HR and Customer Services Samples for Students †MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Analysis Of HR and Customer Services. Answer: Introduction This essay presents a detailed analysis in the form of an essay with respect to capability and skills of employees in the health organizations. The hospitals in UK are facing stiff challenges due to lack of nurses, poor customer services and improper guidance towards the work and the responsibilities. The human resource department of the organizations should play a major role in leading the employees towards the work and organizational responsibility including customer service. However, HR leaders should also think of the needs and demands of employees when leading them towards the goals. The leader should ensure that employees are satisfied and inclined towards their job responsibilities. The major area of the essay is the assessment and analysis of the role of HR leader to enhance the customer services in a low budget hospitals in UK while ensuring that organizational staff are satisfied and motivated about the work. On the basis of this area, the essay particularly focuses on the operational functions of front line employees such as the nurses, as frontline employees mostly interact or deal with the customers. In addition to this, an equal attention has also been placed on the labour shortage in UK health organization as there is a certain fact that due to aging population and increasing of number of retirement of nurses created the shortage of staff. Moreover, it is a true fact that governments hospitals in UK are under budget. Additionally, it is also identified that long hour shifting, workload, lack of clarity of the roles lead to workplace shortage. It is certain that health organizations run by the governments in UK are short of financial resources, which is affecting the overall services of the hospitals. Due to lack of budgets, the organizations are not able to invest in their employee skills development. Likewise, there could be other reasons or factors creating the impact on the employees at each level of the organizations, have been analysed intensively in following sections of the essay with valid and reliable data. These issues or the questions of the essay are interpreted wit h the facts and findings provided in the existing literature. Main Body Healthcare organizations in UK in the recent time have faced increasing number of issues related to customer service. As put forward by Silvain et al. (2007), customer service is one of the major segments falling under all sector or businesses which requires adequate attention because if the customers services are not properly enhanced, it could be difficult for any business to run its operation. If the scenarios of the hospitals are considered here, then it is worth mentioning that if the front line employees are not able to provide adequate information to the clients or families of the patients, those customers will not pay a second visit to the hospital. For example, London Bridge Hospital in UK faced a dire situation emerged from the poor customer service; in 2009, a bus accident at the downtown of the city increased the number of death to 13 and some of the patients were supposed to be admitted to London Bridge Hospital but all of patients had to shift to other nearby hospitals because the front line staff were not able to give information about the availability of doctors then (London Bridge Hospital 2018). This incident created the urge for developing a proper internal management at the London Bridge Hospital. It is certain that nurses as the front line employees of the hospital plays a great role in enhancing the customer service. However, it is also a fact that nurses face stiff challenges at the hospitals as the number of nurses is decreasing gradually due to the increasing retirement cases, low pay structure, improper work conditions and others. The following are some specific challenges that nurses face in the recent time at hospitals. Low paid and high turnover-based profession: The government hospital in UK is under budget and due to lack of fund, the service quality is going down gradually. The existing nurses at the hospital do not find motivation in performing their duties because their wages are low and due to this low pay structure, the newly joined nurses are leaving the organization. Consequently, the existing nurses face workload of absconded nurses. Even though, the HR plays the role of motivating the nurses to perform their duties but when the pay structure is low, the turnover is inevitable. According to Herzbergs hygiene factor indicates that the employees should be provided with reasonable and appropriate pay which should be equal and competitive to those in the sae sector (Dartey-Baah and Amoako 2011). Work life balance: It is identified that the due to labour shortage, the existing nurses in the hospital face or go through an increase burden of work. The nurses have to work under a long shift hours, which is challenging for them as they also have to manage their families and children. Due to improper human resource guidance, the nurses are not sure about their role and responsibilities. Consequently, most of the day, the nurses have to stretch their working hours. Workplace hazard: Physical- Due to lack of fund, the cleaning is usually not done in the government hospitals; thereby, the workface becomes infectious and nurses often fall sick. In addition, the nurses often meet with the accident caused by slippery floors and failing. Psychological impact: Healthcare services require high attention and instruction because any small mistake such as wrong use of injection can cause series trouble. Thereby, keeping the mind busy for long hours often create internal pressure in brain. Workplace conflict abuse: Due to increasing work pressure creates a chaotic and hazardous situation in the workplace. As there is no proper guidance from the leaders, lack of cooperation among the nurses often creates conflicts in the workplace. Emotional labour: Nurse in duty hours face many incidents such as losing a patient even after several attempts, dealing with rude and ill-behaved patients at the hospital. These incidents create a mental pressure which cause them poor health. When these nurses reach home, they have to complete their work such as taking care of children. These incidents altogether lead to emotional exhaustion and burnout. Furthermore, it is identified that for managing or enhancing customer services, the mandatory role of HR leader in leading or managing the staff often comes in the discussion of customer service enhancement articles. As put forward by Kakuma et al. (2011), human resource manager or the leader should play a significant role in leading the operation of the organizations under budget because, here, the role of the leader is not just about managing the performance of employees or motivating them, the leader has to manage the entire organizational operation within the given low budget. This means the budget remains as the concern to the HR leaders. Within a restricted budget, HR leader has to apply strategic HR management principles such as training and performance monitoring, monitoring the general human resource functions, holding meeting between staff, employees as well as administration and ensuring employees are receiving appropriate training programmes (Jiang et al. 2012). When it comes to training and performance monitoring, Guest (2011) mentioned that a primary task conducted by human resource is the quality control. This means that staff or the nurses can be trained to perform their job responsibilities at the most optima range by using their primary skills. According to Wright and McMahan (2011), HR leader can develop the tests to supervise the skills levels that can be administered throughout the hiring process. Furthermore, HR leader should work closely with both with clinical and non-clinical department managers to develop relevant professional development programs as well as deliver relevant learning opportunities for the employees. For example, Sunrise Medical in UK once internally started a knowledge management program for the nurse, practitioners and other staff, in which staff are invited to attend the weekly learning themes (Sunrisemedical.co.uk 2018). The themes include decision-making skills development, patient management at emergency a nd front desk operation management. Consequently, Sunrise Medical reported a growth of 21% in their customer base (Sunrisemedical.co.uk 2018). When it comes to employee satisfaction and happiness, the HR department must have the insight that managing or retaining employees just cannot be done by providing them the wages. As opined by Harzing and Pinnington (2010), the HR department or the organization must have to think of employee wellbeing and other essential needs. Dartey-Baah and Amoako (2011) supported Herzbergs two factor theory and suggested that both hygiene factor and motivation factors should be considered while retaining employees. According to Herzberg hygiene factor the employees at each level of the organization should be provided with appropriate pay structure, fringe benefits and proper physical work conditions. On the other side, Evans and Olumide-Aluko (2010) mentioned that motivation factor of Herzberg plays a great role in motivating employees which is further reflected on employee retention. The motivation factors may include recognition, growth and promotional opportunities and meaningfulness of the wo rk. This means that the leader should appreciate the effort and achievement of employees and on the basis of their achievement, the employees should be provided with internal growth and promotional opportunities. As put forward by Gruman and Saks (2011), employee performance can go below the expected margin for some common reasons such as if they do not find motivation in work, or if they are not sure about their role and responsibilities as there is no proper guidance. Thereby, in the case of a government hospital, the leader should manage the nurses or front life staff by segregating their roles and duties. The major issue such as the workload and long shift hours can be avoided or managed if the HR leader segregates the work into different segments. According to Sadikoglu and Zehir (2010) long shift hours can be reduced by employing few more staff but when the budget is limited, the organization could draw a work framework structure. According to work framework structure, the leader should put their employees in different team with a stipulated number of roles and responsibilities. Each team should have a specific target of job responsibilities and timeline; thereby, if the team performs t heir duties as per their target and instructions, hospitals can avoid workload and long hour shifts. Becker, Antuar and Everett (2011) conducted a research on the performance health organizations aligning NHS standards, and mentioned that as the front line employees such as nurses directly deal with the customers, those staff must acquire communication skills. Thereby, HR department or senior HR leader should must have think of the required communication training program. The goal of such communication training program should be about enhancing the communication skills of the employees who are directly with dealing with the customers. Such program does not cost much because, hence, the training is provided to the existing staff only. On the other side, to avoid the cost of hiring full time soft skill trainer, the hospital can hire a part-time or contact- based trainer who works for the specific period. For example, a stated above, Sunrise Medical in UK designs contract based training program for all employees. Sunrise Medical, in every year designs a fall to autumn learning program which helps their employees to deal with new and ongoing operational challenges in their organizational setting. According to Office for National Statistics almost 34% of total nurses in UK heading towards the retirement; as a consequence, the health organizations are observing labour shortage, excessive work pressure on the existing nurses (Ons.gov.uk 2018). Furthermore, emotional state of being is also affected when they do not receive appropriate support or guidance in such conflict situation. According to Arlie Hochschild emotional labour takes place when the staff introduce their emptions to portray themselves in a particular light and further creates a wanted state of mind. Hence, Hochschild developed two significant aspects related to the management of an individual emotions and these aspects are such as deep action and surface acting. According to Hochschild in deep acting an individual place his/her private emotional state into one which is aligned with what is socially acceptable for a particular situation (Hochschild 2015). Thus, in the case of a healthcare organization, when the emp loyees are under pressure or dealing with excessive workload, may experience emotional issues that they are unrecognizable but an HR leader can address the issue interacting with and strategically handling their roles. Therefore, the following paragraph says why it is important to pay attention to internal employees. It is highly important for the organizations in healthcare sector to pay required attention to the internal employees because it is universally proven that the organizational performance broadly depends on their how their employees perform. Thereby, the leader or human resource department does not give adequate attention to the employees, the employees set up their own rules in the workplace; everyone in the workplace could be laidback about their roles and responsibilities. Moreover, lack of attention to internal employee development could lead to high staff turnover; therefore, it is necessary for the organization to treat their people as the highest priority after their clients. The following paragraph shows the importance of having a satisfied internal employees leading to enhanced customer base applying service profit chain model By using service profit chain, crucial measure of the healthcare organization could set is customer loyalty. According to Hong et al. (2013), understanding the customer value is difficult for two significant reasons; if the organization is not a small one, it is difficult for the leaders to remain close in contract with the customers. Another reason for this is, the customers are not good enough at explaining what they actually want and why. Thereby, the best way to do is, use of frontline employees to generate a customer feedback loop. As put forward by Graban and Swartz (2012), the front line staff of healthcare organization can be trained to figure out how to convert customer feedback into a useful input and appropriate tools, which can provide structure that is more practical and actionable at the range. Furthermore, Chuang et al. (2012) mentioned that the frontline employee such as the nurses are critical to effective customer experience. The translation of customer feedback in the service profit chain model empower employees to perform their responsibilities effectively as well as maximize their motivation to deliver more effective services. Furthermore, Hong et al. (2013) mentioned that generating a feedback loop for frontline employees remains as the driver to unidentified problems that affect the productivity. The authors in their article have also revealed the data derived from the survey that only 4% of firms frontline issues known by the top management, only 9% are known by middle management, 74% by supervisors as well as 100% are known by the employees only (Hong et al. 2013). Therefore, the organization can understand why it remains critical to have a better way to collect, design and resolve the issues that HR managers do not have information of. In addition to this, the health organization also needs to pay attention to human resource development such as appropriate requirement process, motivation, and empowerment. Recruit: Hospital needs more skilled employees who can better understand the role and cooperate with others in the workplace. Thus, to recruit employees, the organization can conduct a personality test where the skills and characteristics of employees can be analysed. The recruiters must have to assess the interpersonal skills of the candidates such as communication, eye contact practice and others. Moreover, some particular attributes such as patience, passion and sympathy towards others of candidates should also be analysed. Enable: The employees should be provided by with appropriate training and development programs where they can learn or enhance of their skills of decision making, problem solving and knowledge sharing. The employees should also be provided with frequent technological knowledge as the use of technology is rapidly increasing in healthcare industry. Motivate: Nurses should be provide with appropriate reward and monetary benefits on the completion of the achievement of work. Specific role of nurses: Create positive focus and gain self-control Create a stable work balance Relaxation in the leisure time It is significant to have a good process in place that could bias action over the analysis. However, Sadikoglu and Zehir (2010) conducted a study and found that focus on implementing a known solution holds a greater impact on customer satisfaction instead of analysing as well as focussing on the bigger issues. On the other side, Gruman and Saks (2011) mentioned that generating new ideas on how to enhance customer satisfaction is not usually the problem, knowledge already resides within the internal setting of organization. According to this author, the bigger issue is that those ideas do not prove to be effective because the individuals with the solutions usually does not have the resources required to implement it. It is probably that origin of the issue and solution resides elsewhere in the firm. Thus, a better connection between frontline employees as well as leadership become a key. With the help of appropriate tools and leadership support, the HR manager could make sure that the solutions get the required resources. Conclusion As mentioned above, HR leader should play a broad role in managing the overall operation of the healthcare organization. Customer service improvement is directly related to the internal workforce development. Particularly, in order to learn about customer issues and complaints, it is better to create customer feedback loop in which frontline employees will convey the issue to the senior management by translating them into a meaningful input. Hence, employee training is a mandatory initiative. Likewise, the organization can also create employee feedback loop to learn about employee issues that affect the productivity of the organization. The above presented paragraph talks about the role of HR leader in managing the overall organizational performance. The content also includes the discussion about the importance of having skilled employees who deal with the operation. Some real-world examples have also been provided to understand the consequence of not providing customers with appropriate information. When it comes to employee satisfaction and happiness, factors mentioned in Herzeberg two factor theory has been discussed and suggested to the healthcare organization. The service profit chain model give in the body of the essay helps to understand how customer services can be improved by collecting feedback through feedback loop. On the bass of this model, employee feedback loop has also derived which could help to identify the employee issues that organizations face in the internal environment and address them by collecting feedback from the employee feedback loop. The essay questions regarding the customer service improvement, employee shortage management are significant and often observed many organizations in all sector besides the healthcare. Therefore, importance of conducting an essay on this context, lies on the fact enhanced solutions can derived to resolve worldly known issues. References Becker, K., Antuar, N. and Everett, C., 2011. Implementing an employee performance management system in a nonprofit organization.Nonprofit Management and Leadership,21(3), pp.255-271. Chuang, E., Dill, J., Morgan, J.C. and Konrad, T.R., 2012. A configurational approach to the relationship between high?performance work practices and frontline health care worker outcomes.Health services research,47(4), pp.1460-1481. 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