Human resource management at the intensive care unit: A pragmatic review and future research agenda for building a learning health system

Recently, the importance of efficient and effective health care has been recognized, especially during the acute phase of the Coronavirus Disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Intensive care units (ICUs) have faced an immense workload, with massive numbers of patients being treated in a very short period of time. In general, ICUs are required to deliver high-quality care at all times during the year. At the same time, high-quality organizational goals may not be aligned with the interests, motivation, and development of individual staff members (eg, nurses, and doctors). For management of the ICU, it is important to balance the organizational goals and development of the staff members ("their human capital"), usually referred to as human resource management. Although many studies have considered this area, no holistic view of the topic has been presented. Such a holistic view may help leadership and/or other stakeholders at the ICU to design a better learning health system. This pragmatic review aims to provide a conceptual model for the management of ICUs. Future research may also use this conceptual model for studying important factors for designing and understanding human resources in an ICU.

Identifying the communication of burnout syndrome on the Twitter platform from the individual, organizational, and environmental perspective

Addressing the escalating prevalence of burnout syndrome, which affects individuals across various professions and domains, is becoming increasingly imperative due to its profound impact on personal and professional aspects of employees' lives. This paper explores the intersection of burnout syndrome and human resource management, recognizing employees as the primary assets of organizations. It emphasizes the growing importance of nurturing employee well-being, care, and work-life balance from a human resource management standpoint. Employing social media analysis, this study delves into Twitter-based discourse on burnout syndrome, categorizing communication into three distinct dimensions: individual, organizational, and environmental. This innovative approach provides fresh insights into interpreting burnout syndrome discourse through big data analysis within social network analysis. The methodology deployed in this study was predicated upon the enhanced Social Media Analysis based on Hashtag Research framework and frequency, topic and visual analysis were conducted. The investigation encompasses Twitter communication from January 1st, 2019, to July 31st, 2022, comprising a dataset of 190,770 tweets. Notably, the study identifies the most frequently used hashtags related to burnout syndrome, with #stress and #mentalhealth leading the discussion, followed closely by #selfcare, #wellbeing, and #healthcare. Moreover, a comprehensive analysis unveils seven predominant topics within the discourse on burnout syndrome: organization, healthcare, communication, stress and therapy, time, symptoms, and leadership. This study underscores the evolving landscape of burnout syndrome communication and its multifaceted implications for individuals, organizations, and the broader environment, shedding light on the pressing need for proactive interventions. In organizations at all levels of management, the concept of burnout should be included in the value philosophy of organizations and should focus on organizational aspects, working hours and work-life balance for a healthier working environment and well-being of employees at all levels of management.

Health Management: Evaluating the Relationship between Organizational Factors, Psychosocial Risks at Work, Performance Management, and Hospital Outcomes

Introduction-Health system (HS) health organizations are complex and are in constant dynamic interaction with multiple elements, including political, environmental, societal, legal, and organizational factors, along with human components, such as human resources, patients, and other stakeholders. Objective-This research aimed to study three HS organizations, identifying and characterizing the elements of health organizations and the factors related to professionals, determining their influence on economic and financial performance results, as well as results related to the professionals and to the patients comprising the institutions. Method-A quantitative study was conducted in which data were collected through questionnaires from various sources to better understand and characterize the factors related to organizations, professionals, and patients (470 health professionals and 768 patients). To test the integrated evaluation model for health organizations, path analysis was used. Results-The results reveal that the organizational culture (OC) presents a positive relationship between the professional's quality of life (QL) and the performance management (PM) of the professionals, along with a negative relationship with the psychosocial work risks (PWR). There is also a relationship between the OC and patient satisfaction (PS), professional job satisfaction (PJS), and economic and financial results (EFR). In the relationship between the processes and the results, there are significant relationships between PM and PJS and PWR and PJS. In terms of the results, there is a significant relationship between the EFR and the PS. Conclusions-This study contributes to a deeper knowledge of the factors that influence the quality of health organizations and their results and produces recommendations for health organizations to address the current challenges.

Authentic Leadership, Employee Work Engagement, Trust in the Leader, and Workplace Well-Being: A Moderated Mediation Model

Purpose

This study proposes a model based on social contagion theory to evaluate the impacts of authentic leadership on employee work engagement (WE) and trust in the leader (TL), integrating the mediating effect of TL and the moderating effect of workplace well-being (WW). Authentic leadership is disaggregated into its subscales: relational transparency (RT), internalized moral perspective (IMP), balanced processing (BP), and self-awareness (SA).

Methods

Dubai hotel employees completed 476 surveys. Applying the bootstrapping technique, SmartPLS 4 software was utilized to test the hypotheses in a mediation model.

Results

The findings indicate (1) that three subscales of authentic leadership (RT, IMP, and BP) positively impact WE; (2) that RT, IMP, and SA positively impact TL; (3) that TL positively impacts WE; (4) that TL mediates the relationship between RT, IMP, SA, and WE; (5) and that WW moderates the relationship between RT, BP, and WE.

Conclusion

Authentic leadership and its subscales are proven to be an excellent tool for achieving employee WE and TL. TL is crucial for effective hotel operation, as it impacts employee WE and acts as a mediator between three subscales of authentic leadership and WE. WW moderates the relationship between two authentic leadership subscales and WE but does not interact in the relationship between TL and WE. Both researchers and hotel managers can benefit from these new findings, which also provide a foundation on which to build future investigations.

Psychosocial Safety Climate of Employees During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Iran: A Policy Analysis

OBJECTIVE

Iran is among the top 15 countries in the world in terms of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) infection rates. The numbers of infections and deaths are still increasing in September 2020. This study aims to investigate the impact of the policies on terminating the quarantine period on the perception of psychosocial safety by employees and workers in Iran.

METHODS

In this study, policy announcements and regulations, media reports, and the results were collected from 2 previously published population surveys that collected employees' views of the government approach to quarantine. The information thus collected was then analyzed using the "What is the Problem Represented (WPR)" approach for data analysis introduced by Carol Bacchi, and focuses on the question, "What effects are produced by the representation of the problem?"

RESULTS

The Iranian Government decided to quarantine people and close most sectors during the New Year holidays in Iran in March 2020. The duration of quarantine was only 2 weeks, and the government then ordered government organizations and industrial companies to reopen. The advantage of a short quarantine period is assumed to be the reinstatement of productivity while the disadvantage is the likely risk of further transmission of the virus.

CONCLUSION

The government approach to and communication about the quarantine period has neglected to consider the psychosocial safety climate of employees, who have to go to their workplaces using buses, subways, or other vehicles, and who are under pressure mentally because of fear of infection, dismissal for non-attendance, and the consequent economic problems. The government approach necessarily impacts on the perceived psychosocial safety climate of employees, and hence influences the causes of work stress. If the psychosocial safety climate is not considered and improved, it may reduce the quality of services and products, and increase accidents.

First facts on the distribution of personal protective equipment during the coronavirus pandemic and facts revealed by medical entities in Brazil: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND

The 2019 coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has revealed precarious public health conditions worldwide, where serious failures have occurred, similar to the distribution of personal protective equipment (PPE) to physicians in the government of Brazil.

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this investigation was to prove through facts that there have been failures in the distribution of PPE to medical professionals within a reasonable timeframe.

DESIGN AND SETTING

Through a cross-sectional study, we sought to identify the information and data on the subject of "Distribution of PPE" from the official sites of all the national and regional medical representative entities.

METHODS

All medical representative entities, such as unions, councils, and federations, were identified by searching their existing websites, which were active on the World Wide Web, identifying facts, news, and official data regarding the supply of PPE on a daily basis and during the research period.

RESULTS

It was evident from the identification of over 3,900 physician complaints and news reports that there was a failure to distribute PPE to medical professionals in Brazil over a reasonable period. Several physicians obtained PPE through the ruling of the courts.

CONCLUSIONS

There was indeed a failure in the context of health service administration, which compromised the second level of the Maslow Scale, safety needs, and exposed these professionals to a greater risk than necessary, compromised the quality of work life, and directly compromised the doctor-patient relationship. The condition of the physicians cannot be forgotten during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the Turkish civil aviation industry

COVID-19 pandemic, which has announced to the world from Wuhan in China, has naturally formed economic shocks in air transport. As a result of the COVID-19 crisis, governments closed international borders and almost all airlines have drastically reduced their available seat capacity. The aim of this study is to examine the early and late responses such as financial decisions, managing and recovering flights, human resources management and hygiene measures taken by Turkish air carriers in a crisis environment during pandemics and economic shocks. Turkish Civil Aviation Industry (TCAI) is analyzed pre and during COVID-19 in terms of market overview. Finally, we also present current and future directions, and provide examples of the reactions from Turkish and global carriers. The results show that TCAI is heavily impacted by the COVID-19 Pandemic and the market is re-shaping with fewer carriers in the recovery phase. Airline staff faced significant salary decreases in TCAI due to revenue decrease of the airlines. Cargo-only flights are increased crucially in the TCAI, although passenger figures are dropped.

Identifying factors affecting dentists retention in deprived areas in Iran

BACKGROUND

One of the concerns of health managers in regard to improving the oral health of residents in deprived areas is to increase the tendency of dentists to stay in those areas. The purpose of this study was to explore factors affecting the intention of dentists to stay in deprived areas.

METHODS

The present qualitative study was carried out using semi-structured interviews. We interviewed 22 informants (4 oral health managers and 18 dentists) who were identified purposefully. Informants were asked what factors affecting retention in remote and deprived areas. Content analysis through the 7-step Colaizzi approach was used for data analysis.

RESULTS

Fifteen subthemes under five themes of individual factors, the development level of the region, social and cultural factors, financial issues, and managerial and organizational factors were identified as factors affecting tendency of dentist to stay and work in deprived areas.

CONCLUSION

According to the results of our study, health policymakers and managers should focus on culture and attitudes of the residents, Provision of financial incentives, structural problems and underdevelopment of the region, and high workload to increase the tendency of dentists to stay in remote and deprived areas.

The Temporary Agency Worker's Motivation Profile Analysis

The Self-Determination Theory (SDT) establishes that human motivations can take different forms (e.g., amotivation, extrinsic and intrinsic motivation), yet it is only recently that the theory has been advanced to explain how these different forms combine to influence temporary agency workers’ (TAWs) affective commitment and their perception over the human resources practices (HRP) applied. We tested this theory with data from seven temporary agency companies (N = 3766). Through latent profile analysis (LPA) we identified five distinct motivation profiles and found that they differed in their affective commitment to the agency and to the client-company, and in their perception of HRP. We verified that temporary agency workers in more intrinsic profiles had more positive outcomes and a better perception of the investment made by the companies, than did TAWs in more extrinsic profiles. Additionally, when TAWs were able to integrate the reasons for being in this work arrangement, the negative effect of the extrinsic motivation was attenuated, and it was possible to find moderated profiles in which TAWs also showed more positive results than TAWs with only extrinsic motives. These differences are consistent with the notion that a motivation profile provides a context that determines how the individual components are experienced. Theoretical and practical implications of this context effect are discussed.

Inclusive Communication Model Supporting the Employment Cycle of Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Difficulties with interpersonal communication experienced by individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) significantly contribute to their underrepresentation in the workforce as well as problems experienced while in employment. Consistently, it is vital to understand how communication within the employment cycle of this group can be improved. This study aims to identify and analyze the possibilities of modifying the communication processes around recruitment, selection, onboarding, and job retention to address the specific characteristics and needs of the representatives of this group. This qualitative study is based on 15 in-depth interviews conducted with 21 field experts, i.e.,: therapists, job trainers, and entrepreneurs employing people with ASD. The findings of this research informed the creation of an inclusive communication model supporting the employment cycle of individuals with ASD. The most important recommendations within the model that was created include the modification of job advertisements, use of less structured job interviews, providing opportunities for mentorship, and supportive and non-direct, electronically mediated communication. To apply the above-mentioned solutions and take full advantage of the talents of people with ASD, it is also necessary to provide tailored sensitivity and awareness training programs for their direct addressees as well as their neurotypical colleagues, including managerial staff.

The Key Role of Strategically and People-Oriented HRM in Hospitals in Slovakia in the Context of Their Organizational Performance

The main objective and purpose of our paper is to verify the positive congruence between the synergistic effect of the mixed roles of human resources management departments in healthcare facilities and their organizational performance. Such congruence is mediated by means of a transformational leadership style and information sharing. The research was carried out on a sample of 44 hospitals in the Slovak Republic, which are included in the ranking according to a comprehensive indicator of their performance (medical and non-medical). Data were obtained using a questionnaire for 44 top managers from these hospitals. Mediation was used as a tool to examine the relevant variables relationship mechanism. All data was analyzed using the SPSS 24.0 software package with the help of selected analytical tools. A series of regression analysis were used to identify the proposed hypotheses. ANOVA was used to analyze the multiple dependence. We worked at a significance level of 5%. The main conclusion of our study is the significant impact of the implementation of the new-mixed role of human resources management departments on organizational performance. Another finding is that the direct effect between the two variables examined is more significant than the mediated effect. This means that if management unambiguously declares and implements the policy of mixed roles of human resources management departments, less influence from the mediator-transformational leadership is sufficient to transmit the effect of this variable onto organizational performance. Completed specialization studies in the field of management play a significant role in the studied relationships.

Strategy and Human Resources Management in Non-Profit Organizations: Its Interaction with Open Innovation

The socioeconomic changes that many countries have been experiencing in recent decades, caused by structural factors or by specific circumstances, where the pandemic crisis of COVID-19 is only the most recent example, have posed challenges to organizations, which present themselves more and more and in various forms as threatened by the possibility of fulfilling their mission. Public and private sectors increasingly present themselves as insufficient to respond effectively to day-to-day requests. This context of instability and the resulting impacts for non-profit organizations pose serious problems to the way in which governance is exercised and served as a motivation for carrying out a study that aimed to understand the influence of strategy and human resources on the governance of these organizations. A review of the literature on the variables under study made it possible to identify the sub-dimensions associated with each one of them and the respective indicators. Thus, for a quantitative study, it was possible to apply a questionnaire to 242 Holy Houses of Mercy in Portugal to understand the direct and indirect influences of strategic management and human resources management on the governance of these institutions. The results obtained show the existence of a positive relationship between the variables under analysis, confirming that not only do these variables influence, by themselves and directly, the governance of the institutions studied, but also the strategy influences human resources policies, which in turn have implications for the way the Holy Houses of Mercy deal with aspects associated with governance. It is concluded that, in general, for these organizations to be more effective in efforts to improve their governance processes, they must focus on strategic management and human resources management instruments.

Synthesizing core nursing skills to support behavioural-based interviews for nurses in the UAE: A nominal group study

AIM

To develop a bank of core clinical and performance skills to inform the future development of structured interview questions to aid the recruitment of nurses in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

BACKGROUND

The UAE depends on expatriate nurses with variable clinical and educational backgrounds. Given the global shortage of nurses, the UAE requires innovative recruitment methods to attract and retain quality nurses and ensure high-quality health care services.

METHOD

Three cycles of a virtual nominal group technique (NGT) were used to elicit consensus from thirty (n = 30) frontline nurses on the core clinical and performance skills needed to work in three specialty areas (paediatric, outpatient and telemetry/transitional care).

RESULTS

Ten performance skills and ten clinical skills were identified for each specialty area. Performance skills included communication and critical thinking with key clinical skills being medication administration/use, cardiac monitoring troubleshooting and recognizing arrhythmias.

CONCLUSION

The identified core performance and clinical nursing skills provide the basis for the future development of specialty-specific questions or scenarios to aid interviewers in achieving an informed selection process.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT

The identified core performance and clinical skills provide the foundations for an appropriate interviewing/selection process, staff orientation, staff appraisal and continuous professional development.

Amazon Employees Resources Access Data Extraction via Clonal Selection Algorithm and Logic Mining Approach

Amazon.com Inc. seeks alternative ways to improve manual transactions system of granting employees resources access in the field of data science. The work constructs a modified Artificial Neural Network (ANN) by incorporating a Discrete Hopfield Neural Network (DHNN) and Clonal Selection Algorithm (CSA) with 3-Satisfiability (3-SAT) logic to initiate an Artificial Intelligence (AI) model that executes optimization tasks for industrial data. The selection of 3-SAT logic is vital in data mining to represent entries of Amazon Employees Resources Access (AERA) via information theory. The proposed model employs CSA to improve the learning phase of DHNN by capitalizing features of CSA such as hypermutation and cloning process. This resulting the formation of the proposed model, as an alternative machine learning model to identify factors that should be prioritized in the approval of employees resources applications. Subsequently, reverse analysis method (SATRA) is integrated into our proposed model to extract the relationship of AERA entries based on logical representation. The study will be presented by implementing simulated, benchmark and AERA data sets with multiple performance evaluation metrics. Based on the findings, the proposed model outperformed the other existing methods in AERA data extraction.

Retention of qualified healthcare workers in rural Senegal: lessons learned from a qualitative study

INTRODUCTION

Deployment and retention of a sufficient number of skilled and motivated human resources for health (HRH) at the right place and at the right time are critical to ensure people's right to access a universal quality of health care. Vision Tokyo 2010 Network, an international network of HRH managers at the ministry of health (MoH) level in nine Francophone African countries, identified maldistribution of a limited number of healthcare personnel and their retention in rural areas as overarching problems in the member countries. The network conducted this study in Senegal to identify the determining factors for the retention of qualified HRH in rural areas, and to explore an effective and feasible policy that the MoH could implement in the member countries.

METHODS

Doctors, nurses, midwives and superior technicians in anesthesiology who were currently working (1) in a rural area and had been for more than 2 years, (2) in Dakar with experience of working in a rural area or (3) in Dakar without any prior experience working in a rural area were interviewed about their willingness and reasons for accepting work or continuing to work in a rural area and their suggested policies for deployment and retention of healthcare workers in rural areas. In-depth interviews were conducted with policy makers in MoH, asking for their perceptions on human resource management in health and about their suggested policies for deployment and retention.

RESULTS

A total of 176 healthcare workers and eight policy makers were interviewed. The willingness to face challenges in a new place was one of the main reasons for accepting work in rural areas. The identified factors to motivate or demotivate healthcare workers in rural areas were related to pre-service and in-service education, regulatory systems, financial and non-financial incentive schemes and environmental support. Factors not included in WHO's global recommendation but highly valued in this study were (1) the fairness, transparency and predictability of human resource management by the MoH and (2) employment status, ie permanent government staff versus contract staff. Financial incentive schemes were less commonly suggested. Family bonding and religious-related non-financial incentive schemes were found to be specific factors in Senegal, but would also be applicable in countries where family and religion play important roles in the values of healthcare workers.

CONCLUSIONS

Improved HRH management, eg the transparency of human resource management by the MoH, was identified as a pre-condition of any policy implementation related to HRH. This factor can be considered in other countries struggling to retain healthcare workers in rural areas. The Vision Tokyo 2010 Network or HRH managers' network in Francophone Africa, Senegal MoH and the research team plan to conduct a quantitative survey to confirm the generalizability of the results of this qualitative survey, and to identify the most effective combination of policies to improve the retention of qualified healthcare workers and seek their implementation in other countries in the region as network activities.

Influence of selected sociodemographic factors on psychosocial workload of nurses and association of this burden with absenteeism at work

BACKGROUND

The aim of this study has been to determine if sociodemographic factors: age, sex and duration of employment as well as the presence of chronic comorbidities exert significant effect on subjective assessment of psychosocial working conditions of nurses. Moreover, we analyzed whether the abovementioned variables influenced the level of absenteeism at work during a year preceding the study.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

The study, conducted between December 2012 and January 2013, included 789 nurses employed at public and private healthcare institutions in Białystok. The participants were surveyed by means of the "Psychosocial Working Conditions" questionnaire.

RESULTS

Women accounted for significantly higher scores of the Desired Changes Scale and significantly lower values of the Well-being Scale as compared to men. Respondents' age and duration of employment correlated significantly with the scores of the Demands and Desired Changes Scales. Moreover, we documented significant inverse correlations between the age and tenure and the scores of the Social Support and Well-being Scales. Furthermore, duration of employment was inversely correlated with the results of the Control Scale. The respondents with chronic conditions showed significantly higher scores of the Desired Changes Scale and significantly lower values of the Control and Well-being Scales. We found an inverse correlation between the number of sick leave days and the value of the Well-being Scale, which was also the case with a subset of nurses without chronic conditions.

CONCLUSIONS

Similar to other professional groups, a nursing team management requires the use of human resources management techniques and identification of a person being responsible for coordination of the group and diagnosis of its psychosocial needs.

Occupational Health: Meeting the Challenges of the Next 20 Years

Background

The industrial revolution that took place in the United Kingdom (UK) between 1760 and 1830 led to profound social change. Occupational medicine was concerned with the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of occupational diseases, that is, diseases directly caused by exposure to workplace hazards. A similar pattern of development has occurred globally.

Methods

A review of relevant literature.

Results

The international conceptualization and development of occupational health occurred during the 20th century. A new paradigm for occupational health has emerged that extends the classical focus on what might be termed “health risk management” that is, the focus on workplace hazards and risk to health to include the medical aspects of sickness absence and rehabilitation, the support and management of chronic noncommunicable diseases, and workplace health promotion.

Conclusion

The future strategic direction for occupational health will be informed by a needs analysis and a consideration of where it should be positioned within future healthcare provision. What are the occupational health workforce implications of the vision for occupational health provision? New challenges and new ways of working will necessitate a review of the competence and capacity of the occupational health workforce, with implications for future workforce planning.