HR

REFERENCE

Carroll, R. L. (Ed.). (2009). Risk management handbook for health care organizations (Student ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Please write up 150 to 200 word count for questions 1 to 14; # 15 Submit separate, it’s an essay. Try and relate the material to real-life applications and also to the textbook and Human Resources in Health Care. Do not Plagiarize!

1. What are the major issues affecting health care today and what is human resources’ role in relationship to those issues?

How does human resource management affect the success of a health care organization?

2. Chap 1: Use the Manager’s Notebook below, “A Cold Way to Get a Job” What do you see as the

main advantages and disadvantages of Internet-based recruiting? Explain.

Emerging Trends

A Cold Way to Get a Job

The way people look for jobs has changed dramatically. Employers often require people to submit applications via the Internet, and hiring managers sift through queries with special computer programs. Unless you fit the precise algorithm that the computer program is looking for, you may never get a prospective employer’s attention. For instance, you may have four years, 351 days of experience, but not the five years the machine uses as a cutoff, and thus you are out of luck. Or failure to show evidence that you have used a particular skill during the past two months may be ground for automatic rejection (maybe you did use it but forgot to include it). In a job market thick with candidates, employers have become extremely selective, and a common complaint among applicants is that computers are totally inflexible, leading to automatic rejections for small details. The computer makes a decision without giving you a chance to make your case. If an application doesn’t make the cut, there is usually no rejection letter or feedback. The process may be efficient for the company, but it can be frustrating and demoralizing to the applicant.

3. Chap 1: Use the Manager’s Notebook below, “How Small Companies Try to Promote Employees ‘Mental Health and Wellness.” If you were the owner of a small company with less than 20 employees, what steps would you take to help employees deal with work related stress and personal problems? Explain.

HR in Small Business

How Small Companies Try to Promote Employees’ Mental Health and Wellness

Few small companies can afford expensive employee assistance programs with full-time

staff devoted to provide help and counseling to employees on such cases as family stress,

personal pressures, depression, and poor habits, yet many of these firms believe that investments

to improve employees’ mental health and wellness are worth the sacrifice. Three examples

of small companies (with fewer than 100 employees) that are trying to cope with mental

health and wellness issues are Dealer.com, Honest Tea, and Dixon Schwabl.Dealer.com

Dealer.com (Burlington, Virginia) helps auto dealers and manufacturers market to potential

customers by building websites and integrated solutions for online marketing platforms

Total cost per employee: $3,385

Wellness seminars: $26

These cover topics such as nutrition, exercise, posture, and stress management.

Food: $839

Includes subsidized meals, with organic, low fat, and locally grown food, at the in-house

Dot Calm Café and a subsidized program that delivers food from local farms to employees.

Wellness perks: $1,235

Includes chair massages, tennis clinics with local pros, bike rentals, discounted access to a

certified trainer and wellness coach, and stainless-steel water bottles.

Exercise: $1,285

Includes Ping-Pong tables, tennis and basketball courts, and an on-site fitness center. Also

covers costs for company sports teams (among them softball, volleyball, soccer, bowling, flag

football, and dragon-boat racing) and half the cost of corporate ski passes.

Honest Tea

Honest Tea (Bethesda, Maryland) produces and markets organic beverages, “creating a healthy

alternative beverage with a lot less sugar than most bottled drinks.”

Total cost per employee: $211

Wellness intranet: $5

An internal site with advice on exercise, nutrition, and staying healthy on the road.

Health advocate: $14

Helps employees and families choose the right health plan or doctor. Assists in insurance

claim disputes.

Biker/walker subsidy: $16

Employees who bike or walk to work get an extra $27 a month.

Flu shots: $26

Healthy snack packs: $60

Distributed quarterly. These also contain sundries such as sunscreen and lip balm. Honest

Tea keeps the cost low by bartering with companies such as Clif Bar and Burt’s Bees.

Wellness coach: $90

Provides monthly and quarterly counseling on a variety of issues.

Bicycles: at cost

Honest Tea is a promotional partner with Jamis Bicycles. As part of that arrangement,

Honest Tea employees can buy bikes at cost.

Wellness awards

Employees volunteer to set goals for personal fitness. Those who meet or exceed those goals

are honored at the annual meeting.

Dixon Schwabl

Dixon Schwabl (Rochester, New York) is an integrated advertising, marketing, and public relations

firm.

Total cost per employee: $881

Flu and cold prevention: $2

Company sports: $46

Includes equipment for the company bocce, softball, and soccer leagues. Covers uniforms

and postgame refreshments for the bowling league.

Yoga: $74

An on-site weekly class

Charity walks: $100

Sponsorship of employee charity walks and fun runs.

Healthy eating: $227

Includes a weight-loss program, Eat Well Live Well nutrition kits from Wegmans supermarkets,

pedometers, wellness prizes, and fruit and other healthy snacks for the office.

Ski passes: $432

Unlimited guest passes to a ski resort

4. Chap 2: Describe bureaucratic, flat, and boundaryless organizational structures and the business environments in which each is most appropriate.

5. Chap 2: Some management experts do not agree that a virtual team is really a team at all. Based on the definition of a team, what properties of a virtual team satisfy the definition of a team? Do any aspects of a virtual team give rise to doubts over whether it satisfies the definition of a true team? Suppose you needed to organize a virtual team of consultants working in different cities to do an important project for a client. What human resource management practices could you apply that would influence the virtual team members to behave as if they were on a true team, such as a self-managed or problem-solving team?

6.

A recent trend more and more companies are embracing is to outsource all or most of their human resource management activities. Do you agree or disagree with this trend? What risks is a company taking when it decides to outsource its entire set of human resource management activities? Try to describe a situation in which it is more beneficial to retain most of the human resource management activities within a company so that HR is provided by the human resource management department.

7. Chap 3: Explain why compliance with HR law is an important part of doing business.

Explain why HR decisions are heavily regulated. Based on your analysis of current social forces, what new laws or regulations do you think will be passed or issued in the next few years? 8. Chap 3: What is adverse impact? How does it differ from adverse treatment? How can an individual show prima facie evidence for adverse impact discrimination? How would an employer defend itself from this evidence? 9. Chap 16: Describe the extent of the employer’s responsibility to maintain a safe and healthy work environment. Explain the reasons for safety and health laws and the costs and obligations they impose on employers. 10. How will you determine if an employee is eligible to receive FMLA? What type of situation would not be considered eligible? 11. What are some different procedures HR can implement to protect employee information? 12. Define Human Resources functions and what is your opinion on it? 13. What are the Legal issues in interviewing? What are your views about it? 14. Discuss how an organization forecast future staffing needs. 15. Write a 350- to 700-word paper in which you identify human resource management's role in the health care industry. Describe the functional roles of the human resource department based on your textbook and Electronic Reserve Readings.  Include a minimum of two references.  Format your paper consistent with APA guidelines

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