Employee Recruitment and Selection in Health Care Organizations

Section 1: Introduction

The primary intent of this paper is to examine the concept of employee recruitment and selection in healthcare organizations. In the past few decades, scholars and researchers have developed theories of employee motivation, recruitment, and retention in organizations. Other scholars have focused on examining the new models in the recruitment and retention of workers in large and multinational corporations. However, there is insufficient literature that explores the process of employee selection recruitment and retention in the healthcare organizations. Therefore, there is a need to examine the process of recruitment and retention in these healthcare organizations. This information is crucial in determining the factors that will minimize the cases of employee turnover, training costs and increase efficiency in the production process. The long-run effect will be positive in that the retained workers will improve their professional skills hence enhancing their ability to deliver quality services. In turn, the customers (who are the patients in this case) will become more satisfied with the services they get from these healthcare organizations.

Section 2: Significance of the Topic

This topic will have a profound impact on expounding on the existing literature on issues relating to employee selection, recruitment, and retention in healthcare organizations. The text will cover the essential aspects of the employment status of healthcare workers. In the healthcare industry, nurses are the most affected employees. The level of burnout and hence employee turnover is among these healthcare workers. Therefore, there is a need to examine the concept of employee recruitment and retention in the healthcare industry. This paper will assess and explore the theories of motivation and worker satisfaction as a way of solving the issues affecting the process of recruitment and retention in the healthcare industry. The policymakers and other affected stakeholders will use this information to formulate effective and fair strategies that lower the level of burnout, increase worker motivation and ensure job satisfaction among healthcare employees.

Section 3: Literature Review

According to Ritchie, Ashworth, and Bades (2018), managing nursing professionals calls for sophisticated management and high-level leadership. In their study, these authors examined the effect of different strategies of selection and recruitment on the district nurses’ will to apply for SPQDN education program as well as their satisfaction from interviews. The findings of this study show that the traditional approach to interviews discouraged many district nurses. In this case, the traditional approach to interviewing involved seated panels that ask questions and expect answers from the candidate. The results showed that most of the nursing candidates were discouraged to not only attend the interview but also apply for the same program. Therefore, these scholars identified a new framework of National Values Based (NVB) selection criteria. This framework involved categorizing participants into groups, encouraging debates and group discussions as well as short interviews and written exercises. In this way, the evaluators were able to motivate more nurses to apply and participate in the selection and recruitment process. The NVB framework gave the evaluators a deeper insight into the applicant’s values and skills. Similarly, the results of the NVB framework showed increased candidate satisfaction with interviews and the whole recruitment and selection process.

McCord (2018) explains the process that leads to an adequate selection and recruitment criteria. According to this author, the essential element to consider in hiring is skill-job matches. That is, the hiring manager should ensure that he/she selects the most skillful individuals for the job that matches the skills. The HR manager must then consider some factors in hiring the experienced individuals. One of these factors is how the HR treats the candidates. McCord (2018) advice that HR managers should view candidates as business partners. For instance, in the healthcare industry, the hiring officer should see nurses applying for positions in the health organizations as partners with a sole aim of providing the best and quality services to the patients. The author also recommends that organizations should set competitive compensation plans but these salaries must make sense to the hiring firm.

Wolgast and Bjorklund (2017) conducted a study on the effects of structured selection on the effects of the selection and recruitment process in firms. The authors found that increasing the structures in the selection process decreased cases of favoritism, racial/ethnic discrimination and overall optimal recruitment of individuals who best matches the needed skills. In this way, these authors recommend that the selection and recruitment process should involve predetermined structures that encourage candidates to apply and subsequently ensure fairness and transparency in the recruitment and retention process.

Conclusion

At this end, it is possible to conclude that hiring in healthcare organizations requires partial, moderate and sometimes complete restructuring of the existing selection and recruitment frameworks. One of the most useful frameworks is ensuring high levels of satisfaction among candidates and efficiency in the selection process is the NVB. Knowledge borrowed from McCord (2018) and Wolgast and Bjorklund (2017) can be used along with the NVB model to enhance the effectiveness, fairness, and transparency of the hiring process in healthcare settings. Therefore, policymakers should consider adopting these models while making decisions regarding employee selection, recruitment, and retention in the healthcare industry.