). This report focuses mainly on the problems that recruitment of healthcare officials face in Europe. Despite the countries in Europe being very developed, there are many challenges even arising from the development itself. Those involved in the recruitment should create ways to deal with these. For this paper, we are going to expound more on the challenges in the sector and which solutions analysts and government officials have brought forward (British Medical Association, 2015).

The coming days for healthcare depend on the staff quality. This point alone brings about a substantial difficulty as well as a chance for the sector leaders. It is very apparent that the influx of workforce in the past might not even satisfy the future needs. Payments are attributed to client/patient satisfaction as well as a significant quality, inadequacies in professionals to care for a growing population, and growing cost of living, healthcare companies require talent which could properly, and adapt at a quick rate (Imison & Bohmer, 2013).

Health care companies ought to employ staff with not just the normal requirements but more, degrees and certifications. In this present age, health care officials have to identify, enhance and provide staff with better capabilities that are not taught in school as well as not required to prosper in the basic, result based system. This advanced need allows healthcare staff brings about a large lead by efficiently creating and maintaining the ability of their protégés (Jaques, 2013).

Feedback on recruitment and retention issues shows immense variation between nations. High-income countries, such as the U.S, Australia, the Nordic countries, Australia and the UK have a history going back to the 19^th century of efforts to address the large-scale recruitment due to limitations in recruiting enough nurses and consultant doctors to meet their current and future healthcare needs (Kaffash, 2013). Other countries such as Hungary, Lithuania, the Czech Republic and South Africa have been more vigilant in increasing staff retention, mainly to stop losing many professionals to brain drain (Kaffash, 2013).

Demographic Issues in the Healthcare Industry

The challenges will be discussed under the following concepts:

The initial challenge encountered by the healthcare sector is inadequacies in the human workforce. According to a survey carried out in 2015 by The Healthcare Recruiting Trends, it concludes that in the next ten years, the U.S. will potentially face a lower level of not only basic care but also experienced medical practitioners to cater for its growing population. This problem may have caused private and public industry healthcare officials to enhance viable solutions to bring about new and maintain the qualified workforce in the health care sector.

It is no secret that with the introduction of the Affordable Care Act, the human resources industry has been faced with a challenge due to the introduction of a universal coverage in health care and an increase in costs which is coupled with an increase in average life expectancy. There has been a storm in the healthcare industry in that, demand for health care services have increased and will continue to increase as identified by Cocca (2015). Due to the fact that legislation, as well as demographics, has led to an increase in access to healthcare, no effort has been to increase the number of expatriates in the industry to cater for the increased demand for health care services. The number of professionals has remained stagnant since the introduction of the Affordable Care Act, and no one has been seen to care about such. It is an advantage to have increased access to healthcare but, the quality of care matters. It would be of no use to have access to poor quality of care as it could translate to even more problems than having no access at all.  The demand for health care services and insufficient workforce has created a skills gap which has made the tech sector that is constantly faced by the same seem even more manageable when compared.  

This issue can be solved by having the ability to pull much more potential staff in order to have a larger and stronger talent pool, establishing employer loyalty, advertising more about the organization, instead of the available job role and also finding potential employees through online hiring computer applications or any staff sourcing sites on the web. One might also hire foreigners as staff to build up talent pool.

With globalization on the rise, there has been an influx of racial and ethnic diversity in the healthcare industry. Other forms of demographic issues include an ageing workforce and generations. According to Cohen, Gabriel, and Terrell (2003), a diverse healthcare workforce is necessary to enhance healthcare access for the marginalized in the society, and to encourage research in areas that have been neglected and to equip managers with the necessary skills to meet the growing demand for healthcare services. Recruiting people from diverse backgrounds has been a challenge in the healthcare industry due to issues like a language barrier. Some healthcare specialists have the necessary skills but recruiting individuals, for instance, who cannot speak English is a challenge even if one has the required skills.

Recruitment Strategies in the Healthcare Industry

According to a report by Tio (2014), the health care industry will experience an increase of patients. It is said that baby boomers will have a longer life than the preceding generations because of more advanced technologies and treatments (Tio, 2014). When the baby boomers retire, the current workforce shortage will even worsen. The change in patients and health care professionals’ demographics will result in a generational gap between the ageing individuals and young practitioners which will, in turn, affect the quality of care delivered. The main challenge that healthcare industry faces is to recruit and develop a workforce that will fit in the diverse demographics. The present generations are the traditionalists, Generation X, baby boomers and the millennials. Each of these generations has different perspectives of life, beliefs, values and life experiences as well as differences in how they communicate. Other factors of workforce diversity include gender, religion, and social status, among others. Managing this diversity can cost the health care industry if not properly managed. High dissatisfaction by healthcare professionals is likely to be experienced. Costs of recruitment will be high due to poor management of diversity as noted by Tio (2014).

Healthcare organizations should, first of all, acknowledge the demographic differences and come up with effective strategies to manage them. Effective management of demographic differences will enable healthcare organizations to realize their goals and achieve their outcome while attracting and maintaining the best talent pool. Hospital managers should come up with programs aimed at acquiring and retaining demographically diverse employees. They should focus on strengthening the leadership skills of their employees to foster understanding and sensitivity (Toi, 2014).     

Recruitment strategies play a significant role in attracting the best workforce. Healthcare organizations with the best strategies are likely to acquire and retain employees. When it comes to recruitment strategies, employer branding and advertising come in handy. According to Mosseyelde (2014), employer branding refers to the promotion of an organization as the best recruiter to a particular group.  The process helps organizations to attract, recruit and retain the required employees, and helps companies to achieve their goals. According to Wimmers (2009), job advertising is one of the most regarded methods of recruitment. There has been an influx of recruitment websites in the recent years. Employers have been trying to reach out to potential employees through all sorts of media, including newspapers, magazines, and televisions, among others.  The challenge in the healthcare industry, however, is an understanding of how employees perceive the job adverts. According to Arachchige and Robertson (2011), employer branding plays a crucial role in how potential candidates perceive recruitment advertising.   

Attracting and Retaining the Best Talent

Effective recruitment strategies include the creation of a particular career site for the healthcare professionals. As suggested by Barnes (2016), the websites should be broken down into specialty so that an individual searching for jobs can o straight to his profession and field of expertise. Social media is where most people spend most of their time. Recruitment advertising done through social media has been proved to be effective in attracting a diverse pool of talent.

In an economy which has plenty of capital, ideas are generated fast, and individuals are always ready to shift jobs. In this case, the essential asset in an organization is human capital and the expertise that the firm's workforce has. A survey reported by Cable and Turban (2003) revealed that several companies do not have sufficient human capital which hinders their growth. The challenge then becomes how to attract the best talent available. The research by Cable and Turban (2003) identified that potential candidates are attracted to jobs in companies that have a positive reputation. The health care industry has been faced with how to keep their employees comfortable while at the same time, delivering quality services and meeting service demand. The high competition for human capital has led several health care organizations to raise payment packages and thus raising expenses. It has been difficult for hospitals to balance good working conditions, excellent salaries and profits. Working overtime is a common practice in the healthcare industry which further discourages talented job seekers. According to Smith (2003), it can cost a healthcare organization up to $190,000 to replace a nursing specialist. The mitigation strategies for this challenge should be aimed at maintaining employees by having excellent benefits packages.

As proposed by Smith (2003), one of the steps to overcome this challenge is by providing humane working conditions for the current and potential candidates. According to Keogh (2013), creating a healthy working environment starts at the top, and it is not a responsibility that can be delegated. The healthcare organizations should consider their employees as assets that need to be taken care of. The relationship between employees and their managers, matters. One of the key reasons for employees' high turnover is the relationship with their superiors. This calls for hospitals to establish stringent rules to ensure there is an understanding between employees and their supervisors. Healthcare professionals are among the most important people in all industries. The lives of many people lie on their hands. Understanding their needs is, therefore, paramount.  In addition, companies ought to create an engagement culture. Even those that are greatly motivated staff could affect a company’s success in case they are not involved in stuff by the leader and encouraged to make viable decisions and enable the invention. Sad and dissatisfied staffers not only reduced how productive those around him are; they could also cost a company millions in case they decide to leave the company. Most importantly, with a rise in the consolidation of the hospital and the purchase of physician practices, hospital must: Involve new staff members from the beginning of hiring to enable them to feel important and valued at the hospital, aid those new employees adapt to the company and create support strategies for the newly employed physicians.

Conclusion

Healthcare industry is a very sensitive sector. The challenges discussed need to be addressed in a more organized manner. Poor management of demographic diversity results in high costs of recruitment, training and retaining an employee in the healthcare industry. As discussed, the cost of replacing a healthcare professional is expensive compared to other industries. Implementation of the strategies discussed will minimize these challenges.

References

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