How to Manage Hospital Employees

Have you ever watched the Nigerian Medical Sitcom titled “Clinic Matters”? If you have, I’m sure you will remember Nurses Titi and Abigail. They are two troublesome nurses who are always trying to outdo each other. Their frequent bickering sometimes affects the quality of service received by their patients. And then there is Nurse Theresa who is the umpire and who tries hard to keep the peace of the clinic. Add Biliki the Ward Attendant to the mix and the Doctor has a turbulent situation on his hands.




In reality, the sitcom is not much different from many everyday clinics. Sometimes, despite your best efforts, you still fall short of achieving the goals of your hospital. This is because human beings are unpredictable and managing them is one of the most difficult jobs on earth.

Right from the start, it is worthwhile to note the following:
• No two individuals are alike in their behavior, attitude, skill, discipline, work ethics etc.
• Every employee comes into your Organization with his/her skills and personal problems. You get the good and the bad.

Most large hospitals already have a functional Human Resource (HR) department. However, smaller hospitals (like the ones in most developing countries) do not have a clearly defined HR unit. Either way, you may have to do some or most of the HR functions yourself, so it is necessary for you to know a little bit of how HR works.

The difficulties involved in dealing with humans have already been highlighted. Managing them is a skill that every hospital manager/hospital entrepreneur should possess. The efficient and effective management of people will ensure organizational goals are met. Management involves getting things done through people. People however are the most complex elements in any organization. How do you then manage your staff to achieve your Organizational goals?

There are 5 key areas of human resources management:

• Manpower planning
• Staffing
• Performance and Motivation
• Training, Development and Education
• Discipline and Grievance

In this post, I will write briefly on manpower planning.

 Manpower Planning
Managing your employees and getting the best from them actually begins with manpower planning. Failing to plan is actually planning to fail. Before you employ the ‘Nurse Titis’ and ‘Attendant Bilikis’, it is wise to determine your staff needs well in advance. Manpower planning should be a carefully thought-out line of action rather than a knee-jerk reaction.

You must get the right balance between staff levels and workload. Over-staffing will lead to lose of man-hours, laziness, reduced productivity, and reduced profit. Conversely, under-staffing will lead to work exhaustion, stress, frequent illnesses, bad attitude, frequent mistakes, reduced productivity, and reduced profit. The right balance is needed to succeed.

In planning for your workforce, the following steps will guide you.
 Determine the activities of your organization
 Group activities into roles and positions
 Determine job description(activities) and job specification(qualifications & skills)
 Decide on remuneration you can afford
 Determine the number of people to fill each position
 Draw organizational chart
 Document job specification & description

Having followed the steps above, you can then move on to the next area of human resource management- Staffing. I will discuss staffing in a future post. Keep visiting this blog in this month of July to learn more about human resource management.

See you soon…