HR Issue Paper

Trang Carnes

I. Issue

Today, the healthcare industry’s most pressing problem is employee turnover, and it’s the only issue
Mrs. Bardwell has mentioned in the HR professional paper. The biggest issues are the structural and
regulatory changes in the healthcare industry and spending cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, as well as
the Affordable Care Act. The whole effort was unsuccessful and continues to stress out employees and
affects how businesses operate. Healthcare providers are unable to predict the future business outlook.
Therefore, they’re trying to develop employee retention and other similar programs to reduce the high
cost of employee turnover. Mrs. Bardwell recommended three solutions and examines it through seven
SHRM articles (I label the numbers 1-7 in the Works Cited section).

II. Summary

The first solution is to involve staff in the recruitment process by referring good quality people to
apply and reward them with a bonus if hired. This solution is connected by two SHRM articles -
numbers 4 and 5.

Article 4 is about employee referral programs. Current employees might have a connection with the
candidates through a strong professional network, and it’s the quickest way to find external talent. The
role of an HR professional is crafting and implementing a successful referral program, but at the same
time, they need to consider some drawbacks that are due to legal and global issues. Legal issues are
dealing with selecting people from different national origins, race, religion, etc. While managing this
program, managers need to craft a strategy to avoid unintentional discrimination and promote fairness
by not showing favoritism to a certain group of employees and evaluating all the potential candidates
through the same qualification criteria. While dealing with global issues, HR professionals need to
consider global practices across borders. HR professionals then can decide to use centralized or
decentralized business practices to best suit the structure in that location.

Article 5 is about how to get more people to use your employee referral program. Employers tend to
refer candidates through referral programs versus candidates who apply through a career website.
Recruiters can get more recommendations for candidates through employees because he/she knows
exactly the qualifications that the company is looking for. This program has been proven to lower the
total cost of the recruiting process by tapping into a large, qualified labor pool of passive candidates who
aren’t seriously looking for another new job but potentially could be a better fit for the position.
However, most of the employers don’t always run the program effectively, and there are three
fundamentals to alleviate this matter. First, employers need to keep employees and candidates
informed because the number one reason that makes employees get frustrated is a lack of
communication and engagement through employer-employee relationships. Employers need to provide
updates frequently through company platforms or social media, so all the employees can share the
information with others. Second, they should empower their employees with Know-How because often-
times employees have no idea of what positions are open. Experts recommend that recruiters should be
inviting the division staff to meetings to talk about the positions and qualifications they’re looking for
from future candidates. They should also encourage employee referrals. Finally, the employers should
offer rewards in the form of cash or non-cash options that will encourage employees to participate in
their referral program.

The second solution is to ask that everyone help with welcoming the new employees and making sure
they get adjusted to the workplace. This solution relates to 2 SHRM articles - numbers 6 and 7.

Article 6 is about managing the employee onboarding and assimilation process. Onboarding is an
extended role of the HR profession after the hiring process. Onboarding is a new employee orientation
to acquire the necessary skills and knowledge to become a valuable member within the organization. It
provides new hires a chance to learn about company culture, understand its vision, its mission, and its
core values. Many new hires are not truly clear, from the first day, about their career mission and how
to meet the company’s expectations. Besides a copy of the employee handbook, HR can find an
effective way to make the new member feel truly welcome by introducing them to the new team. They
can also boost the team confidence by showing that the new hire is there to contribute to the success of
everybody, not threatening everyone’s jobs. Also, HR needs to prepare to answer new hire questions
and help them to get clarification on their performance roles/duty, assign them work with more
experienced co-workers as their mentor, and using a variety of metrics to rate their performance.

Article 7 is about don’t underestimate the importance of good onboarding. Onboarding plays an
important role for employee retention, because it’s a unique opportunity for employers to win the heart
of the new hire, boost their confidence, and motivate them to become active and participate. Managers
need to ensure that new employees have a successful onboarding program so the employer-employee
relationship would start off on the right foot. First impressions could make new hire decide to stay
engaged or become disengaged in their careers.

The last solution is involving the employee in retention by asking for and incorporating their ideas.
This solution connects 3 SHRM articles - numbers 1, 2, and 3.

Article 1 is about the data that will show you why your employees leave or stay. Being understandable
about retention and turnover is the first step for HR professionals to improve retention and to keep
quality talent by figuring out where the problem areas are. This is achieved by calculating employee
retention and turnover rate. Once a manager figures out their retention and turnover rate, it’s time for
them to analyze the results and determine why valuable employees are leaving. Managers can then
craft and implement a plan to increase employee retention.

Article 3 is about helping employees move up in their careers to drive down turnover. Top performers
decide to leave because they feel that their internal mobility career isn’t going as planned, and with the
shortage of the labor force today, keeping them seems like a nearly impossible task. Employer should
keep in mind is that employee turnover would cost them millions or even billions of dollars annually. HR
can defend against turnover and keep the staff happy through open and proactive communication such
as Helping Employee Chart Career Paths and Institute Stay Interview. HR could take advantage of this
opportunity by asking employees how the company can better support them and help them to search
for roles that deliver growth potential. After listening to the employee feedback, the manager can act to
improve the employee experience and to make it become a place where people enjoy working.

Article 2 is about managing for employee retention. Basically, this article is the combination of articles 1
and 3. Throughout the article it provides some top techniques of managing for employee retention
including:

 Drivers of Employee Retention and Turnover-to figure out all sorts of reasons that make
employees decide to quit their job.
 Key Retention Strategies and Best Practices-to develop and implement broad-base and target
strategies.
 Implementation- by having an HR professional that is educated about employee motivation,
retention strategies, benchmarking, and best-practices research.

III. Proposal Summary

This proposal is aimed at the causes of employee turnover in the healthcare industry. In this paper, I
provided the overview of the healthcare workforce issue, and brought up resolutions through different
research articles of SHRM. The three resolutions were provided by Mrs. Bardwell at Genesis Healthcare.
If employers want to recruit and retain top performers, there are a few recommendations: 1) raise the
hourly wage, 2) flexible work schedule and steady income, 3) improve insurance benefits, 4) develop
career advancement.
 Works Cited

1. Data Will Show You Why Your Employees Leave or Stay.

https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/data-retention-turnover-
hr.aspx

2. Managing for Employee Retention.

https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-
samples/toolkits/pages/managingforemployeeretention.aspx

3. Help Employees Move Up in Their Careers to Drive Down Turnover

https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/help-employees-move-up-
career-pathing-drive-down-turnover.aspx

4. Designing and Managing Successful Employee Referral Programs

https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/toolkits/pages/tk-
designingandmanagingsuccessfulemployeereferralprograms.aspx

5. How to Get More People to Use Your Employee Referral Program

https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/employee-referral-
programs.aspx

6. Managing the Employee Onboarding and Assimilation Process

https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-
samples/toolkits/pages/onboardingandassimilationprocess.aspx

7. Don't Underestimate the Importance of Good Onboarding

https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/dont-underestimate-the-
importance-of-effective-onboarding.aspx