The Issue of Staff Shortage and Layoffs

The Issue of Staff Shortage and Layoffs

Introduction

Staff shortage is a growing concern in the health care organization. A recent demonstrate that the United State will be required to recruit about 2.3 million new health care practitioners by 2025 to address the shortage of staff due to aging and rising patient load. Most organization are not in a position to manage supply of professional due to increasing patient load. Moreover, most organization are forced to lay off workers to survive. Layoffs is due to reduction in revenue that is caused by combination of sequester cuts, expansion of Medicaid and reduction in patient volume. The main objective of the paper is to explore the issues of staff shortage and layoff in health-care organizations, its impact and measures to address the issues.

Challenges Faced by Health-care Organization

Staff Shortage

The health-care industry is facing shortage of skilled and qualified staffs. The shortage is seen in professions such as nurses, physicians and technicians. The rate of graduation of students in these fields cannot address the issue. The industry is growing but the major challenge is to find the skilled staff to fill about 2.3 million jobs.  The shortage of staffs will affect the cost of services because of competitive labor market. Additionally, the organization need to hire foreign professionals to address the shortage of skill workers in the country. The organization should provide a number of benefits such as paid vacation, leave and allowances to attract and retain professionals.

Layoffs as a Result of Declining Revenues

Large layoff and worker reduction are one of the problems that affect our organization. the issue is caused by dire financial situation that is faced by our organization. laying people off is not a preferred strategy. However, the organization is compelled to use the strategy to make it through financially. Laying off workers is not primary course of action because the strategy is unpopular and requires a lot of work. The rise in health care organizations to turn to laying offs is becoming a national issue (Kinard, & Wright, 2011). Layoffs is due to reduction in revenue that is caused by combination of sequester cuts, expansion of Medicaid and reduction in patient volume. Moreover, the rise of bad debt has left health care organizations with less money. Announcing layoff to employee is very painful and worrying at the same time.

Impacts of the Issues on the Organization

            Nurses are forced to work for very long periods due to shortage of staffs which may result in job dissatisfaction and burnout. The patent quality reduces and the cost of services is increased due to increased labor market (Gerein, Green, & Pearson, 2006). On the other side, the organization is compelled to incur extra cost due to layoff. For instance, the organization will need to pay outgoing workers and incur overtime wages for remaining workers. The other consequence of lay off is decreased customer loyalty. Lay employees off send a message to the customers about the crisis that is facing the organization. hence, the customers may be alienated.

Proposal to address the Issues

How to Address the Shortage of Staffs

The organization needs to understand the labor market. Our organization need to establish strategies that will attract and retain qualified staffs. We need to manage the increasing cost of labor without affecting our business. One of the ways to address the issue of staff shortage is offer wages that will attract and retain qualified talents.

How to Address the Issue of Layoffs that is Caused by Declining Revenues

I understand that various systems can be used to prevent or reduce layoffs. Lay off can be avoided by anticipating change and measures that cut on cost such as decreasing non-value-added variation.  Our organization was not prepared for the significant reduction of the revenue. As a result, we were forced to lay some workers off to maintain our survival in the market. I have realized that our labor cost is very high. Therefore, cutting on the cost of labor will create savings. There are various my measures that I propose to be adopted by our organization to ease the pain of our workers and the community at large.

The first practice to avoid layoffs is to be logical when implementing layoff policies. There should be good reasoning on reducing the worker. The organization should explain on why a layoff is necessary. For instance, reducing a given number of employee due to volume and bench mark will make the remaining workers to fell secure. Insisting on reducing a given percentage of workers across all department is illogical. The second measure is to educate managers of the organization to understand layoff and appropriate strategy to use before implementing layoffs. Educating the managers will enable provision of care on the layoff process.

Moreover, the other measure to address the issue of layoff is to communicate with people who are affected by the layoff and those remaining in the organization.  Open communication with the affected group will solve the negative effects of layoff. Human Resource Department can make formal communication to all employees about the layoff. This will prevent the negative effect on the moral of remaining workers (Bridges, Davidson, Soule, Maki, & Tomkowiak, 2011).

Finally, making external communication with community is essential in safeguarding the image of the organization. The organization should be clear on provision of services even after layoffs. The community should be given reassurance on the normal operation of the organization even after reduction of employees.

References

Bridges, D., Davidson, R. A., Soule Odegard, P., Maki, I. V., & Tomkowiak, J. (2011). Interprofessional collaboration: three best practice models of interprofessional education. Medical education online, 16(1), 6035.

Gerein, N., Green, A., & Pearson, S. (2006). The implications of shortages of health professionals for maternal health in sub-Saharan Africa. Reproductive health matters, 14(27), 40-50.

Kinard, J., & Wright, E. (2011). Layoffs at hospitals: a challenge for health care managers. The health care manager, 30(2), 139-144.