Questions and Answers of Human Resources Management

Mr. Jones and Ms. Meyers were employed by Lester& Meyer, PLLC, the only law firm in a small town in Oregon. After working on an employment class-action suit under FLSA for several years, Mr. Jones
While this chapter discussed the many benefits of diversity, an alternative view suggests that no empirical evidence exists that a diverse workforce has a positive effect on organizational
Respond to this statement: Diverse leadership is a competitive advantage.What is the most compelling business argument for or against diverse leadership teams?
What are the legal, moral, and ethical consequences that prohibit hospitals from turning away patients based on race?
Why are there are no such consequences to patients who demand doctors, nurses, or workers of a specific race to administer their healthcare?
Can hospitals that adhere to gender- or race-based patient demands face discrimination lawsuits from their employees?
When an employer denies an employee(or a group of employees) his or her full employment opportunity based on the racial bias of customers, is the employer violating the employee’s civil rights?
Does workforce diversity enhance organizational performance? Explain your answer.
Can an internal diversity program support an organization’s overall mission and vision? How?
Why should healthcare executives conduct a job analysis? What purpose does it serve?
What are job descriptions and job specifications? What is their relationship to job analysis? What will happen if a healthcare organization decides not to use any job descriptions at all?
Consider the position of the registered nurse in a large hospital. Which of the eight methods of job analysis will you use to collect data on this position, and why?
Describe the steps involved in the job analysis process.
How can the existence of a highquality job analysis make a particular human resources function, such as employee selection, less legally vulnerable?
Are healthcare jobs static, or do they change over time? What may cause a job to change over time? What implications does this change have for job analysis?
Describe and discuss future-oriented job analysis and generic job analysis. How may each be used to help healthcare executives cope with a rapidly changing and competitive environment? What are some
What are the advantages and disadvantages of using multiskilled health practitioners?
Access information on work teams at www.workteams.unt.edu. What types of work teams are most appropriate for achieving which objectives in the healthcare industry? Cite at least one successful team
Form a team with four fellow students to make a 30-minute class presentation on this topic: the future of job analysis in the healthcare industry. All the work on this challenging project must be
Form a team of four or five fellow students. As a group, select one healthcare job (e.g., registered nurse, physical therapist, receptionist) with which all of the team members have some familiarity.
You are a student in a master’s in health administration program and have recently started your internship in a large, urban health system. Your preceptor has asked you to write a job description
Given two equally qualified job applicants—one from inside and one from outside the organization—how would you go about deciding which one to hire?
For various reasons, some healthcare organizations are unable to pay market rates for certain positions. What advice do you give such an organization about possible recruitment and retention
The use of work references is increasingly viewed as unreliable. How can employers legally and ethically obtain information about an applicant’s past performance? What measures can be taken to
What are the advantages and disadvantages of recruiting through the Internet? What advice do you give to a hospital that is considering using the Internet for recruitment?
This case was developed in collaboration with Caroline LeGarde, Operations Project Administrator, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland Grayson County Regional Health Center is a private,
Using the ADDIE model discussed in this chapter, design a training program that addresses the customer service expectations of walk-in patients in the emergency department. Include an evaluation
Your healthcare facility assigned you to explore succession planning as a possible strategy for organizational sustainability. What will you do? To help you with this assignment,a. research two other
Describe an example of a successful new-employee orientation. Why are both employee needs and organizational needs important to consider?
Why is it important to engage senior management early on in the process when preparing for a learning initiative?
Argosy Medical Center, a 400-bed critical care facility located in the Northeast, has been in operation for more than 18 years. Its mission statement is to provide quality healthcare services with
Health Valley Hospital provides comprehensive services, including cancer, heart, trauma, and emergency services. It has 2,300 full-time employees. For eight years, Health Valley has had a
This case was adapted from Giangregorio, L., P. Fisher, A. Papaioannou, and J. D. Adachi.2007. “Osteoporosis Knowledge and Information Needs in Healthcare Professionals Caring for Patients with
What is the distinction between performance appraisal and performance management?
Why does the Joint Commission now require hospitals and other healthcare organizations to have a performance management system?
What is the relationship between performance management and continuous quality improvement?
What are the advantages and disadvantages to including discussions of compensation during a performance management interview?
What is the difference between performance appraisal rating errors and political factors that influence the accuracy of performance appraisal information?
How does a manager decide how often to conduct formal performance management interviews?
Why is employee participation in the performance management process important? Under what circumstances is employee participation not necessarily important?
Summit River Nursing Home (SRNH) is a 60-bed nursing home that serves a suburban community in the Midwest. The facility provides a broad range of services to residents, including recreational
Assume you are a manager at a low budget healthcare setting (e.g., local health department). What will you do to recruit new staff and to motivate current employees when competitors in the area are
Assume that you are a staff nurse in a hospital that uses an incentive compensation system. Do you have an obligation to disclose the nature of the compensation arrangement to patients? If so, how
Regardless of your personal feelings about pay for performance, what cautions will you communicate to a team that is designing an incentive system in a healthcare organization?
How will you design a team-based compensation system such that free riders (or “loafers”) on the team cannot take advantage of the system?
How can job evaluation procedures be used to determine if a healthcare organization is undercompensating its female employees?
What effect has managed care had on designing physician compensation models?
What are the likely roles for capitation and fee-for-service reimbursement in the future?
For a four-person surgical group, what kind of formula may be devised to fairly and consistently measure and reward productivity? What changes may be needed if one surgeon decides to perform more
Mapleton Family Medicine is a physician group practice located in a small city (population 150,000) in the Midwest. Mapleton is an eight-physician practice, consisting of family physicians,
What is the policy of the organization on compensating employees at market rates? Is there an explicit policy to pay below market, at market, or above market? Does the approach vary by the type of
Does the organization have a specific strategy for attracting, recruiting, and retaining employees in difficult-to-fill positions? If so, for which positions has this been an issue? What strategies
How does the organization evaluate jobs—that is, how does it “price” jobs?Does it conduct a formal job evaluation process? If so, how often and under what circumstances? Are there certain jobs
Does the organization face any of the following problems? If so, how does the organization address them?• Wage compression• Employees “topping out” of their salary range• High prevalence of
Describe the concept of total compensation. Why is it important?
How did the Social Security Act change the way retirement benefits were viewed?
In designing a benefits plan, what are the most important considerations for an employer?
Some industries are cutting back on benefits because of globalization and global competitiveness. Will globalization affect benefits offered in healthcare organizations, or is the benefits structure
Employers are finding it more difficult to support health insurance coverage as a benefit as it has become more costly than the tax savings for offering it. Is employer-based health insurance on its
The purpose of this exercise is to give readers an opportunity to analyze the benefits provided by a healthcare organization. Visit the human resources department of a local hospital, and answer the
What is the public’s perception of healthcare institutions as being in a perpetual state of disaster preparedness? How does this view differ from the number of injuries and illnesses reported in
What are the three factors that influence the workplace health and wellness of employees?
In addition to workplace preparedness, what other types of preparedness efforts can be promoted at healthcare institutions?
The surrounding community of Hospital A has just experienced a debilitating ice storm, with loss of power expected for the next five to seven days. Employees at Hospital A are showing up for work,
Many of the maintenance staff (who are mostly male) at Hospital B are experiencing back injuries that have caused a shortage of technicians on any given shift. Hospital B recently began staff
Hospital C has made the decision to create a facility emergency plan. Management is considering three options to pursue this decision:(1) Have the hospital’s safety officer write the plan.(2) Form
Hospital D has added a new process to its operations. The hospital has an excellent health and safety record, but its safety officer has just retired. Three weeks after the new process is
Why should management have a policy on unionism? What purpose does such a policy serve?
Describe the three phases of the labor relations process. Why are all phases equally important?
What are some of the behaviors that may indicate to managers that organizing activities are occurring?
Explain the potential far-reaching impact of the NLRB ruling on nursing supervisors. Will this ruling have a chilling effect on nursing unions?
The CEO of a mid-size urban hospital was late one Friday evening, so he took a short cut that caused him to walk by the employee lounge. He walked inside and shook his head. With all the problems of
This interview was conducted on May 25, 2004, with the cochair of the nurses’ union at a large, urban hospital in the northeast.She has more than 20 years' experience as a nurse and definitely
What are the various elements that compose nurse workload?
How is nurse workload related to nurse staffing?
What critical data are necessary to assemble before calculating nurse staffing needs?
How is organizational philosophy reflected in the measurement of nurse workload?
What other workforce issues may affect nurse staffing? How and why do these issues relate to nurse staffing and workload?
Jack Needleman and colleagues examine different nurse staffing arrangements in their 2006 Health Affairs article entitled “Nurse Staffing in Hospitals: Is There a Business Case for Quality?” (see
The Joint Commission’s staffing effectiveness standard defines staffing effectiveness as “the number, competency, and skill mix of staff in relation to the provision of needed care and
Susan Moore is the nurse manager in charge of a 25-bed medical unit at St. Eligius Hospital. She is currently preparing the nurse staffing plan for the next fiscal year. Hospital management has
What is a labor budget, and why is it important in human resources management?
What are the benefits and drawbacks of using nonstandard employees, standard employees, and outsourced staff?
What are some of the reasons that certain staff members may be more productive than others?
Define the following terms:• Full-time equivalent• Labor budget• Acuity level• Productive hours• Down time
What is meant by the term benchmarking, and why is it important in human resources management?
Explain why the revenue side of the budget is just as important as the cost side when it comes to determining the quantity and quality of human resources.
Meet with the chief financial officer of a local healthcare organization. Conduct an interview to determine what financial metrics (e.g., hours per unit of services, hours per billable test) are used
Mr. Richards is the department manager for speech pathology services at ABC Hospital. The average productivity per visit at the department is 0.75 hours per procedure.Questions1. Based on one FTE
XYZ Hospital is a community hospital that is not part of a larger healthcare system. This acute care hospital has 160 beds and 348 employees. Benefits and employee pay account for 30 percent of the
Why is customer service important to healthcare organizations? What are the negative implications of failing to address this issue?
Think about your own experience or that of a family member in receiving healthcare services. To what degree was the healthcare provider customeroriented?Why? What lessons can you derive from that
Describe one HR practice that can enhance customer service in healthcare. How will you implement it, and what problems do you anticipate? If successfully implemented, what positive outcomes will you
If you were the CEO of a healthcare organization that is not customeroriented, how will you change the culture? What are the potential obstacles, and how will you overcome them? Provide a
Robert Casey received his master’s in health administration from a major healthcare management program ten years ago. Through a series of increasingly responsible positions in various healthcare
Form a group of three to five students in your class. Each student in each group should share with the group one example of poor customer service. Then the group will question that student concerning
Consider Quint Studer’s nine principles of customer service (discussed in this chapter). Give examples of how your own service encounters (in healthcare or outside healthcare)illustrate any three
Which of the specific environmental and organizational HR challenges identified in this chapter will be most important in healthcare in the next 20 years? Use your own experience in your answer.
Most HR executives in healthcare do not have a major responsibility for achieving top management priorities such as improving productivity, quality of care, cost containment, customer service, and
For the past 20 years, Metropolitan Hospital celebrated the fact that 50 percent of its new hires in management positions had been women. The hospital assumed that with such a practice, women would

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