Human Resources Management

Like most other service industries, the healthcare industry is very labor-intensive. One reason for healthcare’s reliance on an extensive workforce is that it is not possible to produce a “service” and then store it for later consumption. Human resources are all of the people who currently contribute to doing the work of the organization, as well as those who might contribute in the future and those who have contributed in the recent past. The intensive use of labor and the variability in human resources in professional practice require that the attention of leaders in the industry be directed toward managing the performance of the persons involved in the delivery of these services. The effective management of people requires that healthcare executives understand the factors that influence individual and group performance of staff. Such factors include not only the traditional human resources management (HRM) activities (that is, recruitment and selection, training and development, appraisal, compensation, and employee relations) but also aligning these functions with strategy and other organizational aspects that impinge on human resources (HR) activities