The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in many disruptions in various organizations, especially in health institutions. Due to changes in the working environment, such as the need to maintain social distance, human resource managers in Brookdale Hospital Medical Center have been forced to think differently about the general application of their work. The Center for Disease Control lays out many safety procedures, and it is the role of the human resource to ensure that all workers are aware of these rules and that they follow them to the later. Most people were not ready for these changes, but they have to be applied anyway. The human resource management department has been working on a crisis mode since the pandemic kicked in, but now they are better equipped at handling the pandemic. Due to coronavirus anxiety and fear of the unknown, there has been less applicant volume for clinical jobs. This paper discusses the communication problem, the solution, and recommendations for better communication.
The remote work model is one of the changes that many organizations have adopted to reduce the spread of the virus (Savić, D. (2020). This makes it hard for the human resource management to complete their work since communication has become difficult. Most of the clinical work needed for the treatment of coronavirus patients requires the physician’s physical presence. Therefore, these physicians need to maintain social distance at all times. They also always have to put on protective clothing and follow other protection guidelines. It is the role of the human resource to see to it that these guidelines are followed. Laying off employees who can work remotely will create space and reduce congestion in the hospitals. The human resource management department also ensures that these people can work in shifts to reduce their exposure to the virus.
Workers have been forced to communicate through email and online video meetings. Although these forms of communication serve a purpose, one-on-one communication encourages more excellent interactions than online communication, which fosters passive engagement (Kent, 2021). It has distractions that drive the individuals away from the conversations, and the members do not participate actively. For example, members may not feel obligated to air their views as they would in a face-to-face conversation. Online interaction such as email may be fragmented, and responses may be delayed. People reply to emails after days when working remotely, and free and open communication is impossible since a continuous conversation can hardly happen.
Nonverbal cues are also hard to distinguish in online communication, so misunderstandings and miscommunications are likely to occur (Kelly, 2018). Millions of workers have also been laid off relative to the pandemic. Many physicians had good jobs and could support their families, but finances have become a problem without their careers. It is the role of the human resource management to process the paperwork and provide solace to them. At the same time, they are responsible for keeping the remaining workers motivated, productive, engaged, and secure despite the laying off of their partners. Many working parents have been forced to reduce their working hours because their children are staying at home relative to school closure. These children have online learning schedules that parents have to keep up with and their work routine. Children may also distract them during meetings, which will overwhelm them and lead to employee burnout when put together.
As things are settling down in the coronavirus fatality, human resource management needs to reimagine the recruiting process. Some of their previous workers are available but with different interests due to the impact of the virus. On the other hand, unavailable ones need to be replaced, which leaves the human resource management to create new appointment criteria. Since most workers have been working remotely, they have learned to like it, and they prefer such jobs. This is even though many clinical jobs require a physical appearance. Accurate communication is essential in this case to avoid misunderstandings about job security. The workplace has also evolved due to recent developments brought about by the pandemic (Seitz, 2020). The HR, therefore, need to ensure that these recruits have these additional skills to befit the job. Treating coronavirus patients is a delicate task, and only adequately qualified individuals should be hired. Many human resource management teams are not designed for agility and have difficulty adapting to change in time. Approval systems also have to go through many hands to be verified, which takes time (Moin, 2019). Miscommunications in such a system are hard to trace back and take a lot of time to correct. In this pandemic especially, it is essential to maintain maximum agility.
The coronavirus has affected many employees mentally, emotionally, and financially. Several workers have been laid off, while others receive a smaller salary. There is a lot of uncertainty on most employees when it comes to the health of their friends and relatives. There is also anxiety about their job security, and these high levels of stress relate to human resource management (Stone, 2020). This makes it hard to maintain healthy relationships at work, and conflicts have become common. It is the role of the human resource management to not only take care of themselves but to ensure that the employees put their interests aside and coexist peacefully. It is also their role to determine whether any workers need help and direct them accordingly. Quality communication will ensure an open relationship between the human resource management and the workers.
Possible Solution
The workforce is the most valuable asset in a business, and the success of an institution is highly dependent on it. The human resource management is in charge of this asset and has to perform well for the institution to be doing okay. Changes are a common aspect of the dynamics of running a company. Such changes bring about hardship at work favoritism and might disrupt the team balance (Zafari, 2020). Therefore, it is essential for human resource management to quickly adapt to such changes to ensure that everyone else adopts them. With these sudden changes, it might prove helpful to regularly refer to the provided rules and guidelines, which are always different for every company. The changes might also be applied gradually rather than all at once. They could also be used as a pilot project with a trial grace period that allows the workforce to adapt to the changes smoothly (Paterson, 2020). Emphasizing the importance of these changes will also help the crew to embrace them more positively. Through appropriate communication, the HR department will identify whether there is progress or not.
Training is also an essential aspect of workforce grooming that enables the team to adapt better to change. The application of team training also improves employee motivation. The human resource management may establish a mentorship program for the senior executives to coach the juniors (Abdelhamid, 2021). This is a cost-effective method of dealing with change that allows seniors to improve their communication skills. Compensation, rewards, and recognition programs can also motivate the employees to keep up their hard work. However, the department has to carefully keep the payroll in check, especially in financial crises.
Human resource management should also formulate a job retention system to ensure that some if not all, workers retain their jobs. The system should look for administrative loopholes to identify processes that would reduce the institution running cost and maintain stability in the financial department. Government funding systems will also help the institution balance its finances.
To increase agility in response to change, the human resource management needs to identify and recruit top talent. This improves the readiness and responsiveness of the workforce. A learning culture is also essential. Common company values, for example, should be embedded within a diverse, multigenerational workforce to maintain agility. Motivating career optimization helps identify skills within the team and establish agile processes. Career optimization may include tapping into the recent high influence of artificial intelligence. Leveraging data and analytics and digitizing the workplace also helps improve agility – also make sure that they focus on more factors besides qualifications and competency. These factors include culture, previous experiences, objectives, potential, soft skills, hard skills, and personality (Fernandes, 2021). Employing a third-party during employment serves as an added advantage—the third-party acts as an expert in recruitment for temporary and permanent hires.
Recommended Solution
Human resource management must develop strategies that will enable them to cope with the changes appropriately. The significant occurring change is remote working. The department should study the essential competencies that their employees need to work online and be well equipped to provide such resources. The focus should be on the tools and resources (text-based tools, video conferencing tools, storage, sharing tools, and learning repositories), leadership systems, home office setup management, and communication. The existing devices may be employed and spare funds to purchase unavailable ones. Employees who show up physically should be provided with protective materials since, at this point, they are expensive for them to buy each day. The patients also need protective clothing such as masks, and the hospital can acquire them from the government of foundations that are donating them to cut costs.
Communication is vital; keep the staff in the loop as the situations change. The coronavirus safety guidelines should be read out repeatedly to avoid negligence and achieve maximum safety. Posters with these safety guidelines should also be published and hung in public places to ensure that everyone has access to the information. Assignments provided should be specified to avoid miscommunications. A support team is necessary to support remote working so workers can check in regularly, share files and track progress. Expectations such as the deadline, quality budget, and procedures should be clear, so the workers remain disciplined.
Establish a social connection, so workers do not feel anxious and lonely. The employees need to feel that they belong to a team and that there is more to them than the tasks they perform, the revenue they generate, and the paychecks they get when they deliver. Due to the lockdown, kids might not be at school, and many recreational services are closed. Workers are overwhelmed, and they need to feel comfortable when working. The human resource department should create space for personal connection, such as designating meetings to discuss off-work topics. Online games might be an excellent way to connect depending on the institution’s cultural interests. Workers can even share any delays they are experiencing and frustrations with the newly employed technological tools.
Training the employees to work remotely will maintain their online productivity. Working online has a set of distractions that these employees might recognize from working in the ‘real world.’ Setting a step-by-step training walkthrough will be essential. Establishing a mentor-worker relationship will make the employees on the training process more manageable. Online management does not have the same visibility as in a physical office setting. It is therefore easy to ignore learners, and this leads to disengagement. A system that monitors learner engagement and performance is therefore crucial. Frequent check-ins at the team and individual level will assess how the workers perform and hold up with their personal lives. Training the workers about time management is crucial since working at an office and at home might vary considerably. Some teams may not know how to work with remote teams, while other activities might be delayed since staff might lack dexterity with online tools.
The human resource management needs to portray executive presence during video conferences to enhance cooperativeness in such group settings. Professional background, professional dress code, good camera angle, appropriate voice quality, and enough lighting are ways to ensure executive presence during meetings. Preciseness, etiquette, and politely conveying sentiments are more ways to provide an executive company.
Expected Outcome.
Studying the resources needed will enable adequate resourcing of the online working team, maintaining productivity and good communication. This will enhance the smooth running of the institution even with the switching to remote working. This will strain the institution financially but keep it moving to recover the losses. Maintaining quality communication will allow practical assignment and delivery of tasks. The support team and the mentorship program will help keep the employees’ motivation up, especially with the high anxiety and insecurities. Social connections will reduce employees’ stress and consequently increase their productivity.
An open relationship between the human resource management and the employees will create a conducive environment for the employees to share their interests and frustrations, which at the same time will allow them to come up with solutions. When the human resource management team presents themselves as executives in their meetings, it will create efficiency in leadership, and the employees will readily cooperate. Employee training will help them understand working in the ‘online world,’ accelerating their coping. Training is the essential critical tool that will enable the workers to understand what is expected of them and achieve it. The employees will understand how to apply their work to the online system and maintain productivity.
The clinicians should work both online and physical shifts to retain work morale and interaction. This way, they can still participate actively. Interactions in the hallway, lunch spaces, and other hospital locations might be underrated by improving them help to reduce conflicts. The workmates will have created and retained an atmosphere that enables quality production of work.
References
Abdelhamid, K., ElHawary, H., Gorgy, A., & Alexander, N. (2021). Mentorship Resuscitation During the COVID‐19 Pandemic. AEM Education and Training, 5(1), 132.
Chatfield, A. T., & Reddick, C. G. (2018). Customer agility and responsiveness through big data analytics for public value creation: A case study of Houston 311 on-demand services. Government Information Quarterly, 35(2), 336-347.
Fernandes, P. R. D. S., Jardim, J., & Lopes, M. C. D. S. (2021). The soft skills of special education teachers: Evidence from the literature. Education Sciences, 11(3), 125.
Kelly, L., & Miller-Ott, A. E. (2018). Perceived miscommunication in friends’ and romantic partners’ texted conversations. Southern Communication Journal, 83(4), 267-280.
Kent, M. L., & Taylor, M. (2021). Fostering dialogic engagement: Toward an architecture of social media for social change. Social Media+ Society, 7(1), 2056305120984462.
Moin, S., Karim, A., Safdar, Z., Safdar, K., Ahmed, E., & Imran, M. (2019). Securing IoTs in distributed blockchain: Analysis, requirements and open issues. Future Generation Computer Systems, 100, 325-343.
Paterson, C., Bacon, R., Dwyer, R., Morrison, K. S., Toohey, K., O’Dea, A., … & Hayes, S. C. (2020, December). The role of telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic across the interdisciplinary cancer team: implications for practice. In Seminars in oncology nursing (Vol. 36, No. 6, p. 151090). WB Saunders.
Savić, D. (2020). COVID-19 and work from home: Digital transformation of the workforce. Grey Journal (TGJ), 16(2), 101-104.
Stone, R. J., Cox, A., & Gavin, M. (2020). Human resource management. John Wiley & Sons.
Zafari, K., Biggemann, S., & Garry, T. (2020). Mindful management of relationships during periods of crises: A model of trust, doubt and relational adjustments. Industrial Marketing Management, 88, 278-286.
Human Resource Plan For Delta Airlines Essay Example
The aspect of Human Resource Planning dates back to around the 1970s. Entailed to determine how much effect a new employee would contribute back into the organization. In layman’s terms, we can say, the process of ensuring that the workforce in the firm is adequately qualified and essentially equipped and ready for the work at hand that they are yet to commit. It Is done through proper scrutiny and analysis so that the organization’s goals are factored in and adequately met fully (Mello, 2014). Human Resource Plan is greatly concerned with the success of the business and the kind of strategies to use to ensure that talented resources are acquired, retained, motivated, and integrated to make others learn from them. Human Resource planning has some advantages, and this would also help us see why this process is vital and is of essence to the related firm. It helps with uncertainty reduction, Environmental adaptation, ensuring focus and objective achievement, The control of the human resource the utilization of the human resource.
In developing a Human Resource Plan, we will pick the Delta airlines company. We chose this organization since it’s one of the oldest with a history running from 1925, when it started as a Huff Daland Dusters for crops, to be the first airline to launch a Convair 880 jet service. With the great history of 97years of existence. It has undergone various organizational shifts and culture in the last five years that have resulted from innovation since they have been striving to better the services they provide, bearing in mind the nature of competition they have.
Delta Airlines, change in organizations and culture has greatly attributed to bringing smiles to the faces of the employees up to as last as 2021. the CEO Ed Bastian had to devise a method to ensure that most company employees were not a layoff. The only option would be involuntary furloughs. The company HPR came up with a new technique that helped them even come up with the means to spread the word and come with other fresh responsibilities for the people to do. (Kaufman, 2013) he says how this method helped immensely in the airline climbing back up to the five best-doing companies. Delta airline always had a culture of Profit-sharing with its employees. They even had their valentine strictly be the day for sharing their profits in 2013, and the company shared cumulative amounts of up to about $1.3 billion (Shen, 2017). In the attempts to revive itself, the company had to shun away from this; they had to change and instead opted to use that money to purchase an oil refinery, which helped them rise and get to their feet again.
In a much stronger bid to strengthen their ways as a people, the industrial consolidation had to start. In turn, a committee was formed and tasked with cutting deals with other like-minded organizations as this would help them execute merger deals and get approvals even to traverse further.
Before all these innovative culture-driven changes, Delta airlines had an adverse. They had a compensation scheme for the employees and a profit-sharing culture. At this time, most writers have said that it seemed the company hadn’t woken up to its reality. It warranted them the most charitable organization and employer in the industry (Reed, 2018). It made all the delta employees evade the idea of joining SACCOs and unions ultimately. They had encompassed Delta culture before the shift had strong Ethos and Pathos: honesty, perseverance, and servant leadership. The employees take part in crucial decision-making meetings, and the employees could also constantly access the employers and present their views directly. Their culture was the definitive aspect of how successful they would become.
I would recommend that Human Resource Plans for Delta company are; Initiate a Volunteers unpaid charitable program for the company and have them be part of it.
Have the government advertise an un-paid internships program and have interns take part in most of the basic levels in the company but keep the crucial sections for the experts to take care of it. I would initiate a multi-job initiative, whereby the person specializing in a specific work area is obliged to help with working in the other related section. It would help me cut the cost of the extra employees in the company.
In conclusion, some of these interventions have been essential and have helped the Delta airways Company keep afloat and run for the rest of its time. An investment of $1000 in the company as of 2010 would be worth $7,600 in 2020. It is a clear show of price appreciation over time as it is.
References
Ananth, P., Reed‐Weston, A., & Wolfe, J. (2018). Medical marijuana in pediatric oncology: A review of the evidence and implications for practice. Pediatric Blood & Cancer, 65(2), e26826.
Kaufman, B. E. (2013). Keeping the commitment model in the air during turbulent times: Employee involvement at Delta Air Lines. Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, 52, 343-377.
Mello, J. A. (2014). Strategic human resource management. Cengage Learning.
Shen, C. (2017). The effects of central US domestic airline code sharing and profit-sharing rule. Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, 26(3), 590-609.
Identify And Discuss The Three Major Views Of Human Nature Essay Example
Human nature is the common basis for human existence, which impacts theirbeliefs,community arrangement and behaviors which remains unchanged over time and across cultural, ethnic, and racial contexts. Several enlightened thinkers and religions have different views which explain the nature of human, including the doctrine of noble savage, the view of angry savage, and dual human nature.
The noble savage is a doctrine on human nature which argues that people in their natural nature are peaceful, generous, and devoid of social ills. This view presumes that human beings partake in behaviors aimed at helping others. It also blames socially unacceptable behaviors and thoughts on civilization. This view assumes that bad people in society result from bad social arrangements. The noble savage view is evident among most indigenous people. These communities still hold on to their cultural practices and ancestral land. Despite being among the poor communities, indigenous people are united, selfless, and always ready to help. They demonstrate how the rest of the world was before civilization and how the social arrangements adopted affected humans’ natural nature—these social arrangements brought about social ills driven by jealousy and greed.
The angry savage view of human nature asserts that human beings in their natural state are selfish and hostile due to the overwhelming fear of death. This view considers that feeling and logic drive human behavior, shaped by their fear of death. In this view, social order is necessary to control human behavior and bring out the best in humanity. It also regards social behavior and survival instincts are rooted in the material cause. For example, wars begin if a group or a country feels threatened by the other group. The First World War was between the central powers and the allies, and it began after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. The war continued for years until they formed a uniting party to help end the war by signing the Treaty of Versailles (Keene, 2021)
The view of Dual human nature assumes that humans have an ethereal soul in their body, where the soul chooses while the body demands. The conflict between the soul and the body shapes human behavior. Social ills develop due to the soul giving in to the body’s demand. In this view, human nature is inherently good since the soul chooses to act against selfish acts and inherently bad since the body causes humans to act selfishly. An instance where dual human nature is evident is during the slavery era in America. Back then, slavery was acceptable, and almost every white household enslaved people. Slavery continued for years until society decided against it (Berlin, 2015). The soul finally chooses to do what’s right by others and discard society’s selfish and inhumane acts.
Strengths and Weaknesses
The strength of the noble savage view in explaining the social behavior in human nature is that it sets out a predetermined positive nature. An example of this nature is evident among the indigenous people who have not been corrupted by civilization hence portraying a better view of natural human nature. Indigenous people live united and in harmony among themselves. They believe in sharing, and their generous nature is evident in their actions and behaviors. However, this view is weak in explaining social behavior and social outcomes where civilization is not the source of evil. The indigenous people live differently than people in modern society since they still hold on to their traditional ways of life. Despite not aligning their behaviors with modern society, indigenous people still engage in tribal wars; therefore, this view does not explain social ills unrelated to civilization.
The angry savage view helps sociologists understand social behaviors and social outcomes since it bases violent human acts on survival instincts. For the first world war example, the fear of death after the assassination of one of the central power leaders led to the war. Countries resulted in violence and hostility as a survival tactic. The formation of a peace union helped control the countries’ actions and subsequently end the war. However, this view is weak because social groups still indulge in violent actions despite having governing bodies and laws.
The dual human nature view strength in explaining human social behaviors and social outcomes since it regards humans as being good. For example, in the eighteenth century, child labor and abuse was legal action. Children would work in farms and factories for long hours and little pay and did not experience the ideal childhood. After a while, child labor and abuse were banned to ensure that children could attend school and be protected from physically and socially harmful acts. One weakness of this view is that human’s ability to be evil is just as strong as their ability to be good. This view implies that until humans decide to do good, they will be evil unprovoked with no guilt or shame.
Nature (Biology) vs. Nurture (Culture)
Nurture or the blank state views human nature due to environmental input. Human behavior, feelings, and action are not predetermined, but the social environment influences them. This view is more important in explaining social behaviors and emergent outcomes. The maternal environment determines the behavior and actions of society and racial or ethnic groups. For instance, the geographical area of a society determines the activities of its people. Eskimos who inhabit artic and the northern Bering Sea coasts of Alaska in the United States carry out favorable activities in those parts of the world. They rely on hunting marine mammals, fish, and land animals for food. The geographical location of their area limits their activities since ice covers the place (DeLapp, 2020).
Tradition and culture are other environmental inputs determining a society’s shared behavior and actions. For instance, on the Fourth of July, Americans take a public holiday to celebrate the day they gained independence. In America, the frequently spoken language is English, and despite having many immigrants residing in the country, most of them talk about the language. The environment where these immigrants live influences them to learn the language and other cultural practices. Americans also prefer the white dress for the bride at weddings. In the cases where Americans intermarry, they might decide to have two celebrations in honor of both traditions, and they occur in their respective country.
Another example of the environment determining society’s shared actions and behaviors is evident in the slavery era. During this period, black people were enslaved, and their actions revolved around working for the white man. Their immediate environment was oppressive, and their behavior was meek and non-confrontational since they were at the mercy of their masters. Their behaviors soon changed after the abolition of slavery. Black communities gained their freedom and could partake in education and voting. They gained new knowledge and sought respectable jobs. They joined movements that fought for other rights for their community, such as access to better services (Berlin, 2015).
Understanding Social Reality
Despite the nature vs. nurture debate, it is essential to incorporate both of these views when studying human social behavior, social structure, and social outcomes. Social behavior results when an individual’s activity influences the acts of another person, and it occurs through interaction. Nature helps us understand the impact of shared biology on social behavior, while nurture explains how the environment influences it. For instance, shared biology influences communication among the community in terms of modes of communication such as verbal or sign language. On the other hand, nurture determines the shared language in the community, including slang they might adopt.
The social structure involves distinguishing social arrangements in society. Nature explains shared biology among a group, while nurture describes how the environment influences that group’s action. Nature controls the activities of society members belonging to the same age group since their level of comprehension is shared by developing their brains. The environment influences their actions by dictating the age group’s expectations.
Social outcomes result from human interactions with each other. Shared biology and the environment influence these social outcomes. For instance, nature determines gender roles in a society whereby women give birth and male contribute to it through reproduction. Nurture also influences these gender roles where it expects women to be soft and emotionally expressive and expects men to be strong and bold (Crash Course, 2017). Crime rates can also be explained by nature depending on the group’s understanding of criminal acts, where young teens do it for fun since they don’t understand the impacts of their actions. Nurture explains crime rates as a result of the environment where a social group indulges in crime to survive or fulfill basic needs.
Conclusion
The study of nature vs. nurture in sociology has expanded my understanding of human behavior and actions. This study has helped me recognize that what might seem bizarre to me is the natural state of a particular society. The nature perspective has helped me acknowledge how much of our behavior is predetermined by genetics and biology. I have recognized how impactful our environment is to our actions and behaviors through nurture. For instance, in the saving and investment culture, a particular group might opt for stable, low-risk investments while others might opt for high-risk and return stocks. The nature and nurture of each group can explain these decisions better. The low-risk investment group might have experienced an environment of uncertainty in their life; therefore, fear and their need for stability and fear guide their choices. The high-risk and return group might have experienced a stable environment where they don’t have to worry about basic needs and afford life luxuries. Their environment influences their decisions, where they have the autonomy to take risks. This is an illustration of how our basic day to day activities are influenced by the forces of nature and nurture and until we study them we may not be able to understand their impact. This study got me curious to explore which other aspects of our live are influenced by nature and nurture that we often overlook.
References
Berlin, I. (2015). The long emancipation: The demise of slavery in the United States. Harvard University Press.
CrashCourse. (2017). Social Development: Crash Course Sociology #13. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbBm_YLwowc
Keene, J. D. (2021). The United States and the First World War. Routledge.
Pinker, S. (2003). The blank slate: The modern denial of human nature. Penguin UK.