Human Resources Issues In Nursing

Human Resource Issues in Nursing

Lulu

[Institutional Affiliation(s)]

Author Note

Challenges to Nursing HR

Human Resource Issues in Nursing

There is no doubt that the nature of the work of healthcare is about handling a tremendous amount of pressure. This is since their line of work is about directly saving human lives. Another bad news for the professionals of healthcare is that their pressure will increase tenfold soon as evidenced by the study of the recent trends and studies. But one might ask what is the role of Human Resource in these recent pressure trends that are rising in the profession of healthcare.

The first issue that the human resource in healthcare is facing is the shortage of staff. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has projected that there will room for at least one million nurses by the year 2022 CITATION Gra16 \l 1033 (Grant, 2016). Several factors have steadily contributed to the problem. First, there is a healthy increase in the number of babies being born in the US. This has added a tremendous amount of workload on the nurses, who claim that they are not being paid well. The result is that they are leaving the workforce which is creating an acute shortage. In addition to this problem is the limited amount of nursing programs in the country that are not training nurses fast enough to fit the demand crisis in the healthcare profession. Another factor that contributes to the problem is the priorities of the millennial workforce, that has aged enough to fit the demand in this profession. They do not find this area of working as attractive enough, which creates more desperation for human resources in healthcare.

The second issue that is worth discussing here is the turnover rates in the hospitals and clinics. The latter is trying hard to retain their employees as more employees are leaving the professional due to their dissatisfaction. Over the years, this problem is growing. In 2018, the average turnover for hospitals has increased dramatically CITATION Lis19 \l 1033 (Lisa M. Haddad, 2019). This increase in turnover has been costing the hospitals a hefty sum. Again, there are multiple factors involved in this problem. One of them is the same as mentioned in the above paragraph: Millennials. When they do not receive what they think that they should get, they simply leave. Another and bigger factor that adds to this problem is the role of supervisors. According to the CEO of the American Organization of Nurse Executives, or AONE, Maureen Swick, nurses leave their professional due to the lack of cooperation of their managers or supervisor CITATION AHA17 \l 1033 (AHA, 2017). Furthermore, they believe that their supervisors are not helpful enough when it comes to mentoring them in this profession.

This brings us to the last issue that is faced by human resources in this profession. Many of the professions of this field are looking for learning new skills and gain access to advanced technologies used in their field CITATION Kar17 \l 1033 (Karin Danielsson, 2017). This area can prove to be the Achilles' Heel of the human resource in healthcare, as it will require both time and dollars, lots of them. But in the end, one might ask what will it be worth it? Training employees is an investment that many avoid taking. This is since many employees may choose to leave their employer to join other ones, or simply leave the profession altogether. To avoid this many employers will have to work on their retention policy to "safeguard their investments".

In short, we can see that the medical field can be difficult and stressful. Therefore, it is only natural that the people managing it are stressed out as well. For this whole profession to work smoothly, the nurses and the human resource need to work together as a team and help each other in increasing the quality of patient healthcare which is their combined goal.

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY AHA. (2017, February 28). How Hospitals Are Reinventing HR Approaches. Hospitals and Health Networks. Retrieved from https://www.hhnmag.com/articles/8101-how-hospitals-are-reinventing-hr-approaches

Grant, R. (2016, February 3). The U.S. Is Running Out of Nurses. The Atlantic. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/02/nursing-shortage/459741/

Karin Danielsson, H. L. (2017). Digital technology in healthcare and elderly care. School of ComputingFaculty Of Computing, Eng. & Built Env., 188-190. DOI:10.1145/3121283.3121425

Lisa M. Haddad, T. J.-B. (2019). Nursing Shortage. National Center for Biotechnology Information. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK493175/