Training Program Proposal
Training is an essential part of customer satisfaction since better-equipped employees would give better services to the customers. The world population has become a consumer of health care, which is considered one of the major necessities for human survival and well-being. This paper aims to develop a training program proposal for the healthcare organization, including company policies, performance, and expectations. Patient confidentiality is also essential, and it would be taken into consideration while formulating the training program. Best practices for employee and customer satisfaction and compliance with employment laws would be discussed in further sections of this paper.
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New Employee Orientation
New employee orientation is necessary since it helps the new hires become familiar with the organizational culture and the job duties for effective healthcare service delivery. Job-skill training, performance management, and career planning would be included to comply with the company policies. The new workers know how and when to perform in certain situations (Flynn et al., 2015, p. 17). The expectations in healthcare are high since risks are high. Consumer’s life risks are dependable on the performance of these employees. Hence, awareness about the benchmarks and best practices is mandatory.
Orientation about the procedures and systems that work within the organization should be made known to the onboarding workers so that re-employed, transferred, or even promoted staff should be familiar with the functionalities. In delivering standard quality healthcare services to the patients, it is necessary to know about the patient’s privacy and safety regulations within the healthcare units. OSHA and HIPAA guidelines would be included in the training sessions. Moreover, the training sessions would emphasize building relationships with co-workers, providing job information, social acceptance within the new working environment, and smooth integration within the organization’s healthcare system (Flynn et al., 2015, p. 199).
When training would be conducted for new employees, thorough dissemination of information about the workplace code of conduct, handling of internet and patient’s private information, and related discipline policies, such as the prohibition of violence or sexual harassment would be ascertained (Flynn et al., 2015, p. 253). Healthcare employees are sometimes required to sign and acknowledge the handbook given to them to read all the rules and policies of the workplace and certify that they know and follow those instructions in the future.
The healthcare organization must consider that when new employees are recruited, they belong to diverse backgrounds and have various skills that should be suitable for departments and units of the organization. These skills should be properly channelized in the right direction, and for that, purposeful changes should be made with the training sessions. Addressing the recruits’ diversity and emotional intelligence needs are momentous for the healthcare industry so that the right talents should be utilized for this profession, and the best healthcare services are provided to the patients. Designing of faultless training plans is noteworthy for the deliverance of quality healthcare service.
Organization mission
A hospital’s mission statement depicts its values and ethics in providing healthcare services to the community. Its role towards humanity and inherent responsibilities are portrayed in its mission. These values should be transferred to the recruits during the employee orientation programs to know what they are becoming a part of. They should teach those model principles in their daily work routines to deliver patient safety and quality healthcare service. The following is the healthcare organization’s proposed mission statement that will be taught to the new employees during organizational orientation. They should be well familiarized with the organization’s values that are highlighted in this mission statement.
“The organization aims at providing the best consumer health care service delivery for the patients of all kinds. Achieving business excellence by assisting the psychological, social, and spiritual well-being of the consumers regardless of race, age, ethnicity, or gender would be the main emphasis of the healthcare institute. The use of innovative technology, for both training work staff and provision of medical services, is ensured so that leading position in the healthcare market is sustained and meeting current and future needs of medical science. Constant quality improvement, for maintaining service standards and employee safety is prioritized, so that customer satisfaction and employee engagement are certified.”
Vision
The vision is the broader perspective of the mission that the hospital would be following. The principles and strategies involved in the accomplishment of the mission are cited in the vision statement. Good practices are observed with an ethical culture, and each individual connected with this profession must be aware so that service quality is delivered in line with human dignity. The following is the proposed vision statement for the healthcare organization instilled within the new employees during their orientation session. It would help establish a favorable firm impression on the recruits.
“The organization envisions providing unprecedented healthcare services to the patients at reduced costs by an uncompromised quality, employee safety, and customer satisfaction.”
Summary of the strategic plan
After considering the struggle towards achieving the mission and vision or the organization, there would be a need to determine effective staffing levels. For this, the organization would assess what activities are currently being done by how many staff members, what roles and responsibilities are being fulfilled, and whether there is overtime completed by employees so that new hires could be taken in for reduction of this workload (Flynn et al., 2015, p. 48). The benchmark for productivity would be analyzed, such as reliability in safety measures, staffing, and competencies on workable structure within the organization. Some of the benchmarks for hospital productivity can include direct care hours (hours spent on observing the patients, diagnosing and their treatments, etc.), productivity hours (hours spent in direct care along with management), education and orientation hours (these can be identified as production or non-productive hours based on the organization’s priority), non-productive hours (vacations, sick leaves, etc.) and total paid hours (Compass Clinical Consulting, n.a.).
Employee training and development for anticipating and meeting the organization’s current and future needs is crucial since it would be setting a baseline for retaining current employees and improving their skills that are vital for healthcare. There are certain best practices for employee training and development, such as devising training programs for each employee different learning style (Becker’s Hospital Review, 2012). Employees belong to multilingual and multicultural populations these days; hence, comprehension of information at equal levels of the hierarchy plays a role in effective training (Flynn et al., 2015, p. 53). Making programs interactive by using quizzes and group work can be beneficial for retaining information among the employees. Integration of computer-based learning cannot be ignored since, in today’s technological advanced times, healthcare has made leaps in medical progress. Computer-based training would be best suited for this purpose. Personalizing information, even if it is related to training, can reap great benefits for the organization; for instance, compliance training data can be stored within documents following the policies and procedures to be specified for this intention only. Ensuring that the training reflects a change in skills and improvement in service delivery should be impactful. Amidst all of these practices, it is imperative to notice employees’ demands as they have several responsibilities towards the patients. In the end, evaluation of the training sessions would be pivotal for estimating how resourceful the training proved to be in quality improvement and customer satisfaction.
The summary of the strategic plan includes classroom sessions for the new trainees as well as the managers, which are as follows:
Internal training: Internal training can be organized depending upon the budget of the organization. These training can include informal training, classroom session, case studies, audio-visual aids, simulations, role play, and skill practice and skills demonstration sessions. On-the-job training is also necessary since it is the most commonly used training method for healthcare organizations where employees learn essential job duties and actions for the medical providers to patients (Flynn et al., 2015, p. 202). In-house training can be broadly given in a classroom or workshop-style teaching settings (The Health Foundation, 2012).
E-learning: Online methods are useful for distance learning when cost-saving and access to numerous employees are indispensable (Flynn et al., 2015, p. 204). Healthcare employees can use computers or television to conduct classes online where the trainers can promptly answer questions of the trainees. If the budget allows, mobile phones can be made for training where employees can access instruction manuals for hardware and software equipment. Blended learning that and e-learning methods can be useful for health professionals for producing positive results in patient health outcomes (Lawn, Zhi & Morello, 2017)
Simulations: Simulations can be computer-based; however, it would be beneficial if employees are trained on mannequins that also work as computerized patients for accurate skill practice (Flynn et al., 2015, p. 204). Medical simulation is proved to produce positive results in employee training compared to apprentice-style training (Al-Elq, 2010).
Safety training would also be provided to the employees so that their working at the healthcare facility is made safe. Organizational orientation would also cover patient rights and general safety guidelines for the employees to make these perspectives clear in the workers’ minds that both the employee and patient safety prioritized by the organization. It is not only required by the healthcare organization but also by the law. Once the workplace safety guidelines are clarified for all employees, performance and efficiency would be increased automatically. Consequently, if accidents do not take due to observance of the safety instructions and precautions, then costs would be reduced across the organization. The relationship between the healthcare employees and the organization would be strengthened since the workers would know that the hospital supports a safety policy for safeguarding its employees against misfortunes.
Legal Compliance Training for All Employees
Training for employees and the healthcare organization’s management is mandatory since legal compliance would guarantee the best of healthcare service delivery to the consumers.
Legal compliance training for managers
All the top managers would be required to treat their workers with equal employment opportunities (EEO) regulations so that no discrimination with relevance to race, sex, disability, or ethnicity is observed (US Department of Labor, n.a.). The managers would be implied to keep written EEO policy statements for their healthcare organization following the federal and state laws (Flynn et al., 2015, p. 68). These policies’ communication would be ensured throughout the organization via the intranet, newsletters, bulletin boards, etc. Local or state agencies can also refer to the EEO records formulated by the healthcare organization, and the managers would do this formulation. These records should be openly visible to employees as well.
Human resource information systems (HRISs) are widely used in healthcare organizations to keep track of employees’ time records, automation of payroll and benefits compilations (Flynn et al., 2015, p. 53). These systems should be protected by security and privacy in compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Training for managers would be organized for providing knowledge on employee privacy reasons and compliance to legal laws. Their private background information would be stored in HRISs; however, the training sessions would ensure that this information is not leaked as each employee is an asset for the organization.
In many states, it has been justified that the employees’ rejection of working in an unsafe workplace. An employee has the right to deny working under hazardous working conditions (Flynn et al., 2015, p. 375). The work refusal procedure can start when the employee observes the working conditions to be unsafe (Ontario.ca, n.a.). If the employee informs the work safety representative of the unsafe place, the officer can shift him to a safer working place or department. The issue can either be resolved then or not resolve if the employee remains unsatisfied. The next phase will continue if the worker still refuses to work under unsafe conditions or contacts the Ministry of Labor (MOL) inspector to investigate workplace safety conditions further. However, certain occupations cannot report such unsafe circumstances, and healthcare workers are included in the list. The healthcare industry has been related to risks and unsafe working conditions from the beginning. When the worker decides to be a part of this industry, they should already be aware of its repercussions.
Legal compliance training for workers
All the workers, other than, managers would be given training for complying with the patient’s rights. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) requires training for the employees by the law to guarantee patient privacy. According to federal and state laws, the employees must understand accurate privacy and security practices within the healthcare organization. Careless handling of Protected Health Information (PHI) of the patients can lead to serious legal actions for the employees and the medical institute. Keeping patient records safe and protecting individual patient information is the priority of the medical staff. The electronically protected information of the patients should be protected by following basic steps like implementing written policies and standards of conduct of the healthcare workplace, the designation of a compliance officer or committee to check if principles are being followed, educate the employees, and communication should be open, conduction of internal auditing and monitoring programs, enforcement of protection standards and maintenance of discipline, detect criminal offense with PHI and taking correction actions against it (The Center for Information Security Awareness, n.a.). Two regulations need to be made known to the employees during organizational orientation under HIPAA law, stating that HIPAA privacy necessitates safeguarding manual and electronic PHI of the patients from an administrative viewpoint and safeguarding the same PHI from precarious events like calamities, hacking and electronic stealing.
Safety Training for All Employees
Safety training would be given to all healthcare organization employees, including workers, safety teams, unit emergency response teams, and the managers. Hospitals are considered the most hazardous places to work for the employees compared to construction or manufacturing (OSHA, n.a.). Several work-related injuries have caused the hospital staff to miss their job workdays from the workplace. Worker’s compensations have been described in the same legal workers’ guidelines like OSHA so that employees who are hurt at their healthcare place; they should be compensated for their losses. When employees miss work due to injuries, the hospitalshave to fill their spaces by backfilling, temporary staffing, and overtime payrolls. It becomes more perilous when an employee is hurt badly in the workplace and has to quit his hospital job. Turnover costs are incurred as it takes money to hire and train other replacements.
Productivity and morale are adversely affected when employees are hurt physically and emotionally. Almost 48 percent of the injuries result from overexertion and body fatigue in hospital jobs (OSHA, n.a.). This directly and negatively affects patient safety. Patients can be at risk of falling, getting bruises on skin infections if employees are not active enough in their caregiving practices.
Management leadership can play an integral role in defining guidelines for safety for the employees. It would be better to encourage employees to give their inputs about the most hazardous parts of their jobs so that management should take action accordingly. For instance, worker participation can be ensured by asking them to report incidents, identify potential hazards daily for routine jobs, tasks, and processes, and coordinate in site inspections and incident inquiries (Hafiz, 2019).
The training aspects would focus on safety assurance for all employees. For that, find and fix the approach would include the involvement of workers who have the best understanding of hazardous conditions and their control. Training would be delivered to review all the available information about hazards. New and emerging hazards and their identifications would be part of the training program. Evaluation of the controls in the hierarchy and how they can play their assigned roles for ensuring workplace safety would be included in the training sessions. Protection plans during an emergency, such as fire and on routine actions and assessing the efficacy of existing controls and their intactness, would also be among the many constituents of the training lessons. Training for refraining from contact with hazardous chemicals, blood-borne pathogens, and compulsion to use personal protective equipment would be included.
Implementation, Time Table, Action Plan
Implementation of the training plan and time table is presented in the table below. The action steps and the relevant time required for each action are mentioned as well.
Step of the training plan
Implementation step
Required period
Step 1
Training needs assessment for new employees
1 month
Step 2
Internal training, e-learning, simulations
1-2 months
Step 3
Legal compliance training for managers
1-2 months
Step 4
Legal compliance training for workers
1-2 months
Step 5
Safety training for all employees
1 month
Disaster Plan, Actions and Assignment of Responsibilities
Training has to be conducted for disaster management, especially in a critical business like that of healthcare. Both internal and external disasters should be addressed within the healthcare organization. Internal disaster can be in the form of fire or chemical hazards. External hazards can be school shootings, terrorist bombings, or natural disasters for which highly trained healthcare workers are in great demand these days (Flynn et al., 2015, p. 368). A disaster preparedness committee should be made for the review of disaster management policies monthly and yearly.
The Joint Commission (JCAHO) has mentioned phases for emergency preparedness as mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery (Flynn et al., 2015, p. 368). Emergency preparedness can include steps mentioned below:
After review of the all-hazards approach, risk assessment and planning should be conducted for risk assessment practice.
When a risk assessment is done, emergency planning needs to be the next critical step, and policies and procedures are mandatory.
Formulation of a communication plan in emergency times for effective patient care is necessary within the state and local healthcare departments and emergency systems.
Testing and training phases become essential after all of the above steps are completed.
The disaster management plan, for both internal and external calamities, can be drafted as follows:
i. Early detection for hazards should be made, and for that, pro-active measures with administrative, legislative, and technical mitigations should be interpreted.
ii. Staying updated with the best practices and recent legal developments for effective emergency response strategies and relief operations.
iii. Developing a disaster committee.
iv. In chemical hazards, fire explosions, or gas explosions, emergency response teams should be activated.
v. Calling for the rescue team and use of personal protective equipment (PPE). Rescue teams can be asked for voluntary help services such as food, water, and extra care. Also, the volunteer reception area would be opened for new incoming volunteers.
vi. The quick medical response team should be made active to reach the incident place as soon as possible.
vii. Effective communication at all levels of hierarchy should be ensured. Even governmental entities should be involved in every possible help in times of crisis response. Communication would be ensured at all times, 24 hours.
viii. Keeping sufficient supplies, first aid kits, and portable lights stored in the emergency department. Sanitation and security services would be increased.
ix. Decontamination and evacuation of the disaster place within the hospital vicinity.
x. Calling the required medical assistance such as ambulance, anesthetist, operational technicians, fire extinguishers (if needed), and drivers.
xi. In the case of external disasters, a great influx of patients affected by external casualties would enter the hospital for receiving medical assistance. For that, extra staff would be required.
xii. Media, police should be informed of the casualty.
xiii. Traffic control within the hospital; premises would be designed to be located in certain areas so that relatives and caretakers should be advised.
xiv. Control room and information centers would be advised to function suitably.
xv. Record maintenance would be secured with double security and attentiveness.
Allocation of responsibilities for the disaster management plan would be done during the preparedness phase. The commanding leader, including director of Healthcare organization, chief operations, logistics, head, administration department personnel, information center work staff, and public health chief officer, would be notified of their respective duties and relevant responsibilities. The other subordinates such as nurses and low-level workers (pharmacy, medical record-holders, housekeeping, kitchen staff, lab attendants, security, ambulance drivers, and medical supplies controllers) would be asked to initiate the management duties such as accommodating the new volunteers, attending the relatives of the injured patients, controlling traffic within the hospitals, provision of additional hospital supplies, water, and food, etc. If an internal disaster occurs, then evacuation has to be initiated so that doctors and patients could be transferred to safe places, and the treatment of hospitalized patients is not discontinued. In case of external disaster, where patients would be coming in due to injuries in a natural disaster or bomb blasts, more doctors would be invited and arranged for the shifts to get personalized care.
Benchmarks for a Manager to Ensure Employee Satisfaction and Retention
To deliver the best healthcare services, it is imperative to take care of the employees first. Healthcare organizations have to consider this aspect with emphasis since patient’s safety would be at risk if the workforce is not satisfied with their jobs. Certain perspectives should be considered when aiming for employee satisfaction and retention:
To endorse actively organizational effectiveness, reputation, morals, and integrities
<> Making way for advancements
Continuous training and education for upgrades
Offering the appropriate benefits (Munish & Agarwal, 2017)
Industry research has shown that the most common factors that employees perceive as important for their job satisfaction are the respectful treatment of all employees, compensations, benefits, job security, reliance between employees and senior management, and scope for using talents and aptitudes at work (The Society for Human Resource Management, 2016). These can be set as benchmarks for a manager to ensure employee satisfaction and retention. Today’s workforce mostly consists of millennials whose enthusiasm for work might be considered arrogance and ego problems. They are quicker in making progression leaps than their multi-generational counterparts within the organization and hence need more frequent encouragement to keep them engaged. There should be promotions and compensations by the healthcare facilities once or twice a year.
Employee absenteeism and turnover should also be reduced for better job satisfaction and retention (Flynn et al., 2015, p. 164). These should also be included in the benchmarks to measure accurately; these measures would depict how engaged the employees are towards their healthcare firm. If employee engagement is low, then absenteeism can fall into the category of voluntary absenteeism of the workers stay absent for long periods in a week, such as more than three or four days a week. Similarly, employee turnover can be voluntary if their engagement is low, and they leave by their own choice. If a leaving employee is a high performer, it can cost the healthcare organization greatly, which is known as dysfunctional turnover. To avoid this, the healthcare business needs to give employees monetary or non-monetary compensations to keep them satisfied with their jobs.
Procedures to Ensure Employee Satisfaction and Retention
When an employee enters an organization, an interaction is created between that individual and the business entity. The interaction results in a psychological contract, commitment, engagement, loyalty, and employee satisfaction (Flynn et al., 2015, p. 160). To maintain and retain that connection, healthcare organizations must find ways to keep the employees constantly engaged in their jobs. The unwritten psychological contract consists of two parts: tangible and intangible rewards. Tangible rewards can be wage, benefits, performance in terms of employee output, and daily attendance. Intangible rewards can be in the form of loyalty, fair treatment, and job security (Flynn et al., 2015, p. 161). Moreover, non-tangible rewards have also been accepted as the new norm for augmenting employee motivation and engagement. Non-tangible rewards include training and development, favorable working environment, pleasing office furnishing, lunch hours, offering business cards, having one’s secretary, etc. (Habib et al., 2017).
Through employee orientation, coaching and education programs, and opportunities for personal development, various positive results can be observed in employee retention, improved staff morale, efficiency in practice skills, enhanced job competency, and ultimately patient satisfaction (Gesme, Towle & Wiseman, 2010). Procedures to enhance employee satisfaction and retention can be enlisted as follows:
Management training for first-line supervisors so that they know how to supervise and treat their subordinates. If subordinates are treated fairly, they must remain engaged with their jobs in the healthcare department.
Employment regulations should be taken into account regularly since the laws keep changing with time. Legal aspects of the healthcare practice should be taught within the human resource practice.
Staff development by conducting educational programs without costs such as journal clubs, hospital programs, and vendor-sponsored education.
Employee satisfaction would be guaranteed if they gain occupational advancement opportunities, and professional association membership can be beneficial in this regard. These are attained by paying an annual fee to certain professional associations’ membership to assure their performance and success. These memberships are in the form of free publications, approach to industry surveys, and networking prospects.
Employees can be retained in the healthcare sector by investing in human capital in rewards and compensations. At any level of performance, the healthcare organization’s HR leaders must compensate their employees for their rendered services (Taufek, Zulkifle & Sharif, 2016). These services can be in the form of time, effort, and skill that they provide to their jobs, and hence, feel connected with the organization. Human resource strategists’ responsibility is to formulate accurate compensation plans for enhanced job engagement, organizational commitment, and retention.
Conclusion
The significance of employee training and education cannot be ignored since it directly impacts patient outcomes in the healthcare industry. The health professional, specifically the human resource professionals, need to take extra care in devising training programs for the new employees and the existing ones. All levels of hierarchy should be included for training so that legal compliance, in terms of equal employment opportunities for the employees and the legal compliance in terms of safety and security of patient’s private information, should be made known. It is also substantial to train the healthcare employees so that compliance with the state and federal laws is ascertained. It would be equally valuable to train employees, from top to bottom, about the safety precautions in a risky profession like that of healthcare. Disaster management teams should notify disaster committees and teams for accurate handling of the information and staff and ensuring accurate patient safety during uncertain times.
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