Healthcare management strategic operations planning

Staffing

Heneman and Judge (2005) define staffing as "the process of acquiring, deploying, and retaining a workforce of sufficient quantity and quality to create positive impacts on the organization's effectiveness." When it comes to the fertility clinic that is the object of this planning paper, creating and deploying the required workforce is particularly important, given the specificity of the activity.

Three categories of human resource needed at the clinic can be identified: specialized medical personnel (primarily fertility physicians), auxiliary personnel (including management and administrative) and additional specialists, such as psychologists. The first part of this paper will aim to briefly define some of the most important positions in the organizational chart.

Since this is a fertility clinic, the medical staff is an essential component of the workforce, and as research showed, the laboratory part is fundamental. The embryology and andrology department will be led by a scientific director, with at least 10 years experience. This department will be in charge of creating the proper environment for the in-vitro reproductions to take place. Other specialized doctors will be in charge with monitoring and guiding the women through the entire pregnancy period.

For the physicians, the conditions for employment reflect the need to have experienced and dedicated professionals. There are two categories of medical staff: very experienced physicians and younger physicians, who can train and grow into the team. For the very experienced physicians, the requirements include at least 15 years of experience in fertility and reproduction and a PhD in medical science. For the younger physicians, the requirements can be 3 to 5 years of medical experience and training seminars or specific courses in reproduction/fertility. As mentioned, personal requirements include dedication, commitment and passion for the job.

An important part of this category is the nursing staff. Nurses ensure that a large number of intermediary operations, including, but not limited to drawing blood, taking the temperature and measuring other vital body signs or taking care of the patients before and after their meetings with the physicians, work out smoothly. They also tend to interact just as much as the physicians with the patients and clients, so the nursing staff has to be impeccable when it comes to communication, to social skills etc.

Some of the medical staff will not necessarily be part of the fertilization process, but could cover other important areas. There will be a specialized ultrasound team, for example, vital in discovering whether the fertilization process worked or whether it needs to be restarted.

The second component is the auxiliary staff. However, this is a rather large category that could include everything from the management team to administration. The job of the auxiliary staff is to properly take care of all non-medical related issues, from running the building, to covering logistical needs, to secretaries, booking and reception, billing and accounting.

Finally, there is a third category of workforce that does not necessarily fit into any of the previous two categories. This includes psychologists specialized in reproductive health issues. The psychologist will have at least a Master in Education or Counseling (PhD is preferred) and at least 10 to 15 years experience.

Compensation needs to be understood in the larger context of employee motivation. According to Maslow's (1943, 1954) pyramid of needs, there are five categories of needs for an individual: physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem and self-actualization. The previous level of needs has to be fulfilled before the individual moves to a superior level.

It becomes clear that many of the employees at the fertility clinic will have fulfilled the first three levels of needs. Many of them are well to do, educated individuals, with high income levels. Their motivation needs to be done considering the fourth and fifth levels, esteem and self-actualization. This means that the compensation package is a lot more complex and diverse than simply providing a high wage for their work at the clinic.

Compensation should consider a combination of an advantageous financial package, training courses and seminars, for continuous development of the personnel, and a small percentage of the business. The latter could motivate the workforce from at least two different perspectives. On one hand, it will show the appreciation for the job they are doing. Second, by associating them to the clinic's profit, it will make the employees more willing to participate in a proactive manner, to all work-related activities, including business development and gaining new clients. The profit sharing could be anywhere in the 1 to 5% range, depending on what each of the employees brings to the business. For example, the medical staff will gain more of the share, because of the expertise they have and the fact that most of the clients choose this fertilization clinic because of their expertise.

As Pugh (1990) showed, an organizational structure links the objectives of the organization with coordination and supervising principles between the different levels of the organization. There are two layers of coordination in the case of the fertilization clinic. First of all, the CEO of the facility is not necessarily a medical staff, but a business person. His or her role is to understand the market, work towards business development, identify new clients, propose marketing campaigns etc. He directly coordinates the management and administrative side of the clinic and, indirectly, the medical staff, mostly by ensuring adequate resource allocation to match the demand for services.