Healthcare organizations have significantly evolved over the last few years with respect to their desire to innovate and offer better experiences, better manage risks and operate more efficiently as a business.
Amid this transformation and the evolving needs of a multigenerational, diverse workforce, the industry is facing unique people-related risks and challenges.
This, in turn, is empowering HR executives to act more and more like business leaders and perform beyond the role of a business partner.
The HR function is striving to build a positive employee experience from hire to retire in order to nurture the right culture to drive patient satisfaction and profitability. Organizations are benefiting by using technology and analytics to attract, retain and develop a competent and engaged workforce.
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Every healthcare organization will have a different starting point and definitions of success in the short term.
The following activities should be part of HR’s strategic planning process:
- Develop a challenging yet realistic plan to move toward automated, standardized processes across the hire-to-retire life cycle, driving consistency across the organization especially in the areas of credentialing and licensing.
- Leverage management dashboards and advanced analytics to make workforce planning and talent development more predictive and insight-driven.
- Redefine employer brands and targeted recruiting strategies tied directly to the operational priorities and staffing challenges of the organization.
- Formalize and standardize the employee on-boarding/off-boarding experiences to go beyond compliance to an integrated culture experience.
- Collaborate with other functions, especially IT, finance and marketing, to develop strong, cross-functional, full life cycle processes and governance, ensuring a positive employee experience.
- Track employee engagement in real time to help make timely business and people decisions.
- Implement effective employee and manager self-service functionalities that align with the work styles of current demographics of various working groups.
- Use case-tracking and management tools to administer and automate employee leaves and time tracking.
- Optimize program, technology platform and administrative structure reporting for decision-makers for budgeting, retention and recruiting.
- Establish robust frameworks and innovative strategies to identify, reward and retain high-potential employees.
Overall, an emphasis on automation, data transparency and analytics will help build a positive employee experience from hire to retire.
Organizations will need to be mindful and purposeful about data definitions, sourcing, analysis and application at a high, strategic level as well as at a tactical, bottom-up level.
Lastly, understanding the cross-functional impact of an HR strategy including implications for technology, finance, marketing and operations is essential to the development of a robust HR transformation road map.