The WEF (World Economic Forum) and other experts state that managing productivity will be a key challenge for organizations in the coming decade. I have addressed this in numerous posts.
It is critical that HR professionals in the healthcare field manage strategies that can positively impact the bottom line and positively impact employee satisfaction. Again, this can be done and it is one of the reasons why productivity management belongs in HR. It is part of the high performance mandate for HR to become “the in-house experts in the management and utilization of human resources”.
Goals for high-performance HR departments
While these goals won’t take you the whole way, they are a good place to start.
- If the facility has a productivity reporting system, take ownership or partner with the owners. If the facility does not have such a system, HR will create it.
- Become the “in-house expert” on productivity. Develop strategies to impact productivity positively without negatively affecting employee satisfaction.
- Teach productivity management and improvement techniques to line managers.
- Lead by example. Analyze the core HR functions and determine whether outsourcing any of these could result in better results in terms of cost or quality.
- Institute strong position control by making productivity performance an integral part of the position approval process.
- Implement a program to listen to employees and elicit their feedback and input. Go beyond a passive program and actively and formally obtain their comments, concerns and suggestions.
- Repurpose the training function from Staff Development to Staffing Effectiveness. Focus on outcomes, not process.
- Teach flow-charting skills to line managers and participate in flow-charting key work processes. Identify opportunities for improvement.
- Develop at least one individual and one team-based recognition based upon achieving results in cost or cycle time reduction.
- Make heroes of employees who positively impact cost or quality via creative communication strategies.
Show your abilities
Each one of these goals has been addressed in a previous post. I did not include the links to each article, but there is a post that provides more detail for each goal.
When HR becomes involved in the bottom line issues of cost and quality their knowledge of human relations, motivation, etc. should provide a positive impact. HR gets a seat at the table when they demonstrate that they can impact the real world issues of the managers and positively affect quality and profitability.
