Future Issues in Human Resources, Research Paper Example

Human resources issues impact the interaction and organization in any environment, especially in ever-changing industries such as health care.  There are many socio-cultural factors that will greatly impact the necessities and functions of human resources departments within the next twenty years.  As the United States will continue to change, the HR departments within the country must also adapt to properly accommodate a much more diverse workforce than anything currently seen within the country.  The HR departments will likely deal with issues concerning organizational definition, diversity, and healthcare reform over the next twenty years that will greatly impact HR policy and the method by which people are hired, retained and receive benefits.

As Khatri et al. (2006) discuss, the most important issue that tends to cause the greatest problems in health care for human resources personnel is an unclear definition of the organization’s overall goals and purpose.  Therefore, in order for employees to properly hire and retain an adequate workforce, the administrators much have a clearly defined purpose for the employees to follow.  Just as this is an issue now, it will continue to be a fundamental issue over the next twenty years for human resources departments.  However, this is not an issue that many human resources departments or personnel can directly solve.  It must be addressed by the powers-that-be for the healthcare organization.  Several pathways exist for medical companies and hospitals to choose what services they will offer to the public; therefore, it is both important that the organization is clearly defined but also not spread too thin over a large spectrum.

Furthermore, this issue is compounded by the ever-growing diverse population within the United States.  Hispanics are typically referred to as the largest growing minority population in the country.  Educational institutions are even working to require Spanish as part of high school and collegiate curriculums to address this growing trend.  Diversity training will likely be less of an issue as it is today because projected figures suggest that the Hispanic population will probably be the dominant ethnic group in the United States.  English will still be the dominant language in this country, but human resources personnel will probably require bilingual candidates for hiring.  This will become a requirement due to the constant growth of globalism in the health field as doctors and medical companies work together internationally.  No longer will the Spanish language be refined to solely the inner-cities or to the states bordering Mexico.  Bilingualism will be a crucial component for success in the next twenty years for healthcare organizations.

Although today the issue of the health insurance bill in the United States is very young and we cannot grasp all of the future issues it will hold, it is undoubtedly going to impact human resources practices in the next twenty years for healthcare organizations.  Still, human resources departments will be responsible for divvying health insurance benefits to address all of the governmental requirements of the new healthcare bill to be passed by the Obama Administration in 2010.  Benefits are a complex aspect for human resources departments and will continue to hold many new problems for employees and personnel in twenty years, especially in healthcare organizations.  Although, this will not be as compounded as health insurance benefits would be for other industries because healthcare companies usually offer excellent health insurance policies as healthcare providers.  Nevertheless, the health insurance bill will have its own challenges for healthcare human resources departments to follow.

The DFID Health Systems Resource Centre published a paper suggesting methods for improving HR processes and efficiency.  Although this paper was published by a London-based organization, the issues of HR policymaking, planning and the challenges of healthcare reforms are fully-discussed.  Many American healthcare HR departments can take a lesson from this paper and follow suggestions of other international organizations to help address the future issues of globalism, diversity and healthcare reform.

References

BraunConsulting.com. Top hr issues for 2005: rising health care costs, workforce skill levels, competence. (2005). Retrieved from http://www.braunconsulting.com/bcg/newsletters/winter2004/winter20045.html

Cultural Diversity Issues in Healthcare. Cultural Linguistic Services, Human Resources, 120 USB, http://www.uiowa.edu/hr/administration/linguistics/healthcare_diversity.pdf

DFID Health Systems Resource Centre. A Review of human resource issues in the health sector. (1999). Retrieved from http://www.dfidhealthrc.org/publications/health_service_delivery/HR.PDF

Khatri, N., Wells, J., McKune, J., & Brewer, M. (2006). Strategic human resource management issues in hospitals: a study of a university and a community hospital. Hospital Topics.