HRM-635 Leveraging Human Capital

HRM-635 Leveraging Human Capital

Employees are an essential component that determines organizational success. Organizations strive to ensure that the adopted interventions address the diverse needs of their staff. Interventions such as rewarding performance are crucial in enhancing the motivation level of the employees. Successful organizations have incorporated rewards into their cultures to ensure sustainability in positive outcomes and enhanced performance and competitiveness. Therefore, this paper examines the approaches to leveraging human capital within my organization. It explores topics that include tasks and performance indicators contributing to employee performance on the job, identification of employee strengths and skills, and a vision for the overall culture I intend to develop in my organization.

Emotional intelligent is important in nursing practices because it helps to understand people better (Whitney, 2018). Self-awareness is one of the important elements in emotional intelligent and it is the capacity to notice and comprehend your own feelings. Being conscious of the impact of your actions, moods, and emotions on other people goes beyond simply being aware of your own feelings. Developing self-awareness as a leader will strengthen not only individual performance but organizational performance as well. Ultimately, the immense amount of understanding, trustworthiness and wisdom that self-aware leaders possess equips them with cri

HRM635 Leveraging Human Capital

tical skills for success.

Tasks and Performance Indicators

Leaders and managers can use tasks and performance indicators to improve the overall employee performance on the job. One of the tasks is delegation. Delegation is a practice intervention that leaders and managers utilize to improve employee performance on the job. It entails assigning some of the leader or manager’s responsibilities to the employee. Delegation builds confidence among the employees in undertaking complex organizational tasks. Managers and leaders that utilize this approach develop highly motivated teams that are willing to handle challenging projects in the organization. The other task is rewarding performance. Managers and leaders who reward performance has highly productive employees. Rewards motivate the employees to explore additional interventions that can be used to achieve enhanced care outcomes in their organizations (Halldorsdottir et al., 2018). Rewards also enhance employee focus on patient and organizational outcomes such as safety, quality, and efficiency in the care process.

Performance indicators also improve the overall employee performance on the job. One of the performance indicators is safety and quality rates in an organization. Indicators such as rates of pressure ulcers, falls, and medication errors offer healthcare providers insights into the effectiveness of their adopted interventions. An improvement in these rates motivates them to adopt additional evidence-based interventions to enhance care outcomes, hence, their productivity rate. The other performance indicator relates to patient outcomes with the adopted care interventions. Often, health organizations administer surveys, interviews, and questionnaires to their patients to determine their subjective experiences with healthcare services. A continued improvement in patient satisfaction motivates employees to focus more on adopting patient-centered interventions in the care process (Dragusheva et al., 2019). Consequently, there is an indirect improvement in their productivity as they strive to address the diverse care needs of their patients.

Identifying Employee Strengths and Skills to Leverage their Performance

Employee strengths and skills should be identified for the organization to come up with ways of leveraging their performance. One of the approaches to identifying employee strengths and skills is by observing them undertake their assigned tasks. Observation enables managers to identify strengths and unique skills in patient assessment, disease management, leadership, and decision-making that an employee has. The observation data informs the interventions to leverage the abilities of an organization. The other strategy is through formal methods such as interviewing the employees to identify their strengths and skills. Interviewing can provide insights into the knowledge and skills in areas such as communication, planning, problem-solving, and teamwork for an employee (Baljoon et al., 2018). Structured assessment tests can also be administered to the employees. Examples of these tests include StrenghtQuest and strength-based questionnaires that may offer insights into one’s capabilities in their professional role. The results of self-assessment tests can be used to validate those obtained through observation and interviews.

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The organization can leverage the identified strengths and skills in many ways. One of them is by utilizing the identified employee best practices in the existing business model. The integration enables the organization to adopt interventions that have proven successful in driving the desired excellence. The other approach is by utilizing their failures as an opportunity for growth. An example is by seeking insights from the employees about the challenges they experience and potential interventions that can be used to address them in the future. Through it, the organization identifies innovative practices that can be used to minimize challenges that employees experience in the organization (Baljoon et al., 2018). The last way of leveraging their strengths and skills is by assigning them leadership roles in undertaking complex organizational tasks. The approach motivates the employees and empowers them to build their competencies further.

Strategies to Improve Employee Performance

Several strategies will be explored to improve employee performance. One of them is rewarding performance. Rewards will be offered to the best-performing employees and teams to motivate them to engage in additional activities that contribute to organizational success. Rewards will be in forms such as monetary, verbal recognition, and addition of roles and responsibilities for the employees. The other intervention that will be explored to improve employee performance is involving them in making organizational decisions. Employee input into the organizational decisions and strategies will be sought. The consequence will include employee satisfaction with their job, enhanced motivation, and empowerment to contribute to organizational success. The other approach will be ensuring open communication. An organizational culture characterized by two-way communication between the management and employees will be created (Seitovirta et al., 2018). The views, concerns, and issues facing the employees will be prioritized. Through it, they will feel valued, hence, motivated to play a proactive role in ensuring organizational success.

Integrating Rewards and Incentives to Remain Competitive

One of the approaches that will be adopted to ensure rewards and incentives remain competitive in the market and recruit and retain the employees is by incorporating them into organizational policies and culture. Incorporation will ensure the sustainability of the adopted rewards and incentive programs for the employees. The other approach will be reviewing the rewards and incentive programs annually and comparing them with the best practices in the marketplace. Regular review will provide insights into the best strategies for ensuring competitiveness and relevance of the incentive and reward programs used in the organization (Seitovirta et al., 2018). The consideration of the above strategies will result in enhanced employee retention and acquisition of the best skills in the marketplace.

Vision for the Overall Culture

The desired overall culture that I aspire to develop in my organization is a culture of excellence. The excellence is achieved by considering and prioritizing employee needs. It also entails involving them in making crucial organizational decisions to make them part of the organization. My desired culture also focuses on the provision of rewards and incentives to the employees as a way of motivating them (Schneider & Good, 2018). I believe that focusing on employee needs will result in their enhanced ability to provide care that addresses the prioritized needs of the patients. Consequently, the organizational vision of ensuring excellence in the patient care process will be achieved.

Conclusion

Overall, employees play a crucial role in contributing to organizational success. Managers and leaders should strive to identify and leverage employee strengths and skills. Rewards and incentives should be offered to employees to enhance their job performance and motivation levels. My desired vision and culture for the organization I work for is to ensure excellence by focusing on the employees’ needs.

References

Baljoon, R., Banjar, H., & Banakhar, M. (2018). Nurses’ work motivation and the factors affecting it: a scoping review. International Journal of Nursing & Clinical Practices, 5. https://doi.org/10.15344/2394-4978/2018/277

Dragusheva, S., Petleshkova, P., & Panova, G. (2019). Incentives motivating mentors and criteria for selecting mentors in the pre-graduation traineeship of future registered nurses. Open Access Macedonian Journal of Medical Sciences, 7(19), 3294–3297. https://doi.org/10.3889/oamjms.2019.714

Halldorsdottir, S., Einarsdottir, E. J., & Edvardsson, I. R. (2018). Effects of cutbacks on motivating factors among nurses in primary health care. Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences, 32(1), 397–406. https://doi.org/10.1111/scs.12474

Schneider, M., & Good, S. (2018). Meeting the challenges of nursing staff education. Nursing2022, 48(8), 16–17. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.NURSE.0000541402.97845.2f

Seitovirta, J., Lehtimäki, A.-V., Vehviläinen-Julkunen, K., Mitronen, L., & Kvist, T. (2018). Registered nurses’ perceptions of rewarding and its significance. Journal of Nursing Management, 26(4), 457–466. https://doi.org/10.1111/jonm.12571

Generally, organizational productivity depends on the employees’ commitment, performance, and attitude. In health practice, leaders should adopt practical mechanisms to motivate and empower employees to ensure they provide optimal patient care. As a crucial organizational asset, employees should remain motivated, engaged in decision-making, and supported through mentorship, leadership, and growth opportunities. Often, leaders should assess employees’ performance and ensure that barriers to a healthy workplace and high performance are effectively addressed. They should also be committed to building a culture that values employees, respects their decisions, and ensures that employees are treated as an essential asset. The purpose of this paper is to discuss performance indicators, rewards and incentives, and a plan for employees’ motivation.

Tasks and Performance Indicators Contributing to Overall Employee Performance

Employees’ performance depends on multiple elements that can be indicated through various identifiers. The first indicator contributing to the overall employee performance on the job is employee productivity and task completion rate. In every organization or unit, employees work to achieve some targets. For instance, nurses must provide care to a specified number of patients daily, weekly, or monthly to ascertain that they are working. Failing to meet the set targets indicates low performance. It can be a measure of distraction, low motivation, or lack of appropriate support.

Other indicators can individually or jointly contribute to the overall employee performance on the job. They include leadership support, employee engagement in decision-making and interprofessional collaboration. Supportive leaders are approachable and empathetic (Bourke & Titus, 2020). They show concern for employees’ needs and quickly respond to current and emerging issues. Engaging employees in decision-making makes employees feel valued and appreciated. They connect more with organizational policies and decisions and readily follow them. As Buljac-Samardzic et al. (2020) posited, interprofessional collaboration promotes team mentality and improves communication. It enables employees to work together to achieve individual, group, and organizational targets.

Employees’ health and well-being also contribute significantly to their overall performance. In the current workplace, the workload has increased, and work dynamics have changed since the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. Stress levels are high, and health care employees are highly vulnerable to burnout (Yıldırım et al., 2021). High stress and burnout levels indicate poor health and well-being. Such levels precede low productivity, and leaders should develop appropriate mechanisms to surmount their devastating effects.

Identifying an Employees’ Strengths and Skills

Leveraging performance implies converting individual capacity to explicit knowledge to offer more comprehensive solutions to organizational problems. It involves optimizing employees’ strengths and skills to increase the organization’s competitive advantage. Since employees are differently gifted, it is crucial to identify their strengths and skills as the basis for leveraging their performance. An effective method is generally observing employees’ talents and unique skills. For instance, some employees lead others in exercises, solving complex problems, or general activities like environmental conservation. Scanning for broader talents can help to identify specific strengths like leadership that can be further developed through training, role delegation, or mentorship.

Performance appraisal is another effective method for identifying employees’ strengths and skills. Madlabana et al. (2020) described performance appraisal as the regular review of employees’ performance and their contribution to an organization. It indicates an employee’s skills, annual achievements, and overall growth. Through the ranking method, an employee in a workgroup is ranked against others based on their job performance or targeted performance. The ranking can further compare an employee’s performance with previous performance to determine growth or lack thereof. The identified gaps accurately indicate where improvement is required.

Strategies to Improve Employee Performance

Organizations apply many strategies to improve employee performance. The choice of the method depends on employees’ specialties, genders, performance levels, and attitudes, among other factors. Training and development are among the most effective strategies for improving employee performance. In the current health practice, massive changes occur in processes, relationships, and workplace cultures and affect employee’s performance significantly. For instance, technology incorporation in patient care is no longer an option as organizations continue developing strategies to reach people in remote areas. Such advancements call for training and development to fix skill gaps.

Taking care of employees’ health and well-being is an appropriate strategy for improving employee performance. As Søvold et al. (2021) noted, health care professionals should be mentally and physically healthy to address patient needs satisfactorily. Optimal mental, physical, and emotional health ensures that care providers are energized, ready for work, and less vulnerable to medical errors. Employees’ health and well-being can be addressed by ensuring that they are not overworked and overtime is fairly compensated. There should be policies to prevent workplace incivility and bullying too. Above all, organizational leaders should provide employees with adequate self-care opportunities to care of their physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health.

The other important strategy is employee motivation. The motivation level denotes the employee’s enthusiasm, creativity, and energy that characterize their everyday work. Rewards and incentives are highly effective motivation strategies. In health practice, rewards and incentives improve job morale and satisfaction, which enables health care professionals to work hard to achieve patient care objectives (Manzoor et al., 2020). Rewards and incentives should be performance-based and explicit. Performance should be based on quantitative output, association with the least/insignificant workplace issues, and other factors such as low levels of absenteeism. Explicitness implies being clear with what is being offered and when. Options include bonuses, paid time off, and cash rewards.

Integrating Rewards and Incentives

Rewards and incentives help to motivate employees to retain the organization’s best talents. However, their integration into the organization’s motivation strategies should be an organized process characterized by professionalism and clarity. As a result, there should be an organization-wide framework formulating how to reward employees and based on which criteria. All activities cannot be rewarded or incentivized equally hence the need for clear categories. It is also crucial for the organization to offer rewards within its budget to ensure that the reward program does not affect the financing of other activities.

A Vision for the Overall Culture

Organizational culture represents shared values and beliefs that guide everyday activities and people’s behaviors. I aspire to develop an employee-centered culture where employees are treated as valued assets and at the center of decision-making. An employee-centered culture should be sensitive to employee needs and ensure that they are motivated to work always. Other dominant elements include employee engagement in decision-making, providing them with growth and development opportunities, and protecting them from issues that can hamper their health and well-being. Such a culture will help in employee retention hence high productivity and low turnover rates.

Conclusion

Organizations require committed employees always. Such employees understand the organization’s mission and work hard to achieve the set goals and objectives. To enable employees to work productively, leaders must address employees’ needs effectively and ensure they are motivated. As discussed in this paper, strategies to improve employee performance include training and development, taking care of employees’ health and well-being and motivation. Rewards and incentives are effective motivation strategies, but there should be a framework to guide leaders on when and how to reward employees.

References

Bourke, J., & Titus, A. (2020). The key to inclusive leadership. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2020/03/the-key-to-inclusive-leadership

Buljac-Samardzic, M., Doekhie, K. D., & van Wijngaarden, J. D. (2020). Interventions to improve team effectiveness within health care: A systematic review of the past decade. Human Resources for Health, 18(1), 1-42. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-019-0411-3

Madlabana, C. Z., Mashamba-Thompson, T. P., & Petersen, I. (2020). Performance management methods and practices among nurses in primary health care settings: A systematic scoping review protocol. Systematic Reviews, 9(1), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-020-01294-w

Manzoor, F., Wei, L., & Asif, M. (2021). Intrinsic rewards and employee’s performance with the mediating mechanism of employee’s motivation. Frontiers in Psychology, 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.563070

Søvold, L. E., Naslund, J. A., Kousoulis, A. A., Saxena, S., Qoronfleh, M. W., Grobler, C., & Münter, L. (2021). Prioritizing the mental health and well-being of healthcare workers: An urgent global public health priority. Frontiers in Public Health, 9, 679397. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.679397

Yıldırım, M., Çiçek, İ., & Şanlı, M. E. (2021). Coronavirus stress and COVID-19 burnout among healthcare staffs: The mediating role of optimism and social connectedness. Current Psychology, 40(11), 5763-5771. https://doi.org/10.1007%2Fs12144-021-01781-w