Question

You are the new Vice President of Human Resources at a Hospital. You are excited about your role and you have already been briefed on some of the most challenging organizational problems. Your focus is on employee retention. The National Health Care Retention Report (2019) revealed that total hospital turnover rate across the US is at 19% which is 0.9% greater than 2017. Overall, hospital turnover rates range from 5.3% to 36.3% (National Healthcare Retention Report, 2019). Your hospitals turnover rate is at 33.5%. You have a total of 3500 team members which means annually 1155 team members are leaving the organization voluntarily or involuntarily. Not only is this an expensive problem, it is also one that hurts employee morale and the overall effectiveness of the hospital. One of your key strategic pillars is to improve retention. The first thing you want to do is complete a SWOT analysis.

Answer 1

As a Vice-President it is my prime responsibility to increase the retention of the employee and decrease the turnover rate of 33.5%. Thus to get this target i would have to do the SWOT analysis.

Now lets first understand the meaning of SWOT

• Strengths – Factors that are likely to have a positive effect
• Weaknesses – Factors that are likely to have a negative effect
• Opportunities – External Factors that are likely to have a positive effect on achieving or exceeding the clinic’s objectives, or goals not previously considered
• Threats – External Factors and conditions that are likely to have a negative effect on achieving the clinic’s objectives, or making the objective redundant or un-achievable.

Now lets elaborate further via some key points which we needs to consider while doing our SWOT analysis for the Hospital.

Strengths

• Clinical Staff - "Skilled"
• Clinic has a strong ethos of openness, sharing and commitment to increase patient confidence
• Patients wanting to get involved
• Sucessful ratio of patient treatment
• Local charities willing to participate
• A new and/or innovative service
• Capabilities or cost advantages
• Cultural connections
• Extraordinary reputation
• Other aspects that add value
• Special expertise and/or experience
• Superior location or geographic advantage

Weaknesses

• Absence of marketing plan
• Damaged reputation
• Gaps in capabilities or service areas
• Lagging in technology
• Management or staff problems
• Own known vulnerability
• Poor location or geographic barriers
• Undifferentiated service lines

Opportunities

• Active volunteer committee willing to plan and organise events
• Patients active in the clinic’s Patient Participation Project can be asked for their opinions and suggestions.
• Use patients to contribute to practice delivery
• A market vacated by a competitor
• Availability of new technology
• Changes in population profile or need
• Competitor vulnerabilities
• Lack of dominant competition
• New market segment that offer improve profit
• New vertical, horizontal, or niche markets

Threats

• Confidentiality is at risk
• Patient coercion to do things they do not wish to do
• A competitor has an innovative product or service
• A new competitor(s) in your home market
• Adverse changes in reimbursement or regulations
• Changing insurance plans and/or contracts for major area employers
• Competitors have superior access to channels of distribution
• Economic shifts
• Loss of key staff or associates
• New or increased competition
• Seasonality
• Shifts in market demand or referral sources

By doing this SWOT analysis i will get clear picture that my Hospital is good at what area and where we are lacking and how we can handle the situation. Any employee will only retain in current organisation if he/she gets proper environment to work along with desired pay scale. An organisational image is very important as this will also put impact on employee's mind to retain and gets associated with recognised organisation.