HR Job

Nowadays, most of the companies in the healthcare industry have HR portals for their employees. Therefore, the moment you are hired to work in the healthcare industry, you are likely to be given a web address/URL, through which you can be accessing the HR portal. Then you would be told that it is through the portal that you would be viewing your paystubs, your work schedules and the whole range of other work-related resources you need. In this article, we will be trying to gain deeper insights into the workings of such (HR) portals. We will begin by answering the question as to why the HR portals are set up. Then we will go a step further, and try to understand how exactly the HR portals are set up. We will also deal with the question as to how the HR portals are supposed to be used, and what the future of the HR portals for the healthcare industry looks like.

Why HR portals for the healthcare industry are set up

The HR portals are mainly set up with the objective of improving efficiency and effectiveness in the management of human resources. They are also meant to make life easier for the employees. Look at it this way: before the HR portals for the healthcare industry started coming up, employees would have to visit the HR offices in person (or call the offices on phone) whenever they wanted to access various work-related resources. But with the advent of the HR portals, healthcare industry employees can access their work-related resources at any time, and from almost anywhere in the world where there is Internet access. This means that life for the employees has becomes easier with the advent of the portals. For instance, an employee who is on holiday somewhere in the Caribbean can just log in (from the beach chair, using his mobile device), and get to see when he is scheduled to get back on duty. This would have been unthinkable in the days before the advent of the HR portals. In those days, the employee would have to call the HR office, to inquire on when he was scheduled to go back on duty – which would mess up with the spirit of the holiday completely. So we see that the HR portals have made life easier for the employees, while also improving efficiency and effectiveness in the management of human resources.

How the HR portals for the healthcare industry are set up

There are two models under which the HR portals for the healthcare industry are set up. The first model is the one where the HR portals operate as parts/sections of the healthcare companies’ main websites. And the second model is the one where the HR portals operate as stand-alone websites. In the first model, the employees may be instructed to go to their companies’ main websites, and once they get there, they find a link they can click on in order to be taken to the HR login page. Then once they manage to log into the HR sections of their companies’ websites, they can find the various resources they need. On the other hand, in the second model, the employees are given a web address/URL (different from that of the companies’ main website) which they are supposed to enter into their browsers in order to be taken to the HR portals. Then when they get there, they are able to log in and access the various resources they need. We are also increasingly seeing cases where the major healthcare companies are setting up mobile apps through which their employees can access the various work-related resources.

In all cases, the HR portals are linked to databases with the employee resources. So when the employees click on the links for various resources, the databases are queried, and the result of the query is what is displayed to the employees.

How the HR portals for the healthcare industry are supposed to be used

As we mentioned earlier, the HR portals are meant to be utilized by the healthcare industry staff, to access the various work-related resources they need. If, for instance, an employee wants to check his paystub for a certain month, he only has to go to his company’s HR portal, login there, navigate to the paystubs section, and get to see the desired statement. Similarly, if an employee wants to check his work schedule for a certain month, he only has to go to his company’s HR portal, login there, navigate to the work schedules section, and get to see the desired schedule…

Most of the information in the HR portals is of a private and confidential nature. That is why in all cases, these HR portals are password protected: meaning that one has to log in, before being able to access any resources through the portals. Some of the HR portals allow one to remain logged in for a certain duration of time. Others are designed in such a manner that login sessions expire after very brief durations of time (after which one has to log in again).

What the future of the HR portals for the healthcare industry looks like

For one, we are moving towards a future where all healthcare companies will have HR portals for their employees. The few healthcare companies that are yet to set up HR portals for their employees are under a great deal of pressure to do so. It is easy to foresee a future where HR management will be wholly undertaken online, and where the HR portals will be integrated with the rest of the companies systems, making ‘Single Sign On’ functionality possible.

Secondly, it is easy to foresee a future where the HR portals will become ever more sophisticated, in terms of capabilities. Initially, we had HR portals that were capable of only showing paystubs. But now we have HR portals that are capable of showing things like work schedules as well. Some have become so sophisticated that changes in work schedules are updated in real time.

Thirdly, we are likely to see more and more companies setting up mobile apps through which their employees can access their work-related resources. As mentioned earlier, the major companies in the healthcare field have already launched such apps. It is likely to be just a matter of time before the smaller companies are drawn to follow suit.

Healthcare jobs tend to be very demanding. They are physically and mentally taxing jobs, with zero room for mistakes. And they are jobs where one has to deal with ever-changing (sometimes heart-wrenching) scenarios on a day-in day-out basis. Furthermore the healthcare jobs tend to be 24-hour affairs, with shifts that can totally mess up with one’s social life. The question that arises, then, is as to why people apply for these jobs – notwithstanding the various stresses associated with them. This is a critical question, especially keeping in mind the fact that many of the people who take up healthcare jobs tend to be very highly intelligent individuals. As such, they are people with many other alternatives, in terms of other jobs they could do. But they nonetheless opt for the healthcare jobs. Why?

1. Healthcare jobs tend to pay very well: This is especially the case for the jobs in the professional cadres of the healthcare field. You find that the salary for a specialist/consultant doctor is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. The fact that one stands to earn such good money draws people to apply for the healthcare jobs, notwithstanding their mentally and physically taxing nature. Even for the lower/non-professional cadres, the earnings associated with the healthcare industry are better than what one would ordinarily earn elsewhere. Thus, for instance, a nursing assistance helping push trolleys around the hospital knows that he would probably earn much less pushing trolleys at a supermarket… Thus, in fact for both the professional and non-professional cadres, healthcare jobs tend to be very lucrative, and this fact draws very many people into the field. Of course, very few workers in the healthcare industry will admit to the fact that they were drawn to the field by the allure of money. Yet when you dig deep below, that is what you tend to discover – a situation where, directly or indirectly (consciously or subconsciously) people are drawn to healthcare jobs by the money.
2. Healthcare jobs are very prestigious: Again, this is especially the case for the jobs in the professional cadres of the healthcare industry. For many people, there is no greater prestige than that of being called a ‘doctor of medicine’. So there are people who are drawn to the jobs in the healthcare industry by the prestige associated with such jobs – notwithstanding the fact that such jobs can be mentally and physically taxing. So for many a people, compensation for the mental and physical exertion they have to put into healthcare jobs comes in the form of prestige and the social esteem.
3. Healthcare jobs give an opportunity to ‘make a difference’: Most of the healthcare jobs entail alleviating (or at least minimizing) the suffering of others. It can be very rewarding to see a patient who came to the hospital in a great deal of pain leaving with relief, due to your input as a healthcare worker. So there are people who find joy in ‘making a difference’ in others’ lives, and the healthcare jobs offer a good opportunity to do this. Coincidentally, this is the reason that most healthcare workers tend to cite, when they are asked what drew them to the field. And it is understandable, because this is the ‘right thing to say’. I mean, it would be outrageous to say that you became a doctor because you want to make a pile of money. But when you say that you chose to become a doctor because you wanted to ‘make a difference in others’ lives’, that surely sounds much better.
4. Healthcare jobs tend to offer good security: In this regard, we find that many of the people who are working in the healthcare field are employed on ‘permanent and pensionable’ terms. And even those who are hired on contracts tend to be on long-term contracts. So it is a question of job security, and healthcare jobs tend to offer very good job security. And even where there is no security of tenure, the people with healthcare qualifications know that their qualifications open plenty of doors. They know that armed with healthcare qualifications, they are unlikely to go for long periods of time without work. This still translates into ‘job security’ even when one happens to be temporarily unemployed: as there is always the assurance that with the healthcare qualifications, a good job is bound to come soon or later. And furthermore, healthcare qualifications tend to be universal: where, for instance, a person with healthcare qualifications earned in the USA can still get work in the Europe after just a few formalities. So this is yet another source of security – knowing that with healthcare qualifications and experience, you can get work in pretty much any part of the world.
5. Some healthcare jobs are very easy to get: This, for instance, is the case with the nursing jobs available at the homes for the aged and mental institutions. This is also the case with hospital janitor jobs, and the whole range of other ‘support’ positions in healthcare facilities. The reason as to why these jobs are easy to get is in the fact that some of them are very physically demanding – like those that entail lifting patients and carrying hospital supplies around. Others are easy to get because they are deemed to be ‘demeaning’ –like those that entail cleaning patients. Yet others are easy to get because they are deemed to be dangerous – like those that entail taking care of mentally ill patients, who at times are violent. Due to such factors, there are fewer people competing for such jobs – meaning that the jobs are easy to get. And the fact that such jobs are very easy to get means that they are viable for people without other alternatives.  They provide a launching pad to other career paths – like where, for instance, one can be working as a nursing assistant at a mental institution, while pursuing training in another field. Recent immigrants also find these jobs alluring, given the fact that they offer an opportunity for one to get established, before branching into other areas. Some people, of course, come to love these jobs – to the extent that they stick with them, even when they eventually get other alternatives.

There are some 4 major types of jobs you can apply for within the healthcare field. The specific type of healthcare job you opt to apply for will, of course, depend on your qualifications and your interests. But the most beautiful thing about the healthcare field is the fact that it has jobs for pretty much all sorts of people. There are some very high specialized job in the healthcare field, for the elites. Then there are some unskilled jobs in the healthcare field that even a person who doesn’t have much education can still do. This is contrary to the widely held perception that the jobs in the healthcare field are elitist – meant only for people with advanced qualifications. The reality is whether you have an advanced university degree or you have a fifth grade education, you can find a job in the healthcare field.

Without further ado, the 4 major types of jobs you can apply for within the healthcare field include:

1. Physician jobs: These are high skill jobs that entail treating people who are suffering from various conditions. It is also in this category that we are including the various groups of professionals who help the physicians in their work of treating patients (even when those assistants are themselves not physicians). The physician jobs in question here therefore range from consultant specialist doctor jobs to the physician assistant jobs. The earnings here vary a great deal too: like where you can find a consultant specialist doctor commanding hundreds of thousands of bucks per year in earnings, whereas a physician assistant can at times earn less than 30 thousand bucks per year. Of course, the higher paid positions tend to require very long durations of training: like where it can take more than a decade before one qualifies to be a consultant specialist doctor. The less paid positions, on the other hand, tend to require shorter durations of training – like where it can take just a couple of years to be trained to become a physician assistant. In this category of physician jobs, we are also including professionals like pharmacists, physiotherapists, nutritionists, anesthetists, occupational therapists, dentists, radiologists… and the whole range of other people who are involved in diagnosing and treating patients’ conditions. You can opt for any of these positions, depending on your abilities and interests.
2. Nursing jobs: These are jobs that entail taking care of patients on a day to day, hour to hour basis. You see, the physicians can only be with the patients for short durations of time – like where the specialist doctor only gets to see the patients during the ward rounds. So what the physician usually does is issue instructions (including various prescriptions), and then it is the nurses who are expected to act on those instructions in the care of the patients. Again, the earnings associated with nursing jobs vary a great deal: ranging from the very high salaries given to the specialized theater nurses, to the rather modest salaries given to certified nursing assistants. And just as was the case with the physician jobs, you tend to find that the nursing jobs that command the higher salaries tend to require longer durations of training. Thus, for instance, one may require up to 5 or even 6 years of training, to become a specialized theater nurse, earning a very good paycheck. On the other hand, one may require just a few weeks’ training to become a certified nursing assistant – but then, given the shorter duration of training, the paycheck would be commensurately modest.
3. Administration jobs: Nowadays, healthcare institutions require specialized administrators. Gone are the days when healthcare institutions where administered by the physicians working there. These days, the physicians are left to do their work in diagnosing and treating patients, while the administration work is left to the specialized administrators. Even where the physicians have to do administrative work, they are taken through special courses in administration – whereupon they transform from being physicians, to being administrators. So you find that there are colleges offering specialized courses in healthcare administration. And it is increasingly not uncommon to find someone who has a MD degree (making him a physician) as well as a MBA (which then makes him an administrator). With regard to administrative jobs, it is important to mention that there are different cadres: ranging from the very highly paid hospital administrators, to the modestly paid administrative or records clerks in hospitals. The training tends to be commensurate with the pay: whereby for instance, for you to become a hospital administrator, you may need to have a master’s degree (which can take up to 7 years to earn). Conversely, you may be hired as an administrative clerk in a hospital on the strength of your 12^th grade GED alone — but then, your earnings would have to be modest. Note that there are administrators who work in hospitals, and then we have others who are based in health insurance companies and other entities of that nature.
4. Support jobs: There are lots of support jobs in the healthcare field. In fact, it is fair to say that majority of the people who work in the healthcare field hold support jobs. The support jobs in question here range from those that entail cleaning the healthcare facilities and wheeling patients around to the specialized ones that entail maintaining the machines used in healthcare service provision. Thus when someone is said to hold a support job in the healthcare field, it doesn’t necessarily mean that he is a ‘lowly worker. He could, for instance, be a biomedical engineer or technician, involved in the maintenance of x-ray machines, ultra-sound machines, laboratory microscopes and so on. He could also be someone who is involved in cleaning a healthcare facility – and the so called ‘lowly’ positions can’t be taken for granted either, seeing that healthcare service provision would be impossible without them. As with the other categories of jobs we have looked at, the earnings from these ‘support jobs’ typically depend on the training one has to undergo for the jobs. Thus, for instance, a biomedical engineer, whose training takes years naturally ends up earning more than a person who is involved in trimming the hospital’s fence (whose training can take as little as a day).

If you have just completed training in a healthcare-related field, the next step will probably be that of searching for a job. That is unless you are one of the lucky few, who are head-hunted straight from college. Those are individuals who find that they are already receiving job offers, before they graduate! So, in other words, those are individuals who find jobs searching for them, as opposed to them searching for the jobs! But the reality for most people is that they will have to search for jobs. And given the fact that there are so many people with qualifications in healthcare-related courses, the search may not be an easy one. Chances are that you may go for a few weeks, or even a few months, before you finally land a job in a healthcare related field.

Whether you ultimately land your dream job in the healthcare field will depend, to a great extent, on how you go about your job search. In that regard, there are some 5 viable ways in which you can find jobs in the healthcare field:

1. Visiting the ‘careers’ sections of healthcare companies’ websites: In most of the healthcare companies’ websites, you will tend to find a ‘careers’ page, where current job openings are advertised. Therefore if you are looking for a job in the healthcare field, you need to make a habit of visiting such ‘careers’ pages regularly, and checking to see whether there are jobs you can apply for there. Chances are that you will soon or later find jobs that are suitable for you, which you can proceed to apply for. So the first step here is to identify the healthcare companies you’d want to work for. The second step is to search for those companies’ websites. Then the third step would be to visit those companies’ websites, and navigate to the careers pages, to check the current openings. You may need to do this for a while, before you eventually find a suitable position. But you may also be lucky to find jobs that you are qualified for being advertised the first time you visit. You never know – but the most important thing is to take the initiative, and ensure that you visit the said ‘careers’ sections of healthcare companies’ websites on a regular basis.
2. Visiting the job listings websites where healthcare jobs are advertised: Most of the job listings websites nowadays allow you to ‘filter’ for the specific types of jobs you happen to be looking for. Others allow you to enter keywords, indicative of the types of jobs you are interested in. You can use these capabilities to narrow down to the specific types of healthcare-related jobs you are interested in, which you can then go ahead to apply for. Some of the job listings websites have so many jobs at any given point in time. It is therefore highly unlikely that you’d miss the type of job you are searching for — although at times, you may find that the jobs that are currently advertised are based too far from where you are. Nonetheless, if you make a habit of searching through these job listings websites, chances are that you’d soon or later find the type of healthcare-related job you are searching for.
3. Submit your resume at the local labor/unemployment office: In most places, there are government offices where people who are searching for jobs are supposed to go for assistance. Such can be of great help to you, if you are searching for a healthcare-related job. It is really just a question of making a visit to the local labor/unemployment office, filling in some simple forms, and leaving your resume there. People who are looking for workers often visit such labor/unemployment offices, and if they happen to find your resume there, they may just opt to hire you. It takes very little time and effort to deposit your resume at the local unemployment office or the local labor bureau. Yet it can lead to a very good job in the healthcare field.
4. Networking with people who are working in the healthcare field: If you take the trouble to network with the people who are working in the healthcare field, they may alert you whenever there are openings in the healthcare companies they work for. Then you can proceed to apply for those job openings. Remember, not all job openings are advertised. Sometimes, when a healthcare company has a job vacancy, it simply tells its staff to help it find suitable people. And, ironically, such job openings tend to the most lucrative. Needless to say, if you don’t take the trouble to network with the folks who are working the healthcare field, such job openings would be out of reach for you. Even if they don’t alert you about job openings at their places of work, the individuals who are already working in the healthcare industry can be helpful in other ways. They can, at the very least, give you tips to help you in your job search. They can tell you how they managed to get the jobs they are currently holding in the healthcare industry. Then, if you apply the same strategies, you could find yourself working in a similar capacity within the healthcare industry.
5. Proactively sending your resume to healthcare companies: So this is a question of first identifying the healthcare companies you’d want to work for. Then you search for the email contacts of those companies’ HR departments. Having gotten the HR departments’ contacts, you proceed to email your resume to them. So this is really about submitting ‘unsolicited’ resumes. You never know. Some of these companies maintain databases of resumes that they receive in this manner. They usually go through those resume databases, whenever they want to hire people. This means that having submitted your resume in this manner, you may be contacted the next time one of the companies you sent your resume to wants to hire. Or you may be lucky, to find that one of the companies you send your resume to happens to be looking for people with qualifications like yours, at just the time when you send your resume. They would then call you for an interview straightaway, and then hopefully proceed to hire you for the healthcare-related job you applied for.

One of the ways in which organizations in the healthcare field can gain competitive advantage is through the effective management of human resources. That is why most of the companies in the healthcare field go to great lengths to ensure that they have well-equipped HR departments. Some are actually known to go to the extent of headhunting the best HR management professionals, and to pay them top dollar salaries – just to ensure that they get the HR management function right.

The reality is that we are living in an era when healthcare companies can’t afford to take the HR management function for granted. Gone are the days when ‘personnel management’ was viewed as a ‘by the way’. Today, Human Resource management is one of the core business functions. And any company that cares about its long-term success can’t afford to take it (the HR management) for granted.

There are at least 5 key things that the companies in the healthcare field do, so as to get the HR management function right. In this article, we will be looking at those 5 things that companies in the healthcare field do, in an effort to get the HR aspect right. These are the things you too would need to do, with regard to HR management, if you are setting up a new business in the healthcare field.

In order to get the HR management function right, companies in the healthcare field are known to:

Hire the best HR management practitioners

How well a company’s human resource is managed depends on the caliber of people running the HR department. That is why, as we alluded earlier, the companies in the healthcare field are known to go to great lengths, to get the best HR management practitioners. Just to be clear, the best HR management practitioners in this regard are those who have solid qualifications in the field. Further, the best HR management practitioners are those who have solid experience — complete with track records.

To be in a position to get the best HR management practitioners, the companies in the healthcare field are known – as alluded to earlier – to go to the extent of headhunting. Others opt to enlist the services of recruitment consultants, when it comes to hiring the HR management practitioners. Others still advertise the HR management jobs widely, sometimes internationally, so as to get the best possible people.

Act on the advice given the HR management practitioners

Hiring the best HR management practitioners is one thing. Acting on the advice given the HR management experts is another challenge altogether. That is especially the case when you consider the fact that the HR management experts sometimes give advice that is counter-intuitive. Yet when all is said and done, there is no point in hiring the best HR management practitioners, and then failing to act on the professional advice they give. So this is why the most successful companies in the healthcare field tend to have a policy of always implementing the strategies they are advised to implement by their HR managers. And they do so even when that entails making difficult decisions.

It is therefore possible for a company to have top-notch HR management practitioners, but still fail in its HR management function. This would be on account of failing to act on the advice given by the HR management practitioners. On the other hand, it is possible for another company to have HR managers who are nowhere near the ‘top notch’ – yet it still manages to get the HR management function right. This would be on account of acting on the advice given by the HR management practitioners (which, as we just saw, sometimes entails having to make very difficult decisions).

Invest in the best HR management software systems

In a bid to get their HR management function right, the leading companies in the healthcare field are known to invest in the best HR management software systems. These are software programs that are designed to automate most aspects of HR management. Sometimes, the HR management software systems are included in the integrated ERP suites that most of the healthcare companies are increasingly deploying. In other cases, the HR management software operates on ‘stand-alone’ basis.

This is also where the question of having HR portals, accessible by the employees over the Internet, arises. Today, you find that pretty much every major healthcare companies has taken the trouble to establish some sort of web-based HR portal for its employees. All these things are done with the objective of ensuring that there is efficiency in the management of the human resources.

Allocate adequate funds to the HR management function

In a bid to get the HR management function right, the companies in the healthcare field are known to allocate adequate funds to the function. It is through these funds that they are subsequently able to pay the top dollar salaries demanded by the top notch HR practitioners they have to hire. It is also through these funds that they are able to invest in the latest HR management software systems… and do the whole range of other thing that are necessary, if HR management is to be done right.

Outsource the HR management function

Having realized that HR management is not their ‘core function’, some businesses in the healthcare field are increasingly opting to outsource it to specialist companies. So you may find a healthcare company that has opted to contract another firm (one that specializes in recruitment), to be doing recruitment on its behalf. Some actually outsource both the recruitment and day to day management of support staff to other firms. So you find that the people doing support tasks in such healthcare companies are actually working as ‘contractors’ — as opposed to them being directly employed by the healthcare companies in question. Or you may find a healthcare firm that has opted to hire a HR consultant (rather than an in-house HR director), to be advising it on the best human resource management policies to use.

In some cases, calculations reveal that it is more cost-effective to outsource the HR management function, rather than trying to do it in-house. It is after such calculations that we tend to see some companies in the healthcare field opting to outsource the HR management function.